vampirate

Sic transit gloria:




We played our absolute last show ever (barring some aging dinosaur band-style reunion) on Saturday, April 30th, 2005 at The Garage in Winston-Salem. We did a solid, but not particularly exceptional, job. The crowd at the Garage is always nice, though, and gave us a standing ovation because they knew it was our last show. At one point, while Charlotte and I were at the apex of our rock-out, I stepped on the lead coming out of my chorus pedal, yanking it out of the box and deadening my guitar. It was embarrassing, but I suppose, since it had always been bound to happen some time, it had to happen then.

Since it was part of the Camel City Showcase, there were plenty of other bands that night, including a band of art school kids (in which both guitarists were playing the same model and color of guitar) that was far too young (and white!) to be playing the smooth-soul type jammy stuff, and a band of dudes (in which both guitarists were playing through the same make and model of amplifier) who were far too old to be playing the kind of dumbass attempt at punk rock at which they seemed to be aiming. There as also a band (maybe called Kavish? I can't remember - they reported their name as being different from the name on the bill) with a bass player who looked enough like Tim Curry it was eerie. At one point they played what sounded like Ravi Shankar doing "Mustang Sally."

It started to pour rain as we were packing up our equipment, and I had visions of Mary Ann's car breaking down on the way home, and us stopping to ask for help at this huge castle that was suddenly visible from I-40 between Winston-Salem and Durham. By the end of my vision, we were naked in a cage in the basement with Kavish's bass player wearing rouge and lingerie and singing to us.


At the end of the show this girl (one of the guitar players from Kavish, who had this really sweet old-model Rickenbacker) came up to me and said she was bummed we were finished because she thought we were rad, and that I was an awesome guitarist, and she really liked my style, etc. That's the first time that's ever happened to me! It was rad. After twelve years of guitaring it finally happens. It's just my luck that it was our last show though. It'll probably never happen again. Girl, whatever your name is, if I spelled your band name correctly, and you're self-absorbedly Google searching for it (like we all do, I'm not faulting you there), and you should stumble upon this page, know this: you made my month; I didn't get to thank you properly (not that I'm necessarily sure what that would entail, but probably something effusive).

So that's that. 7 different members, 4 and a half years, 158 shows, three different mainstay guitars, two different mainstay amps, and one haircut (see footnote 1).

I think I'll shave. And get a haircut (see footnotes 2 and 3).

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1. By "one haircut" I do not mean that my hair was cut but once, I mean that every time I got a haircut, I got it cut in the same style, or at least endeavored to do so.

2. By "get a haircut" I mean get my hair cut in a different style.

3. Also, I am aware that this is a sentence fragment. As an unrepentant grammatical pedant, I allow myself this freedom occasionally.