Last night was another very busy, but smooth-running Purge For The Serpents, the weekly deep cleaning and feeding of my snakes and their habitats. MΣ∂V§Λ, my Jungle Python, is the only one eating right now since my two Royal Pythons – Rå & ϧ¡s – are in brumation.
Actually, though, I’m not completely sure they’re still in their lil’ reptilian hiberation because they’ve been very active recently. As a matter of fact, I think it’s mating season for Royals right now. I do have a male and female, but ϧ¡s is still too young to be doing any shagging. In fact, whenever she encounters Rå during their playtime in my bedroom, she darts in the other direction.
I don’t think I’ve mentioned this before, but when Rå and/or ϧ¡s start moving about in their terrariums, it’s kind of a house rule that if they touch the metal mesh above them with their noses, I take that as a sign that they want to play. Both of my bedrooms are snake-proofed, so Rå & ϧ¡s use the larger bedroom and MΣ∂V§Λ, whenever she wants to play, takes the smaller. She’s free to take the larger, though, if Rå & ϧ¡s aren’t active.
Sunday night I chatted with the bass player for The Night Marchers, which is a John Reis-fronted trio with a penchant for chugging guitars and chord changes in the early single digits. And they’re really good at those things, but unfortunately the band’s not active right now because Reis’ is doing this Drive Like Jehu reunion.
So I told him I thought it was kinda bullshit because it seems like whenever a musician’s new forays into sound don’t work out (read: don’t generate the proper revenue), then said musician goes through their backcatalogue, pulling people who broke up for a reason back into limited limelight.
It wasn’t that long ago that another project of Reis’ (most would say his main one), Rocket From The Crypt, reunited as well, less than 8 years after their “final show” on Halloween in 2005.
I was there for that final show, and it was stellar, but to have a reunion happen in such a relatively short time frame seems cheap and underhanded. And I think the same goes for Drive Like Jehu, though the hibernation for that band has been considerably longer. Next we’ll be having a Pitchfork reunion (Reis’ first proper band), no doubt.
I used to have a lot of respect for Reis. I still do, kinda. I was said to myself, “This last RFTC show really means something because John is not the kind of guy who’s so desperate for the dollar that he’ll eat his words and retread the past. John’s not the kind of guy to eat his words, ever.”
Or so I thought.
So yeah it’s disappointing. I’ll never see Rocket again, nor Jehu, nor Pitchfork, once that inevitably happens. I’m just not interested in doing something I’ve done before, even as an audience member. I feel cheated and like I’m just paying for John’s kids’ college fund.
That, I think, is what it is: once you have kids, your life options seem to retreat and constrict in a way because you no longer have the freedom to retain a certain important type of integrity. You’ve got to do whatever you have to do to provide for your family. You can’t say, “Well since I’m only supporting myself, I can afford to experiment and try various new things that – though they might not work out – will serve as a learning experience and something I can build upon later.
And for a musician, sometimes that means getting a bunch of old dudes (I can say “old” – I’m 41) back in the same practice space once again with an air of at least partial reluctance and cynicism.
Before long, it’s inevitable that they remember why they broke up in the first place, and the pattern repeats.
Anyway, that should just be a rule of life: don’t ever repeat what you’ve done before, especially artistically. And since I at least (try to be) a musician, that generally means the next record’s gotta be at least somewhat fundamentally different than the last.
I frankly don’t know how successful I’ve been at that, but I do know that my last one is vastly removed from my first. How truly good it is, though, I frankly have no idea. To quote Kevin Khatchadourian (played by Ezra Miller) at the end of the filmed version of “We Need To Talk About Kevin”, “I used to think I knew; now, I’m not so sure.”
-- ∆☩Y§ ☨♆∀☥✠
P. S. I should clarify: the only recent reunion I was extremely happy about was Soundgarden's because I never saw them live prior to that. Far as I'm concerned, SG can reunite 'til the end of time and it'll never get old. They just have too many great albums and they're simply impeccable musicians.
Now, something they shouldn't have done was record an album like "King Animal". It just doesn't have that dark and melancholy yet gorgeous and inspiring SG ring to it. Cornell has kids now, where before he was this nomadic, untamed, suspicious and suspecting, free-spirited yet tortured, potent hesher with a voice like Robert Plant but even better.
I'm starting to think that having kids saps some kind of essential male potency. However, I will say that this seems to not have had quite as much an effect on Ben Sheperd.
I think that fucker will always be crazy. How does he even play bass like that? ☨♆∀☥✠
P. S. S. Here’s a pic of MΣ∂V§Λ and I at Zia’s on Sunday early eve. She looks small because of the diminutive properties of my phone cam. (At least, that’s what she told me to say.)
