textualdeviance (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
textualdeviance) wrote2006-07-21 12:10 am
textualdeviance) wrote2006-07-21 12:10 am
While I'm nostalgia spamming
So I'm just kind of randomly mousing around while I wait for a reasonable bedtime, and on a lark, I go to look up some news on a band I was really into ages ago.
I first got into the band in 1987, when I was with my ex and we were both in high school. There was some TV appearance they did that got repeated on the local public station, and I happened on it one day and was mesmerized. They were doing an acapella version of "Whole Lotta Love." Utterly bizarre. The ex and I, both being singers (well, he thought he was, at least) quickly snapped up everything we could about the band, and became kind of annoying groupies of them for a while. We went to every show they did within a day's drive.
In the middle of this, the group lost one of its founding members. The guy who wrote some of their more bizarre stuff left, and it changed the tone of the group considerably. But in his place, the new guy brought an amazing rock sensibility and vocal percussion. Truly a standout in the group. And he was cute, too! So we kept on keeping on.
(Side note: during that transition period, they also had another guy with them for a while. In this time, they wrote a special song about loathsome Senator Bob Packwood. I can still remember the hook, 15+ years later, even though I only heard it performed once. That's how catchy their stuff is.)
But then the ex and I split up. So much of our relationship was tied up in various pop cultural things that sort of became poisoned to me after that. I stopped watching MST3K, for instance, and I stopped listening to this band. I went to a few shows after moving to Seattle, but it just wasn't the same. And then they lost another founding member. And by then, well, the bloom had gone off the rose. It wasn't that the band was bad or anything, just that it and I had changed too much to be compatible anymore.
They've had two more personnel changes--their interim female was replaced with the one they have now. And then a couple of years ago, that cute guy who replaced that founding member left, too. That, I didn't know about until just now. And I went looking at pics of his new venture. OMG. He's middle aged. Which I guess means I'm getting there myself.
While not quite as depressing as the current state of Duran Duran (although I give them a great deal of credit for sticking it out and making a decent comeback with the original lineup) the evolution of The Bobs has definitely been a stinging reminder of how much time has passed in my life--and how much of it I've wasted so far. 15 years ago, I wanted nothing more than to be in the group. Now, I don't even own their last four albums.
Yes, I know time passes. I'm far from the first 35 year old to be shocked at how much has passed since my misspent youth. But I suppose the sad part of it is that there are so few things we can take with us as we march along. The things we once thought we could never live without get socked away in a drawer and forgotten about. The people we shared cheap, boozy kisses with fade away. We would never have the time or energy to experience wonderful new things and people if it weren't for moving on from others, but there's still something kind of pathetic--almost embarassing--about the stuff you've left behind, unless you did so deliberately.
For my ADD-rattled brain, it hurts even more because it's another reminder of how I start things and then get bored and go do something else, thinking, "oh, I'll get back to that eventually." And of course, eventually never comes. I feel like I've missed out on truly feeling enveloped by experiences, because I spent so many of them with my head in the clouds or elsewhere, thinking about something else I'd rather be doing.
It doesn't help to try to relive the past, either. I won't be subsumed in the same reckless and chaotic life I was living in 1991 if I start listening to this band's new stuff. If I listen at all, it has to be the old stuff from time to time--in its proper place in history--or I have to approach it as an entirely new experience. Otherwise, it gets Lucasized, and you realize--waitaminit, Eps 4-6 kinda sucked, too. WTF was I thinking?
Perhaps the best thing to do is to just live life with all five senses, and get as much as you can out of everything you do. No sense in trying to hold on to something as it's speeding by--it's going to go eventually, and hanging on to something when its time has come and gone is painful and pathetic--but when you have those moments with it, feast on them. There are things in my life I'm content with having done because I feel I put my whole self into them. They're good memories, not embarassing ones. And I'll have plenty more of those, too.
I will always have regrets--inevitable for anyone--but along with those, I want also to have a mental trunk full of great memories of a good time or experience. This band is reminiscent of a time in my life that was very painful, and I'm damned glad it's over, but they represented one really good part of the chaos, and for that, I'm grateful. That they've aged and changed (and so have I) is to be expected, of course. But I can still enjoy the memories I have of them in the spirit I originally did.
So excuse me while I go order the old albums of theirs that my ex absconded with in the divorce... :D
I first got into the band in 1987, when I was with my ex and we were both in high school. There was some TV appearance they did that got repeated on the local public station, and I happened on it one day and was mesmerized. They were doing an acapella version of "Whole Lotta Love." Utterly bizarre. The ex and I, both being singers (well, he thought he was, at least) quickly snapped up everything we could about the band, and became kind of annoying groupies of them for a while. We went to every show they did within a day's drive.
In the middle of this, the group lost one of its founding members. The guy who wrote some of their more bizarre stuff left, and it changed the tone of the group considerably. But in his place, the new guy brought an amazing rock sensibility and vocal percussion. Truly a standout in the group. And he was cute, too! So we kept on keeping on.
(Side note: during that transition period, they also had another guy with them for a while. In this time, they wrote a special song about loathsome Senator Bob Packwood. I can still remember the hook, 15+ years later, even though I only heard it performed once. That's how catchy their stuff is.)
But then the ex and I split up. So much of our relationship was tied up in various pop cultural things that sort of became poisoned to me after that. I stopped watching MST3K, for instance, and I stopped listening to this band. I went to a few shows after moving to Seattle, but it just wasn't the same. And then they lost another founding member. And by then, well, the bloom had gone off the rose. It wasn't that the band was bad or anything, just that it and I had changed too much to be compatible anymore.
They've had two more personnel changes--their interim female was replaced with the one they have now. And then a couple of years ago, that cute guy who replaced that founding member left, too. That, I didn't know about until just now. And I went looking at pics of his new venture. OMG. He's middle aged. Which I guess means I'm getting there myself.
While not quite as depressing as the current state of Duran Duran (although I give them a great deal of credit for sticking it out and making a decent comeback with the original lineup) the evolution of The Bobs has definitely been a stinging reminder of how much time has passed in my life--and how much of it I've wasted so far. 15 years ago, I wanted nothing more than to be in the group. Now, I don't even own their last four albums.
Yes, I know time passes. I'm far from the first 35 year old to be shocked at how much has passed since my misspent youth. But I suppose the sad part of it is that there are so few things we can take with us as we march along. The things we once thought we could never live without get socked away in a drawer and forgotten about. The people we shared cheap, boozy kisses with fade away. We would never have the time or energy to experience wonderful new things and people if it weren't for moving on from others, but there's still something kind of pathetic--almost embarassing--about the stuff you've left behind, unless you did so deliberately.
For my ADD-rattled brain, it hurts even more because it's another reminder of how I start things and then get bored and go do something else, thinking, "oh, I'll get back to that eventually." And of course, eventually never comes. I feel like I've missed out on truly feeling enveloped by experiences, because I spent so many of them with my head in the clouds or elsewhere, thinking about something else I'd rather be doing.
It doesn't help to try to relive the past, either. I won't be subsumed in the same reckless and chaotic life I was living in 1991 if I start listening to this band's new stuff. If I listen at all, it has to be the old stuff from time to time--in its proper place in history--or I have to approach it as an entirely new experience. Otherwise, it gets Lucasized, and you realize--waitaminit, Eps 4-6 kinda sucked, too. WTF was I thinking?
Perhaps the best thing to do is to just live life with all five senses, and get as much as you can out of everything you do. No sense in trying to hold on to something as it's speeding by--it's going to go eventually, and hanging on to something when its time has come and gone is painful and pathetic--but when you have those moments with it, feast on them. There are things in my life I'm content with having done because I feel I put my whole self into them. They're good memories, not embarassing ones. And I'll have plenty more of those, too.
I will always have regrets--inevitable for anyone--but along with those, I want also to have a mental trunk full of great memories of a good time or experience. This band is reminiscent of a time in my life that was very painful, and I'm damned glad it's over, but they represented one really good part of the chaos, and for that, I'm grateful. That they've aged and changed (and so have I) is to be expected, of course. But I can still enjoy the memories I have of them in the spirit I originally did.
So excuse me while I go order the old albums of theirs that my ex absconded with in the divorce... :D