But I Don't Need to Argue Anymore -- Sound Team

I often attempt to wrangle others into the concerts I attend² but find myself rarely successful. It could easily be chalked up to the volume of my friends who identify themselves as flakes (who happen to comprise the most music-oriented and local of my friends, albeit only coincidentally), but it helps nothing--nor, I'm sure, does it help readership of a scattershot blog like this--that my tastes are unpredictable, and I look at a wide range of shows when I'm in the mood to attend them. Six years ago in October, though, I casually suggested it to a friend (one of the "flakes," oddly) that she attend a show with me, which she agreed to as it apparently was the thing for her to do that day. We were going to see Sparta (remnant of At the Drive-In, and the show where they did this) and they had a pair of opening acts with them: Lola Ray (touring on the heels of their second album, Liars) and Sound Team, a fellow (to Sparta) Texas band (Austin, not El Paso, though) who had just released their first officially recognizable and available full length, Movie Monster.

Lola Ray appealed to me via their vocals more than anything else, coming from John Balicanta. But Sound Team pulled out this furious, hypnotic drum-heavy song in the middle of their set that was instantly engaging, where the rest (like a lot of live shows where I don't know songs) sort of blurred a bit. That song was called "Shattered Glass":

No, no I don't know why it was coupled to an image of Steve Martin ironing a kitten.

It's in the Past...And Now, We Toast -- At the Drive-In

While I can't say that mixed emotions, hormones, and a bit of over-thinking weren't at the root of the final outburst, there was only one band's end that brought me to tears. Yeah, it was high school. Yeah, it was one of the rougher years of high school (though my years in it were not all that bad, to be honest). Still, I never saw them live, and I likely never will, unless their reunion turns into something more than a handful of festival shows. I've known other fans without having to seek them out, converted various friends, and even know someone from their hometown--with all of this, no one has ever (if I recall correctly, at least) recognized my (rather minimalist, to be fair) shirt advertising them. That's not an exclusive claim, of course, but for a band that got this big--even if it was a flash when they were big--it's a bit surprising all the same.

They basically had one, one-and-a-half big hits that went around the country and the world openly. They were both off the same album, and it came out twelve years ago. The band has faded to a footnote (similar to how The Skids--see poll on the right, if you haven't--are mentioned, despite the impression I've gotten that they were well-thought of during their existence) in many ways, to the acts that followed in their wake from the splintered elements they left behind them. It's weird, really, as they feel more lost and faded than a lot of the much older (and also defunct) bands I listen to. Not in the sense of ingenuity, so much as the feeling that their impact on the public conscious, even the "indie" one, was minor, and more of a name than an associated music.

Doubtless, at least a few people who know me could guess exactly who I am talking about right now. It's possible, too, that some people will guess with some semblance of dread, though I don't think one ought to. Still, tastes are tastes, and there's no accounting for them, etc., but I ask--as always--that you approach this music, new, loved, old, hated, with an open mind and listen to it to hear what there might be in it to love for those of us who do, if you don't know already.

Here's that seemingly unrecognized shirt: