My Broken Dream
In one of my posts last week I mentioned my love for Californian Garage punk, and praised bands such as Unwritten Law, Blink 182 and Greenday for filling my adolescence with the musical joy it deserved. These bands and their music gave me a somewhat sense of belonging, escape, and for a few ambitious months, a dream.
Like all teenagers entering adulthood, my mates and I were looking for the easy way out, the golden ticket. We needed professions which paid amazing money, got us girls at the clap of our hands, won us the adulation of others, and ultimately, didn’t require much effort. So with the tunes of our favourite artists reverbing through our heads, we picked up instruments and took the much travelled route of starting a band.
Having released several DVD’s of their adventures and career, the actions of Mark, Tom and Travis from Blink 182 became sacred to us. Through those DVD’s, our naïve minds got an comical insight into the magnificent lives that rock stars lived, the pleasures they got out of their jobs, and the dream that we had all wanted. We tried to dress, joke, and act like them, hoping all the time that our attitude will mask the reality that we lacked the actual musical talent required to make it anywhere, let alone the millionaire club.
But oh how we tried. The five of us practiced every weekend. Shredding up shitty, mistimed, and barely recognisable versions of our favourite songs became the usual escape from the HSC. And to boot, we did it in the dark and muggy garage of our drummer, all the while convincing ourselves that Blink had also come from similarly humble starts. We made recordings of ourselves, designed a logo, and generally acted as we thought bands should. We even went through several drummers, just like “real” bands.
To say we were good would be ridiculous, but then again to say that we were totally rubbish would also be wrong. While we may not have been musically tight as a unit, several of us were individually very capable. Perhaps it was these several who carried the rest of us to our ultimate accolade, our first show.
A friend’s 18th gave us our chance to show the world our talents, to unleash onto the masses our wide variety of mostly copied jokes, our highly individualistic yet slightly main stream dress sense, our combined ‘rock first live later’ attitude, and our range of ten heartfelt covers.
I remember that night fondly. We played well, we actually did. There were no mistakes, we were together, we were in a zone, and we were having fun. I also remember the shot of adrenaline, self confidence and pride I felt when we finished. The fifteen people there loved us.
Then things happen which you have no control over. With our first gig out of the way, our attitude towards success as a band for some reason fell by the wayside, being replaced with stress from uni exams, girlfriends, work and other real life issues.
So our band was thus over, barely a year into its existence. Real life took over but my ex-band mates, who are also my best mates, and I smile fondly at the times we spent slugging it out in the garage, and often joke about the One Show Only masterpiece we held. I guess the world was just not ready for us.
