Monday, June 30, 2008

Tin and rubber

Ten years ago today, Graham and I got together with some friends to record our very first song, "Edible Rubber". This group -- Graham, Jesse, me, and whoever else was at Jesse's house at the time -- was a nascent version of the unfortunately named Pirkinweed, our band.

About eight "members" came and went before we wrote our third song. About ten songs later I was almost ousted by everyone in the band who wasn't Graham, which I turned around by booting one of them. About ten more songs and we got Eric to play bass for us; about a year passed before my attempted ouster was avenged: our drummer was booted, and Eric became the drummer.

We changed our name to The Asbestos Concern. We thought we were good. We couldn't hold down a bass player. We never played a show. About twenty more songs got written; probably a third of them got recorded before the band bit the dust.

Yet for all those changes, "Edible Rubber" changed remarkably little from its original form, beyond Graham learning how to play guitar on all six strings instead of the top 3 he had been using (in hindsight, the lower three would have been a lot more useful). It was perfect already.

To celebrate the tin anniversary of our band, here's a video of a cat eating rubber:



We still think we were good.

1 comment:

___________ said...

A fitting tribute to the best band that ever came out of my basement.

Also, I'm trying to decide whether or not our legendary appearance as assembly entertainment at Citadel can be considered a show. Looking back on it ten years later, I think that has to be one of the most surreal experiences of my life. Those poor kids never knew what hit them.