Don’t stone me, but not a single Pearl Jam song exists in my computer or my apartment. The radio provides me my fix of them. I had to be coerced by an actual Fan Club Member, Richard Berkowitz, to drive an hour for the last not sold out show of the documentary by Cameron Crowe.
What blew my mind was the video footage from their second show, when the band had been together maybe a couple weeks with Eddie Vedder at the helm after the demise of Mother Love Bone with the death of Andy Wood. They played “Alive.” And it sounded … just like it sounds now. Twenty years later. And there’s proof. All these little video clips and interviews … even the moment Vedder and Cobain dance with each other, or the time Vedder comes into his angry, growling own right there on stage after a bouncer manhandles a fan. Documentation. I came home from the documentary, which left me wanting to write something anthemic, something heavy … but not knowing how.
It made me think profoundly about where I stand 10 years into our own musical adventure. Yes, November 16 will be 10 years since my first show with ilyAIMY, at the Java Head in College Park, which was the place rob and I met about 6 months before that.
Brennan Kuhns is our audio archive from the early years, and he has all the old mini discs in a milk crate. Rob takes pictures.That’s why you see so many of me and so few of him, the photographer, in the online journal. I, instead, keep little things. Like totems that remind me what is real and how the world was once weighted. I hold them, and I can tell you almost anything about that day. Notes, buttons, programs, wrist bands, some set lists, live recordings, post cards, maps, a rock. Not necessarily because I think one day too many people are going to care, or they’re going to turn the basement apartment at my folks’ into a house museum.
I pulled out the disc of mp3s rob gave me before any of my songs or any of my voice could be found there. Dozens upon dozens of songs. I re-listen to the ones of which I am a fangirl. I think about asking him to bring back: Revenge of the Mouse King, Torch, Selkie, Crush, Green. [oh crap….]
Maybe it’s the Found Magazine lover in me, but what I like most are the notes. They take up several pages of my burgeoning scrapbook: the instructions, encouragements, goodbyes, advice of the people we stayed with or who came to our shows or sent us care packages those first few years. There were hosts we never saw for our late entrance and their early departures, and our communication was summed up on a welcoming piece of scrap paper on a kitchen counter.
I’ve got a LOT of photos of me in this position. It amuses me. Now, if only they’d had a big fan set up at Biki’s to give me hair some Medusoid rockin’ out action. ilyAIMY posing with singer/songwriter Joanne Lurgio. My hair appears lank and lifeless next to the Lovely ladies of darkness! Heather and I performing at Biki’s Bar in Warwick, RI. Great shot courtest of Jess Razzi!
Among the artifacts: Now bonafide Nashville #1 hit star songwriter, Dave Pahanish, scrawling: “Rob and Heather: Need in?” and his phone number tacked to the door of a venue. DeAnne leaving rob a bathing suit out. Peter’s then wife leaving us out banana bread in Terre Haute or Andy leaving us borsch in Eugene, explained on a note hung from the ceiling so we couldn’t miss walking into it late at night. Warnings about drains sinks, screen doors, handles, toilet paper, pets, and keys taped to the paper. The daughter of an Albuquerque Halkwatcher telling me I could snoop around in the room she gave up for me, but to ask before I took anything.
I have them all, because I found anything people ever wrote to me precious. If I ever threw away anything written to me, it was only because after many years I found the paper was still almost too painful to hold in my hands even the time it took to rip it up, and I knew I would never look at it again.
Here is a sampling of what is in the box of 8-10 years:
The recording, sent to us from the venue owner, of the worst show we ever played to the Freebird-screaming kids in Charlottesville. [we have a recording of this?!]
My hospital bracelet from the car accident, and the Saturn insignia rob and I each pried from the sides of the car in the junk yard.
The wetnap I mistook for a condom on Shane’s dorm room floor in Philadelphia.
The bowtie from the chocolate bunny we broke to christen our departure 8 years ago when we moved rob and Rowan out of their house.
A ticket stub from our Myxomatosis Failed CD release at the Vault in Baltimore.
The dogtags Sharif made us when we dressed up like Battlestar Galactica pilots for Halloween.
Rob’s and my games of pre-open mic hang man, which involved drawing more and more interesting ways for the hangman to die (eaten by alligator, quartered by horses).
LUCKY! And a good breakfast is never complete without some Lucky. She is every bit as crazy as I remember her and it was great to be joined for breakfast by her, her smile, and her 5 lbs glass necklace. Lucky’s tattoo. I think I’ve seen few better. Cause sometimes you need those words scarred into your body. And just when you worry that things might get depressing because of the reasons behind such a tattoo, we get to the shoes…
The crystal rock someone gave us because it was all they had to tip us.
The book, “Oh, The Places You’ll Go,” with the inscription from someone to whom I no longer speak, that was given to me as a tour going-away present.
A match booklet from Penny Lane, where we met Sean Morse for the first time, in Colorado. And one from the Bluebird Café in Nashville.
Dave and Patrick of WDAV’s wedding program, and Sharif and Joanna’s wedding invitation.
The photo booth strip I used for our Found Magazine ad.
My original sketch of the rabbit rob “skinned” to art the live disc, Myxomatosis Took Its Toll.
The Che Guevara t-shirt referenced in Letters From the Front.
The ticket stub from the Tuesday show at the Funk Box that forever changed the instrumentation of the band when Rowan and I played all hand percussion.
The score sheet from the first time I beat rob in Scrabble on the road. [never happened]
A coaster from the now-closed George Washington Bookstore and Tavern in Concord, NC, where we met Ben Lawless. [sigh]
Our parody lyrics (written big in sharpie) to the 12 Days of Musician Christmas.
Our bracket from the contest at Eddie’s Attic, where we met Eric Nassau for the first time.
My wrist band from Kerrville when we were finalists in 2005.
A business card from the sushi restaurant where rob and I first had mochi ice cream.
Our back stage passes for when we opened for the Gym Class Heroes.
The paper hats they gave us the first time we ever went to Waffle House. [hee!]
And Dar Williams’ note to me, accompanying the overnighted live recordings I had two days to cram with before joining her on tour. It was scrawled on some brochure from her local library, telling me not to worry because everything was going to be great.
