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Wednesday, September 28, 2005
STARS FOR EYES
(originally on Sebadoh 3)
this version by Fields of Gaffney
Nature Walk
[Self-produced] : 2003
[Buy It]
MOLDY BREAD
Sebadoh
The Freed Weed
Homestead : 1990
[Buy It]
BOUQUET FOR A SIREN
Sebadoh
Bubble and Scrape
SubPop : 1993
[Buy It]
I saw Eric Gaffney last week, at Siné on Attorney Street - my old friend Jeff Halpin played drums. I was one of four people in the audience (including the bartender). It was one of the best shows I've ever seen. (These are some of the songs they played, though I wish I had recorded the show: the Muskrat Love cover was great, as was Eric's banter, including a story about getting caught stealing brie from the Super Stop & Shop on Rt. 9 in Hadley). Though I wasn't around for the heinous cheese incident, I've known Eric for a while, since living in Amherst/Northampton in the early-mid nineties (college). They were still around then, all those Western Mass. guys, but Lou Barlow never showed his face, and J Mascis stood awkwardly against the wall at parties; you couldn't really talk to him.
But Eric was the definition of "around," ready to get in the car to go to Easthampton or Canada. I liked him. He always had time and he wasn't in college like almost everyone else I knew. When my boyfriend moved away, breaking my heart with his ridiculous decision to go to grad school, I started taking long, late-night bike rides, sometimes running into Eric. At first it was coincidence, then something of an obsession. Trying to run into someone is always a little awkward. David Berman the Silver Jew was my housemate then, and one night as I was about to leave for my bike ride, he said, "I know what you're doing!" He was older and playing Dad or creepy old man or protective friend or all of the above. At the very least I was glad Berman knew what I was doing because I didn't. Eric and I would walk beside water or train tracks and talk about being sad and a little lost. I wrote a poem based on a conversation we had about pumpkins on a porch decorated with sharpie-faces.
When we said hi the other night before the show, Eric said "I was going to call you! That last time I saw you in Central Park was so weird." I've never run into him in Central Park, and I don't think he's ever had my phone number. But I think that's a great thing to say to someone you haven't seen in years and we should all try it out.Labels: indie, joanna
posted by Joanna
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