I take a picture and I paint it gray
The simple mood I’m in.
And I’m forgetting things I planned to say
And I’m not sure if it means too much.
And I’m looking at the light you found
And it really makes you grow
And I’m looking at the light that’s crazy
And it really makes you grow
Favorite Blanket
Better than Ezra
(I can’t attest to the veracity of these lyrics….just the best I can remember)
There was a time in the early 90's when I played a roll. A simple stand in for a friend and a band. The band, fraught with the turmoil of the suicide of the member I had a relationship with. We were acquainted to be clear. Me, seeking out any connection to the music scene in Baton Rouge, my friend Steve introduced me to Joel Rundell, the guitar player of a rapidly ascending band called Better than Ezra.
This was the fall of 1989 and months or so before the release of their first album release, Surprise, a cassette tape that would influence the next decade (or is it the rest of?) my life. Until that time, the available recordings limited to bootlegs of a WTUL (Tulane University's college station) live recording of Ezra playing at Tipitina's. Some of the songs appeared on Surprise, some versions of Surprise songs appeared differently, well I think. This is to the best ability of my memory some 34 years later.
That fall/spring I really only remember seeing them play live once, a show at the Art Bar on Highland Road. I'd run into and have beers with Joel at Murphy's and began to head there on the regular to seek him out. He was quiet and friendly and if I'm honest that's my memory of him. Standing at the far end of the bar. A couple of Bud Heavy long necks, early in the night before the crush of the greatest college bar I have been to, Murphy’s, came to life.
In the early summer of 1990, BTE played a show at the Best Western in Gulfport, MS. I was home for the summer and heard they were playing at a party for a high school fraternity I had been the president of the year prior. This concept seemed so ordinary to me at the time, but I learned upon going to college that it wasn't. Phi Kappa had a half dozen or so chapters around Mississippi. We held weekly meetings, many parties and met two times a year at a hotel/motel where we met about fuck all. It was social, it was pretty great and it introduced me to a lot of great bands.
In 1989, I was responsible for planning and executing Muskrat Ball, a giant Phi Kappa party that was held at the gymnasium of a high school that I somehow rented out. I booked the High Tops, a band consisting of Cary Hudson, and Mandeville siblings Lori and John Stiratt, the former being long time bass player of Wilco and prior Uncle Tupelo. We somehow made it through the night without the cops coming and netted $1500. I remember sitting in my den counting the pile of money. What a time to be alive.
I digress. The 1990 Best Western show still remains significant to me for a few of reasons. First, it was in my hometown and I could flex my small connection with the band. Joel was surprised that I was there, chatted between sets and I met the rest of the band. Tom, the bass player, Kevin, lead singer /guitar, and Cary on drums. I can remember them playing most of their songs as well as a couple covers, Debaser by Pixies and Come Anytime by Hoodoo Gurus. The human memory always fascinates with its surety and random recollection.
The second significance for me was that my collage fraternity brother Blye Hunsinger was in town that weekend, his family having rented a condo in Pass Christian for the weekend, making the trip from Springhill, LA, a one light town at the top of the state. He, a high school marching band drummer whom I would encourage (force) to bring his aging Rogers set from home the next Christmas break so as to form a band with me. We shared a love of live music and this was a formative night in our lifelong friendship.
The last significance was that this was the last time I would see Joel alive. He took his own life on August 8th of that year after a big show opening for major label signed and mutual favorite, The Sidewinders. The show, held at Murphy's, a week or so before school returned. Me. Still at home, the information trickling through phone calls.
I'd be exaggerating if I said I was super close to Joel. We were slightly more than friendly acquaintances, but he was welcoming and kind to a young kid some six years younger, who wanted desperately to connect to the music scene in Baton Rouge, and suicide, no matter the proximity, is jarring in both it's loss but also in it's power to motivate. It spurred forward yet again to try and find my place in music. I can still see him in that small Best Western "ballroom", cigarette hanging out of his mouth, black hair pulled back in a taught ponytail, Rickenbacker slung low, playing the alternating A chords in the breakdown in Circle of Friends.
//
Over the next year, I became better friends with the remaining guys in the band. Tom and Cary specifically as Kevin moved away for a time to figure out what was next. I saw Tom across the room in a Greek Mythology class (or maybe psychology) that he and I were both taking in the basement of Lockett hall, a wet, likely asbestos ridden building in the shadow of Tiger Stadium. He and I connecting on music and eventually our mutual interest in photography. He, Cary and I hanging out at their house underneath the Mississippi River bridge.
The fall after Joel died, I learned every single note of every song on both Surprise as well as the live recording and made a mental list of all the covers they played. If the opportunity arose. I'd be ready to help. I spent weekends in a van with them being a roadie and that band became perhaps a too big part of my life.
As time passed, more shows were planned and with Kevin in New Mexico, Tom and Cary tapped me to help get them ready for their shows, setting up and practicing their set so as to be ready.
In the summer of 92, Cary, Tom and I threw together a band and played at the brother of Murphy's, Fred's. A one off show, we called ourselves Larry. Still memorable to this day. Me, playing through Joel's old Marshall cabinet.
//
There's more memories of this time for sure but this morning I bring you just those, as the likely mis-remembered lyrics of the third song on Surprise came to me at 4:47 a.m. They have to be recalled from that WTUL recording as the Surprise version was instrumental and cuts off abruptly to launch into Tremble? Or maybe from a soundcheck at a frat house in Oxford, MS.
Full circle, today I still talk with the guys in BTE. Tom and Kevin occasionally, Cary almost daily as he's the drummer in my new band. Me, 52, grateful to still be able to write music with a guy who’s band unknowingly had such a giant impact on my life trajectory, 34 years ago.
I still have a secret wish I haven't ever shared with the other three, but in these days of reunions and 90's celebrations, I dream about a show where the original three members of BTE reconvene, bury their bygones and play Surprise! at Fred's, start to finish. Selfish me wants to stand in for Joel, greedy me would want a 3-5 show tour. Really I'd be happy to just to see it happen, that era of that band means so much to so many.
This morning I'm happy to just remember the words as best I can. I love when a couple lines in the dark can send me forward to capture a cherished memory.
"I take a picture and I paint it gray
The simple mood I’m in."
#hugsandhi5s
Wow. Got me thinking about early 90s and my days at LSU. Dam i miss those days.
My partner Pamela (LSU undergrad and law) saw BTE with her husband out here somewhere fairly recently! I remember all the fantastic shows I saw in NOLA (at Tulane) 1989-1993, just an amazing place. I saw the pogues like 5 times I think. Not to mention Dash Rip Rock. Pat remember 3 doors down?