Here's a weird little video I never knew existed until a reader (thanks Steph) mentioned it.
This was the closest Utopia ever got to a hit single, getting up to the high-30s on the Top 40 chart.
And it wasn't sung by Todd Rundgren, it was sung by bassist Kasim Sulton. With the rest of the band standing against greenscreens pretending to be newscasters.
Ah, the 80s.
(And am I the only one who feels weirdly nostalgic for news anchors who held actual sheets of paper, then placed them face-down on the desks in front of them?)
"You've still got all the old records. That should be enough."
And maybe it should be.
But it's not.
And on the cold nights when the wind whips past the buildings and the streets are relatively empty, the possibilities line up like aircraft circling above, waiting to land.
The weight of what might have been.
The static charge of electricity in the air.
Which almost glistens in the side of your consciousness.
And you look up. Suddenly transported. Transfixed.
By the glimmer. By the possibility.
Of something that never quite came together. But was always right there.
Something that always existed, waiting to be plucked from the ether and made real, brought into the lives and minds of millions.
And then...
... it just shimmers.
And is gone.
Shadows.
Contrails of an alternate future.
That never quite happened.
There's no stopping the daily rush forward. But every once in a while the past nips at your heels, makes you turn, and then laughs at you for seeking out things that never were.
Still, the old records ought to be enough.
Except for the longing for the newer old records -- the ones that never quite existed, but should have.
A couple of years ago, I became Facebook friends with Andrew Gold.
(I'd never met him, but one of my real-life friends was friends with him, so I sent him a request and a note about how much I always enjoyed his 1980 album Whirlwind. I guess people usually only talked to him about "Thank You For Being a Friend" or "Lonely Boy," so maybe whenever anyone knew anything else about him, he was thrilled. But really, his career was pretty deep. He played nearly all the instruments on Art Garfunkel's cover of "I Only Have Eyes for You" in 1975 and 4 years earlier, helped engineer Joni Mitchell's Blue. In any event, he accepted my friend request. He may even have written on my wall.)
And then, he died. A little over a year ago, in June. In his sleep, at age 59.
And a few weeks later, I logged onto Facebook. Which told me that 4 of my friends had a birthday. So I wrote messages on 3 walls.
But the 4th was Andrew Gold.
And I literally stopped still in my tracks, trying to figure out what the proper etiquette is for the Facebook wall of someone whose work you admired, who accepted your Facebook friend request (perhaps in a moment of weakness), but whom you never knew, and now he's dead.
It's a First-World problem for the digital age.
By 1980, Andrew Gold's days of being a chart-topping solo artist were pretty much over. He was invited to join 10cc, but couldn't for business reasons. So he later joined a group with Graham Gouldman of 10cc called Wax.
You could argue that Gold should have stayed with the soft-rock singer-songwriter stuff he was known for. You could say he should have just silently admired New Wave music without feeling he had to try the style himself.
You could say all that.
And you could be right.
Still, years later I heard this song. In the middle of the night. Playing on a college station. While I was driving through New Hampshire. And I found a phone, called the station, learned who it was, and hunted down the record.
Sure, the lyrics are a bit strained. And the production has that early 80s gloss that hasn't aged well.
But every time I hear it, I'm right back in New Hampshire. At 3:00am. Looking for a phone booth.
But Facebook has no emoticon for that...
(Bonus points for the loud needle drop and surface noise on this clip)
We were supposedly in love. (We didn't know what that meant -- we were 8.)
So we did what all eight-year-olds did. We started a band.
Paige would play drums, of course.
Danny would play bass. (I'm not sure why.)
I'd play guitar. Electric guitar.
There was someone else, but I don't remember who it was. (We were 8.) Or what they played. If anything.
Now, Danny didn't know how to play bass. Or even what a bass was.
And I certainly couldn't play the guitar. (Did I mention we were 8?) Even if I could play guitar, my parents never would've gotten me an electric guitar -- they barely let me turn lights on and off and would've convinced themselves I'd electrocute myself when I plugged in the amp.
But we had a name. It was a stupid name -- a pun on the name of the town we were from.
And we had a logo. Danny drew it and it looked really cool. (Well, cool for when you're 8, anyway.)
Paige wanted to paint the logo on her bass drum. But her Mom wouldn't let her.
She thought we should learn songs first. Or at least get instruments.
Her Mom was officially no fun.
More importantly, we were 8.
And who knew at age 8 where the hell you even go to get an electric guitar.
The band broke up the next year. Over artistic differences. (Paige decided she wasn't in love with me anymore. She was in love with Danny. Danny was in love with playing baseball.)
If only we'd stayed together, we would've been huge.
If we had instruments. And learned to play them. And were any good.
Posts
