One More Day

I have to work in the office 40% of each month. I didn’t go in at all for the first half of the month because I was under the weather and stuff. I had to squeeze it all in during the last two weeks. 

Tomorrow, when I work in the office, I will reach my 40% for August. Oh what a freakin’ relief that will be. My desk is 45 miles from my house and that is brutal. Worse, twice this week (yesterday and tomorrow) I will be working in a different building that is 74 miles from home. Yeah, you read that correctly. 74 miles.

I made that drive yesterday for some meetings that I wanted to attend in person. I will do it tomorrow because that building is very close to a venue where I will be attending a concert after work. Yup, Robbie’s going to a rock and roll show.

I started listening to King’s X in 1990 when they had a sort of almost hit record called “It’s Love.” Great song, out of this world vocals with ridiculous three part harmonies, and a shredding guitar solo that made all of those obnoxious hair bands from the ‘80’s look like talentless chumps. 

I thought about buying the album the song came from. I read a review in a guitar magazine that really surprised me. It basically said the band’s previous album was great but the new one, the one the article was acutally reviewing, kinda sucked. Based on the one song I knew I found that really hard to believe so I decided to ignore the advice and buy the record anyway. 

The next time I was at a record store they didn’t have the new album but they did have the previous album (on cassette, not CD) so I bought it. It was called Gretchen Goes to Nebraska and it was great. It was awesome. It was outstanding. Looking back I feel lucky that I bought that record first because when I eventually did get the record I wanted to buy in the first place… well… it kinda sucked. A few good songs, a few mediocre songs, a few terrible songs with lyrics that made me want to punch the band members in their friggin’ faces (if you know this band and this record then you know which song I’m talking about).

It was okay though, Gretchen was so good that I could overlook the shitty stuff in favor of the good stuff. A few years later they released an album called Dogman that was better than Gretchen. A few years later there was an album called Tape Head that was just as good. Those three records alone justify this band’s entire existance. Every record is good, even the couple of bad ones they’ve released over the years. As musicians, they might be the best band in the world. As lyricists… they are great instrumental performers. Yeah, they often rub me the wrong way. Religion and politics… the two things they tell you not to argue about… yeah. Sorry guys.

Anyway, I’ve been a fan since 1990 and I’ve never seen them live. The three band members ages range from 64 to 75 (I Googled it before I wrote this post just to make sure) and the days are probably numbered. The drummer almost died of a heart attack a few years ago and I thought I missed my chance to see them live. 

I had no idea they were touring but Spotify, of all things, told me they had a show in Massachusetts coming up and I bought a ticket. I didn’t ask anyone to go with me because I don’t know anyone else who likes them. That’s okay. I will work down the street from the venue and casually wander over when the doors open. I’ve never been to this place before. I don’t know if its a small theater or a bar or what. I’ll find out when I get there. I’ll bring my point and shoot camera because the guitar player has been known to play some seriously cool gear and I am a guitar gear junkie. I might be easily impressed by such things. That’s okay.

So the point of this rambling run-on-sentence of a post is… one more day in the office and then I can work from home again, and to celebrate I am going to see a fantastic live band that I’ve never seen before despite always really wanting to. It should be a good day. Wish me luck.