MATT BARRETT’S TALES FROM THE ROCK N ROLL CRYPT: Episode 2.
WORLD’s GREATEST DADS FAN
Parthenon Huxley and I played in a popular band in Chapel Hill called THE DADS. He and I wrote most of the songs. Zoe Lagergren, the bass player wrote 4 or 5 songs, and Scott Swartzwelder the drummer even wrote a couple. A few years after the band broke up Parthenon and I were at a Dixon show at the 9:30 club and afterwards we went backstage to talk to Dixon, which can sometimes be like trying to get an audience with the Pope. We were off in some little side room and this guy came up to Parthenon
to tell him he was from Chapel Hill and what a big fan of the Dads he was.
FAN: I loved your songs... what was the one about the space colonies?
PARTH: Saving up for L57. I wrote that.
FAN: That was a cool song. And I loved Sputnik!
PARTH: Thanks man. That was mine too.
FAN: Jaded was another of my faves.
PARTH: Yeah thanks. I wrote that.
(I am standing next to Parth but have yet to be acknowledged, either for him liking one of my songs, having been in the band, or even being in the room)
FAN: I loved The Machine
PARTH: Yeah. Great song. Our bass player Zoe wrote it.
(Fan keeps naming songs. He is like an encyclopedia of the Dads. But none of them are mine. This is torture. I can’t believe this isn’t some kind of test from God. It’s not like Parth and I had a musical partnership where he wrote all the good songs and I wrote all the shitty ones. But it was starting to feel that way.)
FAN: There was one more song I loved....
(Finally. He’s named just about every good song by Parth and Zoe. It’s gotta be one of mine. I’m guessing 6-Pack and eager to tell him that it was mine and yeah... I was the other main guy in the Dads and not some mute talentless friend of Parthenon’s.)
FAN: It was called Trying to Tell You!
(Fuck! Scott’s song. The fucking drummer. My humiliation was complete)
So someone calls Parth to the next room and I’m standing in this little room with my band’s biggest fan, or the biggest fan of 3/4ths of the band, and he still has not acknowledged me and I am fuming. Finally I happen to look at him and our eyes meet awkwardly.
FAN: How’s it goin?
ME: Fuck off.