9.23.2010

Can DBD Satiate the Springsteen-starved?

Last weekend I found myself in Lake City, a tiny town in the northern half of Michigan's lower peninsula, for an annual music festival called Harvest Gathering. I was playing as a hired gun for Drunken Barn Dance labelmate Chris Bathgate, and I also was able to turn the tables on DBD bassist Jim Roll by muscling my way into his set and securing my fate as the shittiest bassist of the weekend. As is the case with these festivals, much booze was consumed and booze, as we all know, is a consistent foreshadow of many situations: headaches, vomit, staggering, regret, increased volume of situationally "brilliant" conversation, etc. When hanging out with Matt Jones, which I do regularly both as a friend and as the guitarist in his band, there is always another inevitable side-effect of hitting the bottle: Matt's insatiable desire to rock Springsteen. Matt, our friend Lizzie, and I were sitting in the parking area next to my car when the need for the Boss hit Matt with fervor. We didn't have any Springsteen with us, so we kicked on the car radio and sat in the parking lot while Matt dialed information to get the phone number of the first radio station we landed on.

The DJ, Mike, answered and Matt put him on speaker phone. This is my best recollection of the situation:

Matt Jones: HEY! We want to hear some Bruce!
DJ Mike: Springsteen?
MJ: YEAH!
DJM: Well, this is kind of an underground show, we don't have any Springsteen.
MJ: Well, can you at least sing some to me?
DJM: What?
MJ: Sing me some Bruce!…over the phone
DJM [spoken]: …um, it's a death trap. It's a suicide rap…
MJ: Sweet, man. Good job.
DJM: So, do you have any other requests?
MJ: Do you have any Camper Van Beethoven?
DJM: Yeah, I think so…
MJ: Send it out to Matt, Greg and Lizzie!

Matt, Lizzie, and I sat next to the car in the parking lot listening to the station for a few minutes when DJ Mike came on the air and announced, "This one goes out to Matt, Greg and Lizzie. I'm sorry I couldn't find your request, so this one will have to do…"

Wanna guess what DJ Mike played? If you guessed Drunken Barn Dance, you're right. We called the station back immediately to inform DJ Mike that he had just dedicated "Leaving Las Vegas, Reno, Laughlin..." to one of the guitarists on the song.

2 comments: