I don’t have many pictures from that time period, but this is me (right) with our guitar player Tim (left). You can note how much of a rebel I was, drinking out of a McDonalds cup in a Culvers.
At the tail end of High School I was in a band called The Jacklegs. We played kind of a Surf Punk Metal blend of Danzig, Dick Dale, and Black Sabbath, mostly covers but also a handful of our own songs. I played bass.
We played a handful of Battle of the Bands at a Jewish Community Center (losing every single time). We played the local pool hall in Des Plaines that was owned by our friend's uncle. We played a few other small shows. And we played one sweet sixteen birthday party. And that party is what I'm going to talk about.
It came to us through our lead singer, Tony. It was someone he knew through school, but not super well. She was turning sixteen, and we were supposed to play 2 sets. Which was super ambitious for our band, being that outside our main set, we each had a handful of songs we knew that no one else in the band knew. So we would have to follow their lead. Now that can be cool if you're a group of experienced musicians playing around with each other following inspiration. But a couple teenagers slopping their way through Hollywood Babylon (by The Misfits) is not cool.
But it is punk. It's punk as hell! And punk was cool enough for us.
When we were putting together our setlist time was front and center. How can we fill this out and meet our time commitment? So it was suggested by my bandmates that we'd do two sets and that I should play my solo acoustic Jimmy Buffett covers in the middle to break up the flow.
My mom and I travelled across the US in an RV for most of my childhood. She was privileged to work for a boss who gave her a lot of time off. So we'd find ourselves driving through the Rocky Mountains or along the Emerald Coast a lot when I was a kid. I'd go to sleep at a Jellystone Campground and wake up already on the road to our next stop. And when I'd wake up I'd often hear Jimmy Buffett on the tape deck. My mom was a big fan. I was just figuring out who I was and what I liked.
But year after year my summers were always full of Jimmy Buffett. It was a long term passive acquiescence. I can't imagine being on the road without hearing A Pirate Looks at 40 or Son of a Son of a Sailor. And it became a point of connection for my mom and I. We'd go to Margaritaville restaurants, buy dumb t-shirts with parrots, whatever. It was just a thing that became a part of our lives.
Through my twenties we'd go to concerts together. We saw Jimmy play in Vegas several times, Florida, Alpine Valley, Wrigley Field. Neither of us have ever been big concert goers, except for Jimmy Buffett.
As a musician I spent a lot of time practicing Jimmy Buffett songs. Alone in my basement. Jimmy Buffett wasn't cool at any of my schools. I didn't wear my Jimmy Buffett shirts to school. (Though looking back now I wish I had, to weave an interesting tapestry of Korn, NIN, Green Day, and Jimmy Buffett.) So I largely kept it to myself and sang songs I loved, though were probably beyond my years in terms of understanding.
The idea of singing Jimmy Buffett songs at this birthday party terrified me. Singing terrified me. Playing bass was an easy way to be a part of the band, but sink into the background. But we had to fill out this set. And I did kind of enjoy the idea of confronting a fear. So I agreed. Three songs between our sets.
The day of the show we had a huge snowstorm. I vaguely remember the snow coming up to my knees. The show was in the suburbs of Barrington at a huge house. We set up in the basement early in the day, and were going to go on in the afternoon. I spent a lot of time working on my songs. It was the type of thing I couldn't screw up, because I wasn't good enough a musician to play off mistakes. Any mistake would derail me. So I had to practice.
When the afternoon came we got on "stage" and a crowd of about 25 teenagers surrounded us. A pretty standard demographic sampling of teens. Exactly what you're thinking. We opened with our favorite opening song. An original instrumental called "Surf for Satan". That led into a cover of Danzig's "Bodies", and then back to another original called "The Watermelon Song". By the end of our third song, the crowd has dispersed, to the tv/sitting area 10 feet away. They had "Dude Where's My Car" playing and they CRANKED the volume to drown us out. We briefly rebelled, trying to play louder, but eventually gave up and started packing our things. We drove to Denny's and commiserated over coffees and grand slams.
I never got to play my Jimmy Buffett songs.
To the left, check out one of the few recordings I have from that band. Beware, it comes in hot and it ends hot. If you’re wearing headphones, turn them down for a sec.