It was yet more evidence of the power of music. The song instantly cued up memories of the first time I heard it and where I was. Which was in Los Angeles in 1994 and only a few months into my new artist relations job. I’d been given an early copy of “The Downward Spiral” by NIN drummer Chris Vrenna. The album immediately felt like a true evolution from the band’s debut “Pretty Hate Machine” and ensuing EP “Broken” (on which “Wish” can’t be played loud enough) with more depth and stylistic variety. It was a double album after all. And “Closer” became the first and most enduring hit.

BOOM, PSSS, BOOM, PSSS, a mechanized type of kick and snare starts, quickly backed by what sounds like a sped-up ticking time bomb before synths and other studio trickery flesh out that skeleton and Trent Reznor leans in with suitably seductive vocals. If you were around at that time watching MTV or listening to alternative radio you’d understand, but if not, it’s hard to overstate how the video and song momentarily hit like a pop-culture grenade.

Granted, a song with “I wanna fuck you like an animal” as part of the chorus is destined for some semblance of controversy and requisite attention. The video ramped that up with a dark aura suffused in creepy, steampunk menace:

Keep in mind, this was in a year when Green Day’s “Dookie” was achieving initial liftoff, Soundgarden would not long after release their absolutely infallible and incendiary “Superunknown,” Weezer introduced geek rock to the masses with the blue album, not to mention huge releases from Beastie Boys, Notorious B.I.G. and Oasis’ debut “Definitely Maybe.”

Nine Inch Nails had industrial counterparts in bands like Ministry, Stabbing Westward, Machines of Loving Grace, Prong and others, but they were the undisputed engine of the genre. And I was about to hitch a ride on that train for a while.

As with other drummers I admired, I started tracking down Vrenna as soon as I got my job. He was an original member, founding the band with Trent and guitarist Richard Patrick (he later launched Filter) in Pennsylvania in the late ‘80s. What he lacked in imposing physical stature he more than made up for in presence with his bleached, buzzcut head and abilities behind the kit.

We first met and hit it off at a huge rehearsal studio in North Hollywood called Centerstaging (I’ve referenced them in previous posts, as at the time they were an industry powerhouse and for all I know still are). It was there primarily to provide spaces for bands to run through their stage sets ahead of going on tour. NIN was getting ready for the first run of the Downward Spiral tour and as I came to learn about Trent, you spared no expense to get the details right.

The band had their stage set up as if this was an actual show, with crew to match. It looked like a twisted mashup of Apocalypse Now and period-era Batman, an immense room with the air of a foggy moor, the rigging dripping in dark strips of fabric with the lighting show in full effect. At that time I’d never felt that behind the scenes of anything and here I was getting a sneak peak of what would soon be blowing people away across the country.

I brought Chris some cymbals to try out and we chatted amiably in the hallway with phenomenal guitarist Robin Finck (who to this day has been on and off with the band for years, punctuated by some years with Guns n’ Roses!). Unlike Chris, Robin is a towering figure and at the time he’d shaved his eyebrows and part of his head while keeping long dreads. Someone you definitely notice, bolstering my theory that some of the nicest people can look somewhat scary on the surface (and the opposite holds true as well).

Both are also featured prominently here in a video for one of my favorite songs from the album filmed at Centerstaging at that time, probably for convenience as much as effect. I was on set hanging with the drum tech who darts in occasionally, laughing at the completely intentional lack of polish going on. The director probably just said, “fuck it, let’em do what they’re gonna do and we’ll figure it out later.”

Chris and I kept in regular contact and he soon invited me to a tour warmup show at a tiny venue on Highland in Hollywood called Probe that transitioned from private gay club to a hub for goth and industrial scenes. It closed in 1999, but on this night it held roughly 200 people getting their faces melted off by a band playing the gig as if already in an arena. I had seen the future and liked it. A lot.

Literally a month later in that spring of 1994, the initial tour was in full swing when during a show at the Warfield in San Francisco, the ever unpredictable Reznor hurled a mic stand. If you’re not familiar with stage infrastructure, the spindly, mic-holding parts are not overly threatening, but the base is like a small iron tire. It hit Vrenna in the head. Contemplate that. Then watch:

Unbelievably, a few days later on April 24th the band started a three-night stand at the venerable Palace theater in Hollywood (now called the Avalon, across the street from the iconic Capitol Records building on Vine). I’d checked in with Chris and couldn’t believe he was ready to play again after being wounded like that, but he’s a pro and pros always deliver.

The shows had the vibe of “this band will never play a venue this size ever again unless some oligarch has a party.” I was there with drummer Matt Cameron, he of Soundgarden and Pearl Jam, one of my biggest drumming inspirations bar none and a fine human. Zildjian had previously arranged an LA photoshoot with him that week. Timing aligned nicely once he asked me what I was doing that night and I said, “going to see Nine Inch Nails.” Yes, by all means, please join me Matt. We stood at the back by the bar with Gene Simmons. Welcome to LA.

The rest, as they say, is history and the band continued to become a massive musical force. A year and a half later they’d be opening for David Bowie at LA’s Forum arena. It made so much sense given the lineage and obvious adoration Trent had for Bowie, but you could tell the respect flowed both ways. Every trailblazer awaits an heir apparent.

I wish I had more pictures of Chris and I during some of our LA adventures in the mid-’90s. When you don’t have a camera phone in your pocket at all times, taking photos isn’t as reflexive as it is now (plus you had to get the damn film developed and wait to see if the pics were any good in the first place). If we had, there would be evidence of many memorable times on Hollywood streets and in favorite bars, seeing “The Fifth Element” at the Cinerama Dome on Sunset (look it up, soon to reopen!), having Thanksgiving dinner one year at his house in Silverlake when we were both refugees away from family and illicitly driving a golf cart around the Universal Studios backlot (Psycho house!) before a show at the Universal Amphitheatre.

After the Downward Spiral tours, Trent moved to New Orleans and the band did too. The next couple years in particular were an admittedly troubled period across the board, as if the album’s title was a curse. Chris had finally had enough to make him break from his creative partner of nearly a decade. I told him I was going to return to my former home of Hong Kong for a proper vacation and he took me up on the offer to stay at my one-bed Koreatown apartment as a transition back to LA. It meant a lot for both of us.

Chris left NIN not long after and filled in as a drummer with other bands like Marilyn Manson and Smashing Pumpkins. With the latter, his then girlfriend and I and other friends crowded into that same tiny apartment to watch Chris play on the 1997 Grammys with the band for the song “1979” (on my relatively tiny 21” tube TV). It felt like proper validation for all he’d contributed to so many. He’s since gone on to become quite a successful producer and artist in his own right, both under the moniker Tweaker and as a music creator for video games.

Chris (in a most excellent Melvins shirt and freshly dyed black hair), John Tempesta (then drummer of White Zombie, now The Cult) and me for my birthday happy hour at one of my go-to LA institutions, the Farmer’s Market on Fairfax. 1996?!

Trent and Nine Inch Nails have by now achieved the sort of legendary status earned by precious few artists where they can continue to experiment and put out albums and tour and do soundtracks and there will inevitably always be an eager audience to help subsidize their existence. It is something bigger than itself and its parts. Metallica knows what I’m talking about. That is to be respected and saluted, truly, particularly entering an era of AI-generated music.

Bands evolve. They lose members. Change members. Fire members. They make stylistic shifts, have creative differences, absorb life changes, endure the inevitable ups and downs and, provided their hearts are still in it, keep the machine moving forward. But there’s always a flashpoint in a band’s lifespan when their power is at its most potent, inspiration is flowing and live performances are at their ferocious peak. Which doesn’t guarantee everyone is getting along or money is flowing in or rainbow joy is in the air. But the reason they started the band is at its most glaringly obvious.

In the mid-’90s, Nine Inch Nails was in that place. That may seem like just my subjective opinion, and it’s not to diminish the fantastic musicians and creative output that have followed over the next three decades, but I only feel certain in that stance as a benefit of hindsight after many years passed and shows seen.

Life is best measured in moments, those seized and those missed. I feel enormously fortunate not only to have born witness and made friends, but also to have felt even on the periphery of that NIN supernova. In a faster-paced and ever-distracted world, may we all be able find the ability to stay present and recognize the meaning of what we’re experiencing while it’s happening, rather than in retrospect.

The World Cup has been my favorite sporting event since my very early days of playing soccer and it’s never waned. I told my wife when we got engaged that every four years I’m gonna pretty much check out for a month and hope you’re OK with that. When the 2002 tournament was held in Asia, many was the time I woke at 2 am for a match. There’s something about this competition that brings out not only the best storylines and athletic heroics, but also an ability to bring disparate people together from around the world in ways I’ve never witnessed otherwise.

This year will be the first since 1994 that the World Cup has been hosted in the United States (and this year, also Canada and Mexico). So of course I’m flashing back to that time more than 30 years ago when I was very much invested in it beyond mere fandom.

In my artist relations job at Zildjian I helped sign and take care of individual drummer endorsers, but it didn’t stop there. We also worked directly with marching bands, percussion ensembles, schools and other institutions to further both the percussive arts and the brand. As a result, we became part of the background infrastructure that was rarely seen, but that fueled the larger efforts.

One of those endorsers was the USC marching band, collegiate legends in their own right (my favorite example, their backing of Fleetwood Mac). They wielded significant influence and as a result, held sway for World Cup matches to be held at Pasadena’s Rose Bowl stadium. Because of them, I was fortunate to attend a few matches. Many others I watched at the lovely Pasadena-adjacent home of the Argentinian parents of my college roommate Gerard, whose older brother was just a little well-known at the time, Andres Cantor. Yes, he of the iconic “GOOOLLLLLLLL!” response now meme’d and mimic’ed to eternity and whose son Nico is also now a well-known commentator.

If you’ve never been to the Rose Bowl, it’s a colossal bowl-shaped structure originally built in 1923 with bench seats and few luxury boxes that holds over 100,000 people. It’s unlike any other stadium I’ve experienced in this country, in part because of how it’s tucked into the hillsides near a residential neighborhood but also because it’s so ridiculously big. I attended many concerts there too (particularly memorable, Pink Floyd in April of 1994 right before the World Cup, whole show here). It was the original ‘90s-early aughts home for the MLS LA Galaxy soccer team, who would draw maybe 3,000 people at the time and the rest of the seats would be covered by colorful tarps so hopefully you didn’t notice the emptiness. It has also been a longstanding home to UCLA football (which never made sense because that school was on the other side of the LA basin, but far be it from me to question).

In 1994, the Rose Bowl was a key venue for the World Cup, including the final, which in essence crowned the best national team on the planet. I HAD TO GO. But my connections could only go so far. What’s an average guy fan to do? I’ll tell you what. Enter a lottery via a full-page print ad in the LA Times. Really. A coupon you had to cut out of the damn newspaper and mail in while you crossed your fingers and lit candles and waved sage and chanted to your deity of choice. Which I did. All of those things.

Then I got the news (in the mailbox, alongside an electrical bill): I’d won tickets. Two, because that’s the most you could get. $180 apiece (roughly $500 in today’s dollars counting for inflation). To say I freaked out would be a bit of an understatement, but some fine Spanish red was raised and then downed that night (I have a soft spot for the Spanish national team). At the time it was a huge expenditure, I’d never spent close to that on a sporting event or concert. But I didn’t care even a little bit, because everything had all come full circle and I was going.

And what a game it promised to be. Two global soccer powerhouses, Italy and Brazil. One for the ages. Only a few months before I’d driven down to my hometown of San Diego to join endorser Igor Cavalera and his Brazilian thrash-metal bandmates from Sepultura at a qualifier match. At halftime we marched around the entirety of the stadium banging drums in tribal rhythm and making a fantastic spectacle of ourselves. I had my allegiance established.

Game day arrived and the overall extravaganza sucked me in from the moment my now brother-in-law and I exited the 134 freeway in between Glendale and Pasadena and descended into the ravine that envelops the stadium. Keep in mind, unless you’d been to a match already, you had no idea what to expect. No text updates. No pics on social media. No group chats. No brand activations. Pure, unadulterated surprise. And hope you didn’t leave your ticket at home.

It surpassed all expectations. People from all over the world tailgating, singing, dancing and otherwise partying their asses off. The whole tableau awash in the World Cup branding’s bright pastels and graphics, plus period fashion. We indulged for a bit and some friendly Italians shared a bite, even though I was in a Brazil shirt. But we had places to be because my job did come back to bestow other favors. The opening ceremonies featured musicians after all, and many of them were drummers with whom I was already working. Let’s go.

Before I knew it, we were on the goddamn field. The actual pitch on which these teams would face off. At a World Cup Final. I was losing it. At one point Brazilian soccer god Pele ran right past us. Looking back at it now, it all seems unbelievable and almost quaint because I can’t imagine the same scenario playing out today. There would be too many corporate and security layers to let someone so inconsequential be in such close proximity to the action.

Once in the stands for the game, I was surrounded by a sea of Brazilian fans and felt I was levitating when Italian star Roberto Baggio skied his penalty kick in horrendous and soul-crushing fashion at the end to lose the match. We all drowned in a sea of giddy limbs and the hugging of strangers.

We eventually filtered out to the parking lot, where further celebrating continued. In a fitting conclusion to the day, I eventually made my way downtown not long after to the former boxing arena known as the Olympic Auditorium to see a Soundgarden show (the Reverend Horton Heat and awesome Aussie band You Am I opened.)

Like so much of what happened in the ‘90s, I feel grateful to have experienced something that, due to a variety of forces, could no doubt never happen again. Spontaneity ruled, experiences were reactive and later consigned largely to your memory, you weren’t tethered to a device and your immediate impulses were indulged in the moment.

But this is as much a societal statement as it is a personal one. Over the last few tournaments in particular, the organizing entity of the World Cup, FIFA, has actively become one of the most corrupt forces on the planet. It aligns with oligarchs and autocrats and has turned the entire affair into a parade of greed and grift that is reaching new heights this year.

I entered the lottery to get tickets to this year’s tournament and lost out but honestly, even if I’d won them I probably would have sold them in protest. My adopted hometown is about to welcome fans from around the world, while serving as home base for England, Argentina, the Netherlands and Algeria. I’m proud and excited because it means valuable exposure to all the good that’s happening here, as well as a significant jolt to the local economy. At the same time, tickets for the World Cup Final in New Jersey are now projected to be nearly $11,000. EACH.

You read that right. It belies all comprehension because it’s indicative of our time. Where the corporate sponsors and one-percenter attendees win out and the real fans who live for this are priced out. I won’t reward that. Instead, I’ll watch in bars and garages and living rooms with my friends and still love the World Cup as I have since I was in elementary school. And then maybe go see a live band in a small local venue unaffiliated with Live Nation or Ticketmaster.

This type of rambling roadshow wasn’t an entirely new construct. Since the earliest days of blues, R&B, soul and rock n’ roll, individual artists and bands have aligned to provide audiences with an occasionally rotating variety bill of sorts that barnstormed city to city. In the ‘70s and ‘80s you had massive one-off shows and festivals that became pop-culture milestones, from Fleetwood Mac, The Who and The Rolling Stones to Monsters of Rock, which was a peak at the time for the popularity of hard rock and featured legacy headbangers like Van Halen and The Scorpions but also marked the ascendancy of aspirants to the throne like Metallica (I’m still somewhat displeased with my mom for not letting me drive with friends from San Diego to a vast field an hour east of LA to see the US Fest in 1983 when I was 16. Here’s a VH1 documentary.).

The Police onstage at the US fest in Glen Helen, CA in 1983.

In the ‘90s, festivals took on a different shape and meaning and as a result, created impact we still feel today. Part of that was due to the landscape at the time, relative to how we actually consumed music. There was no streaming, social media or immediate access to an unending array of artists of whom you’d never heard. Radio was still a controlling and influential presence, particularly what were known as AOR (album-oriented rock) stations.

There were a handful of “alternative” stations in larger markets around the country that could flex some muscle on small budgets, but non-mainstream artists were still largely relegated to college-radio stations you had to seek out (that were always, as the beloved Replacements solidified in song, “left of the dial.”). MTV remained a force in the early ‘90s but towards the end of the decade would teeter into the reality-TV void that ironically saw them leave the music largely behind forever.

By creating some collective-bargaining power and newfound appeal with promoters, a well-organized festival in theory could not only gain some notoriety and break new artists, but also sell some tickets (and merch and CDs) and give audiences a great day of varied entertainment. There were economies of scale to be gained, while also relative autonomy that in most cases outweighed the inherent risk.

But in trying to maintain interest with fans from year to year, they were still up against radio stations that could twist arms with labels and management. By promising what any artist understandably wanted, radio air time, labels could fill their own festival lineups with whatever bands were happening at the moment. Which they did to directly protect their turf, particularly in the summertime.

It was a fleeting, fluid and fertile period in time for both music and culture. Artists felt emboldened and the general attitude seemed, “why not?!” The wind was at their back, the timing felt right, or so they thought. So let’s dive into some detail about the aforementioned festivals that really helped shape the decade:

H.O.R.D.E.

H.O.R.D.E. was the brainchild of jam-blues band Blues Traveler, who in 1992 gathered together fellow east-coast bands like the Spin Doctors, Widespread Panic and Phish as a means to avoid playing the club circuit in the summertime when other larger bands were selling out amphitheaters. The name was an acronym for “Horizons of Rock Developing Everywhere,” and Blues Traveler correctly assumed that literally banding together would make for a worthwhile endeavor. The tour grew to include artists like the Black Crowes, Ziggy Marley, Neil Young, Barenaked Ladies, Lenny Kravitz and the Dave Matthews Band.

The two H.O.R.D.E. fests I attended had a distinctly peace and love, patchouli-scented aura that served as a magnetic tractor beam for both new and latent Grateful Dead fans, despite the fact that there were many bands on the bill who would probably chafe at being connected to that scene (I knew I did). But due respect, H.O.R.D.E. ran for six years and staged its last show in 1998 after playing 40 dates across the country.

The (Vans) Warped Tour

Unofficially known as “punk rock summer camp,” The Warped Tour was started in 1995 by an LA promoter I knew, Kevin Lyman. It originally featured skate-punk and third-wave ska bands but ventured in later years into metal, hardcore and other genres. In fact, in the aughts it helped break now hugely mainstream artists like Paramore, Fall Out Boy and Katy Perry.

Since each stop was different, the tour would change shape from venue to venue. It often revolved around a setup with stages at either end of a common area that had vendors and skate and other action sports demos. Warped was a truly celebratory carnival for every kid that dressed largely in black in high school, frequented the smoking section and hung out at the local skate park.

I was at the original tour in 1995 and the following two years, before moving to Boston and later to my current home of Kansas City. In all those places I always went because the skate kid in me always came out of hiding when the latest lineup was announced and it was always a blast of a scene where I could both watch with friends in the crowd and hang out with band friends backstage.

In 1996, Vans came calling to sponsor the tour. It was an early example of what we now know all too well as corporate interests hitching themselves to pop-culture in order to profit. With Vans, it actually made sense. The company had been making shoes since 1966 in Anaheim and was fully vested in the skate scene. And punk and skating were inextricably linked. We all wore and loved Vans, so the connection seemed less leech-like and more of an appropriate partnership. It remained until the fest ended in 2019.

I can’t remember whose bus I was on at the time or what Lollapalooza this was, but man just check out that upholstery!

One of my more favorite Lollapalooza lineups and days out south of LA.

Lollapalooza

The story of Lollapalooza is well known by now and its familiarity embedded in American culture by everyone who still attaches an “alooza” suffix to a word to infer some sort of larger event. What was started by Jane’s Addiction frontman Perry Farrell in 1991 as a farewell tour for a band sadly nearing self-destruction and an homage to England’s Reading festival became something much much bigger.

In the early ‘90s, alternative acts weren’t filling large venues. It was audacious at the very least to suggest to promoters that an assemblage of said artists would make everyone some money. But driven by word of mouth, favorable MTV coverage and a relatively diverse array of artists that included Nine Inch Nails, that first tour sold out a majority of its stops. The next year it added a side stage and the Lollapalooza model became fully shaped.

Those first years, as is perhaps true with so many well intentioned ideas that become bigger than expected, were the purest in terms of alt-rock music and staying true to intent. But as interest grew from artists and audiences alike, the festival started to feel at odds with itself. After all, it’s hard to be the beating heart of the underground when that culture has risen above the surface. By 1994, Lollapalooza was so successful that Nirvana turned down a $6 million headliner offer, lest the band be seen as the worst thing it could imagine: a sellout. Kurt Cobain tragically died not long after.

I attended multiple Lollapalooza shows after moving back to the U.S. in early 1993, but honestly never saw another one after I left the job in 2000. The fest went through fits, starts and hiatuses for years until it was repurposed by a new promoter in 2005 into the Lollapalooza we know today, a three-day affair held only in Chicago where far more mainstream and legacy acts perform alongside younger upstarts.

Regardless, Lollapalooza proved that large-scale, genre-bending weekend fests were a model that could work, as born out more recently by celebrated events like Coachella and Bonnaroo. Its lasting success also showed that the music industry and the media that covers it often underestimate the power and potential of certain scenes and subcultures until they’re packaged in the right way. (Paramount + has a documentary about it all.)

OzzFest

We sadly lost Ozzy Osbourne this past year, but the man’s incredible legacy will never be extinguished. His manager-wife Sharon remains a notorious figure who guided much of his life and career. In 1996, after Lollapalooza thumbed its nose at the idea of adding Ozzy to the tour, she decided to create a new festival dedicated to metal and hard rock called OzzFest.

It was an immediate hit with hordes of finger-horn throwing metalheads who long felt ignored, particularly as “alternative rock” gained greater traction on radio through the ‘90s. The bands who played OzzFest stages ranged from established powerhouses like Slayer, Pantera, Tool, Rage Against The Machine and Megadeth to insurgent nu-metal upstarts like Limp Bizkit, Korn, Marilyn Manson and System of a Down. Later in the aughts it would go global and bring in giants like Iron Maiden and Judas Priest.

The best part beyond the music to me was the crowd itself. You know those scenes in “The Lord of the Rings” where throngs of Orcs assemble as armies to seek and destroy? That’s what every OzzFest felt like to me, a glorious sea of self-admitted societal misfits out for the time of their lives. Faces pierced, hair dyed, denim shredded and studded, arms and legs inked to the hilt (sometimes in hilariously regrettable fashion, could make a book of those tattoos), beer flowing, people passed out and porta potties definitely to be avoided at all costs if possible.

The Lilith Fair

There’s a quite enjoyable documentary running on Hulu right now about the pioneering Lilith Fair festival, which was the first to not only be started and run by women (in particular singer-songwriter Sarah McLachlan), but that also featured a lineup comprised entirely of female artists or women-led bands.

The name referenced a Biblical figure Lilith, embraced as a symbol of feminism and independence. To hear McLachlan tell it, “Lilith Fair was created for many reasons: the joy of sharing live music; the connection of like minds; the desire to create a sense of community that I felt was lacking in our industry.”

It was also a forceful rebuke to what these artists saw as transparent disrespect and disregard of female voices in music. Promoters insisted that people wouldn’t come to see multiple women on the same bill. In hindsight it seems ridiculously outdated, but it was very much true at the time.

The tour immediately proved them wrong, launching at the Gorge Amphitheater in Washington state with a sold-out show on July 5, 1997. It went on to 37 stops and featured 69 acts that included McLachlan, Fiona Apple, Tracy Chapman, Sheryl Crow and the Indigo Girls. It also became the highest grossing tour of that year.

Despite breaking many new artists, highlighting other luminaries like Bonnie Raitt, Lauryn Hill and Sinead O’Connor and otherwise being hugely lucrative, the tour came to an end after just three years in 1999. I took my now wife to that last summer show in Boston, where she got her first real taste of backstage starfucker overload.

While sharing a beer with her in between sets at the Great Woods amphitheater, I noticed Sheryl Crow and CHRISSIE FUCKING HYNDE with acoustic guitars working out a song across the patio from us. I encouraged her to go say hi, that they’re just people (albeit occasionally prickly ones), despite her starstruck hesitation. She briefly did, and then shared with me her emotional takeaway: Watching Chrissie quickly trying to learn the words to Sheryl’s song so they could perform it, perhaps feeling uncomfortable for a minute but being confident enough as the woman she was to just go out and do it. Which in ways was the larger meaning to the festival as a whole.

Our current reality being what it is, I firmly believe we’ll never again experience such a flurry of truly communal events like we did in the ‘90s. Too many forces now exist that make them financially and logistically prohibitive at best. Supportive labels are barely a thing anymore and artists are largely masters of their own destiny. Ticketing, radio, venues, they’re all now monopolized by larger corporations like Ticketmaster, Live Nation, AEG and others which demand an ever-larger piece of the proverbial pie.

Meanwhile, subcultures largely only exist online or at expensive one-off get-togethers in convention halls. Live music scenes like those that thrived 30 years ago because we needed to be “among our people” in real life are that much more difficult to sustain. Every show I go to now, half the crowd has their phones up the whole time.

This isn’t a yelling at clouds moment, but rather just a bit of a lament, for myself as well as my young adult kids. Our race to commodify literally everything has sapped so much life from more meaningful experiences. Our willingness to rely on technology more than our humanity often hinders us from being fully present in the moment or focused on anything but ourselves. Our glorification of greed misplaces priorities, drives us further apart and makes things that were once attainable for more people far less so. And even festivals aren’t immune to any of that anymore.

As always when going down these mental rabbit holes I do so dearly wish I had more photographic evidence of all that occurred. I plead too many moves and too few times having an actual camera on my person when doing my job. Not that the memories are any less vivid.

It was April, 1993. I’d just returned to Los Angeles after nearly three years living in Hong Kong, via a pretty epic repatriation trip that started in Beijing with a long excursion on the Trans-Siberian railroad to Moscow, wound through Europe east to west and capped with one last coast-to-coast flight. I was 26 years old and intent on a final shot trying to be part of a successful band (plus, the World Cup was going to be held in the U.S. in 1994 and hell if I was gonna miss out on that).

I was a good, not great, drummer, having honed what chops I had playing in bar bands and along to my favorite albums on a walkman. Through a “Drummer Wanted” ad in the LA Weekly newspaper I’d already started jamming with some guys at a side street studio near Vine and Santa Monica called Cole Rehearsals. I mention this mainly because it was also where Rage Against the Machine used to rehearse, as they documented on the inner CD sleeve of “Evil Empire.” It was also around the corner from a tiny club called the Dragonfly where Rage played a tour warmup gig for about 200 people and I've never feared more for the structural integrity of a building.

With my silly but eternally fun band at La Bodega in Lan Kwai Fong, Hong Kong, on a kit borrowed from a friend and shlepped around in a HK red taxi.

Rage at Cole Rehearsals from said album.

At the time, I had gotten sporadic work with old friends who’d landed at Propaganda Films, the go-to company for creating music videos. MTV was still very much a cultural behemoth and music videos had long transitioned from low to big budget. I was a production assistant (aka grunt), who did whatever they were told on set for roughly $100 a day (which would span anywhere from eight hours to ???). In my case, that could mean anything from driving gear trucks, fetching coffees, smashing TVs for props, painting sets or enduring short-tempered directors and artists (my fave example of all this working on the Madonna video “Express Yourself,” directed by David Fincher and at the time the most expensive video in rotation).

But I was still searching for more gainful employment while working on the band. Which meant the daily morning ritual of perusing want ads. No Linked In, no Indeed, no job boards. You’d find an ad in printed publications like the LA Times that intrigued you and apply through the mail with a printed resume. Dark ages stuff. And one summer day in the back of the Hollywood Reporter, a respected and influential industry mag, I saw a tiny ad that led with “Artist Relations Assistant in the drum industry.” You have my attention.

Soon I was showing up at an unmarked address at the corner of Laurel and Ventura in Studio City that looked like the perfect front for any number of shady businesses. Bars on the windows. A tiny sign in the front window was the only clue of what awaited me through the door. Because on it was a Zildjian logo. Just one of the biggest names in drum equipment I adored that was used by pretty much everyone I idolized. Cool, I’m fine, really, no pressure.

The place was a like a shotgun bar. Long desk and office at the front leading back a short hallway to a side office, kitchenette, bathroom and storage area, and a room with sliding glass doors encasing a drum kit and ringed with vertical racks of cymbals. I was met by Mike Morse (RIP), a friendly, lion-like dude from Michigan who had been the AR manager since they opened the office in the late ‘80s. He was sizing me up and I was fine with it, at one point turning on the infamous LA station KROQ and asking me randomly, “who’s this?” when a song came on (it was Blind Melon at the time, “Tones of Home”). He scarred me for life at the sushi bar across the street by making me eat a piece with raw quail egg and sea urchin (it’s a texture thing). But before I knew it, I was at a career crossroads. Shed my rock star aspirations to live vicariously through my drumming heroes and be part of the larger scene? Sign me up!

Me and Mike. I was in my retro thrift-store shirts phase. I didn’t smile enough.

I knew pretty quickly some change was in the air by my presence at all, since the office had a general assistant already, a wonderful Sicilian New Englander named Ann-Marie. Mike was a hair-metal guy who’d played in those types of bands and owned that era in his job. His flowing locks, leather and bolo ties were on point, he had a Harley, knew all the drummers and they rightly loved him.

But by 1993, the music scene was quickly shape-shifting. Nirvana had already detonated the charts. Grunge was ascendant. Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” was the most popular chart song at the time, but all kinds of progressive and unexpected groups were bubbling up. And more than a few of their drummers weren’t playing Zildjian cymbals.

Which became the entire essence of my job: Convince anyone who was anyone on the scene to be a Zildjian player. Much like in sports, instrument manufacturers signed endorsement deals with artists to exclusively play their equipment and help sell it. In return, they got gear, support and promotion. So there was inherent competition among companies and us artist relations folks to scout individual talent and/or nab the band that blew up overnight, in every genre from jazz to metal to country.

Talk about incentive with which I could run at full sprint. It meant striking a balance between taking care of established endorsers while always being on the hunt for new ones. So I soon found myself every day in a company vehicle with the license place “Z-RIDE” (really, IYKYK) running around an purposefully specific circuit of rehearsal studios, recording studios, live music venues, rental companies, record label offices, band management offices, even radio stations, from Hollywood to the westside to the deep Valley. In each, creating relationships that would both ease my job but also validate my existence.

When I wasn’t doing that, I was welcoming drummers at the office to try out and exchange gear in the drum room. I was their concierge in ways, helping them test sounds and dial in what they were after. I visited often with the craftsmen in Boston who made the cymbals and quickly got to understand all the sonic nuance in each size and shape so as to be a resident expert of sorts.

It was so routine as the time, and within two weeks on the job celebrity didn’t phase me at all. But in hindsight I have to shake my damn head at how some of the greatest drummers in the world made their way to this nondescript little outpost in the shadow of the Hollywood hills.

When an endorser was signed, they received an initial setup of gear for free. When a cymbal would break, or they wanted to try something different, I’d swap them out. Could be on the road, at home or in the studio. Many was the time I’d receive a call from a drummer’s tech (the person on tour who sets up and dials in the kit every night) on the road needing new gear at an upcoming tour stop. I’d go find what they were after and get it out to them. Our UPS driver Mike was basically part of the team, delivering ungodly heavy boxes of new cymbals from headquarters to add to our stock or coming back for my express shipments out.

With esteemed drum tech / drummer / pal Mike Fasano, at the house / home studio of endorser Matt Sorum (Guns N’ Roses, Cult, etc.), with whom he still often works.

At other times, I might be assisting a band who was in town for a concert but doing an appearance on a TV show. Their gear was at the gig. Sometimes a rental company would provide it, but if the wrong cymbals were seen on TV I definitely was going to get a call from my boss. So I’d be the one to make sure everything was right. Which led to me showing up enough in Burbank at the Tonight Show with Jay Leno to where the security guys knew me and I could easily come and go through the loading entrance.

The same would apply at rehearsal studios, which were either for pure practice (smaller ones) or tour preparation (much bigger). The latter were often huge facilities in faceless industrial areas of North Hollywood where a band could truly set up their entire touring stage and run through sets. The mainstay was called Centerstaging, a compound led by an entertaining duo of wisecracking middle-aged dudes Jan and Johnny (who also did the staging for all the New York MTV Music Awards and got me in). Taking in rehearsals there for Nine Inch Nails’ epic “Downward Spiral” tour in 1994, the stage dripping in shredded fabric like some sci-fi war zone, was an absolutely indelible experience.

Recording studios were a wholly different animal. These were secluded refuges designed for permanently documenting musical perfection. That was the aim anyway. This was where the albums were made, not guitars smashed onstage. Where if they got it right, a band could establish an enduring legacy.

As such, I had to satisfy, and sometimes divine, what the drummer was after in terms of specific sounds, but also the producer. That relationship could occasionally be strained. When you’re paying thousands a day for the room, you don’t have much time for experimentation or taking too long to nail the part. As I say that, I’ll never forget the time I literally brought 40 cymbals to a session, played on Tre Cool’s Green Day kit or felt the heat of trying to please Mick Fleetwood or Ginger Baker.

All of this interaction led to me being better able to find and sign endorsers, but also build ongoing relationships with all of them. Sometimes that meant trying to secretly switch a player from another company to Zildjian. I tried every cajoling and persuasive weapon in my arsenal to bring over Danny Carey from Tool (who played Paiste) and Chad Smith from the Red Hot Chili Peppers (who played Sabian), both monster players and great guys. I ultimately failed, and appreciated their loyalty, but we remained on friendly respectful terms.

I was admittedly pretty relentless in pursuit, in that I relished the challenge and the thrill of the chase. For a while at one point I had been after drummer Paul Deakin from country-crossover band the Mavericks, who were a big deal at the time and a fantastic band. I showed up unannounced at the Tonight Show one afternoon with Zildjian cymbals that approximated his Paistes and he laughed and said, “I feel like I’m gonna wake up one night and the Zildjian guy is gonna be in my room.” We and the band went across the street for tacos after the appearance. I didn’t switch him.

Still, I knew I had some power. I was the representative for a legendary company revered by so many of these players and I got hit up daily by aspiring bands, their management, you name it, all wanting the coveted endorsement (and financial benefit). Every day we’d receive promo packs in the mail, field phone calls, get lobbied by connections, you name it. I’m not an inherently awful person, so I never abused my position or let it go to my head.

Quite the opposite, in fact. I wanted to help too many people. When I couldn’t justify a signing to my superiors, but believed in the drummer’s promise, I would often reach into what we called the “used bin.” These were not broken cymbals, but ones swapped in for new. To an up and coming band, even those were a lifeline (in case you hadn’t guessed, cymbals ain’t cheap). More than a few of those drummers I helped in that way went on to become endorsers and are still out there being fantastic today.

In all of this, there was a direct connection to bands, drummers and their entourages because I had become even a small part of their inner circle. Labels, radio, sometimes even management, were often viewed as necessary indulgences. Not entirely trusted, but also part of the larger machine.

My role struck a balance. I was in ways part of the crew and my intentions pure. I knew the techs and the tour managers and was there for them when they needed. I helped make the instrument sound its best and knew what mattered most of all was the music. I was at the gigs, backstage and behind the scenes and didn’t cause problems. I loved it and had no ulterior motives.

I was grateful at the time for the opportunity and the friendships forged, but also a student of the larger lessons I was taught. Ann-Marie moved back to headquarters in Boston not longer after I started and her void was filled phenomenally by Kirsten Matt (they called us Zildjian 90210 for those of you who remember the show about Beverly Hills), who still runs the office to this day. It all came to a logical end, as all good things should if you’re not on cruise control or phoning it in. But in retrospect, isn’t that the best way to gauge the ongoing adventure that is a life well-lived?

And yes, I made it to the World Cup. And it was one of the best sports days in my life. Then that night I went to a downtown Soundgarden gig.

I always try here to draw some sort of connection to our present while talking about the past, and last night was inspiration to do just that. My wife and I went to a Big Rock Show at the local Enormodome (excuse me, the former Sprint Center now known as the T-Mobile Center in Kansas City, corporate America is never not entertaining in their desire to suck the life out of everything). San Diego-bred pop-punk band Blink 182 was in town on their “Missionary Impossible” tour. Though I initially helped their now very famous drummer Travis Barker way back in the mid-‘90s when he was a member of South Bay, LA cartoon punks The Aquabats, we were more interested in connecting with an enduring friend who was drumming with the relentlessly awesome opening band from Chicago, Alkaline Trio.

Atom Willard and I met in 1993 when he was barely out of his teens drumming with one of San Diego’s proudest musical exports, Rocket From The Crypt (a kickass punk band with a horn section, really!). Our shared San Diego origins notwithstanding, he was always an oddly magnetic force. Rail thin, big glasses, but undeniable behind the kit. He broke cymbals with disturbing frequency and commanded your attention. Fer chrissakes, he had an old auto part on a stand that he still uses as a bell effect.

Since that time he’s played with The Offspring, Social Distortion, Against Me!, Angels and Airwaves, The Bronx and countless others, while he is also now an in-demand session drummer in Nashville because he has “a thing.” Atom’s style is deceptively simple at times, but thoroughly powerful. He’s also a total goof who loves dad jokes.

Through all those years we’ve stayed connected, if even just through texts and occasional run-ins. Swing dancing with his wife Heather in my tiny North End, Boston condo in 1998. Attending his wedding in Las Vegas two weeks after 9/11. Sunday family barbecues in LA. Exchanging silly memes and photos. Infrequent interaction, but no less meaningful. Those are the friendships you know are solid.

Against Me! tour, Kansas City, 2016

And that’s the point here. If you have friends like that, keep them close and make the effort. Last night he and the band rocked it as always and we sang our lungs out. We had made plans to meet after their set, which of course was going to involve some logistics in a giant concrete bunker of an arena like that. Let’s just say it got Spinal Tap-level comedic.

Phone reception sucks. We go down three levels to the floor to get stage-right where he said he would be. Our wristbands are interpreted by some security as valid, no-go with others. Somehow my wife and I are quite interesting to them because you know, we’re really threatening. We’re now outside doors leading to the dressing rooms with a chatty and indulgent security woman who’s trying to help us tell Atom how to navigate the circular maze that lies beyond. It doesn’t go well.

I imagined him wandering aimlessly among gear cases and cursing his fate. Connection finally made, and Atom annoyed that our passes were not what he had instructed, we finally retreated to a dressing room while Blink 182 thundered away. And for the next hour we indulged in the uninhibited behavior so familiar to backstage inhabitants: we talked. No Jack Daniels handles passed around, just stories of pain relievers, pets, kids and home improvement. Life.

Which is the hallmark of a real relationship. Building that level of respect and shared experience where you know all sides of each other, moments embarrassing and wonderful, highs and lows and where you slip as easily into conversation as you do favorite sweats.

We didn’t even take pictures for the first time probably ever. Which is perhaps a reminder in times like these that are trying, confusing and often infuriating, to say the least. The best thing we can do right now is log the fuck off of all the things and come together as people. Go outside, touch grass, get lost in the sky, get on a bike, surf a wave or walk a trail. Focus on what you can control and let go, even momentarily, of what you can’t. Stay informed, but don’t get suffocated. Get bored, because no one seems to know how to do that anymore, and find the creativity to work your way out of it. Most of all, focus on who and what really matters and put your energy into that.

Me and Atom at his wedding at, yes, a tiny Vegas chapel. 2001.

The night before in St. Louis. 2025.

At least via what I could see from videos posted on YouTube, by friends at the opening Cardiff gig and pretty breathless media coverage. It was that much cooler to see Joey Waronker behind the drum kit. He’s not a household name, but a true journeyman pro who’s played with artists ranging from Beck to Roger Waters and who I helped back in the day via other up and coming bands.

Reunion gigs are particularly curious events, brimming with nostalgia but also newfound relevance for the band in question. By nature, they create a bit of a divide between those who were around for the original incarnation and a younger audience who could now see a band they love for the first time (even if that means a different composition of members).

Not that any of it really matters. With the band as the bond, everyone shares in the joy, whether you’re 30 or 60. And that, in its own way, is truly beautiful. Hell, so many of the bands I worked with in the ‘90s are now finding renewed success and prominence by touring again (to quote Portlandia, “the ‘90s are alive.”). Which is ultimately a good thing. It’s 2025 and Counting Crows have a new song?! Green Day, Pearl Jam and Deftones are still selling out arenas?! Let’s go!

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But back to 1995, which was a meaningful and transitional year in my job development as an artist relations manager. First-year jitters were dispensed with, imposter syndrome extinguished, professional network established, hazing subsided, I had solidified my standing. Let’s see where this can go.

The year before, I had met and befriended an endorser named John Tempesta. He was a Bronx-born powerhouse who’d made his name in the late ‘80s with Bay Area-stalwarts Exodus and transitioned to rapidly ascendant band Testament. They were in LA getting to record an album “Low” at A&M (the recording studios co-founded by Herb Alpert in the original Charlie Chaplin compound) that would become a subtle legend, one that never had a singular “hit” but was often referenced by other musicians as an undeniable legacy piece of work. I think Johnny would still call it one of his finest studio hours.

I shlepped many a cymbal over the hill from the valley to Hollywood to nail down sounds on a drum kit that had 40 mics and was a veritable cruise liner of an instrument. Revered producers and engineers Garth Richardson and Joe Barresi were behind the boards, I had crashed (heh) into a momentary temple of hard rock and was determined to help it make sound monumental. Which it did and forever will.

Not long after its completion, John received a call from White Zombie. By that point, the band had carved out its own niche as an undeniable mashup of hard rock, heavy groove, hot-rod aesthetics and old-school horror films, perfectly suited for MTV. They rocketed seemingly overnight from lower Manhattan to the top of the Billboard charts. And it was understandably difficult for John to resist. Much to Testament’s thorough annoyance, he made the leap and soon began work on their true monster release, “Astro Creep 2000”.

Let’s just say it made an immediate impact. If you were around in the summer of ‘95 and remotely aware of your surroundings, there was no escaping this song:

The band was gearing up for a major global tour, festivals, TV appearances, like get ready, it’s all happening now and quality sleep will be a luxury not often afforded. But then this is what any band hopes for. John was a little troubled about leaving Testament, but excited for the challenge. I remember telling him, “ride it man, these are the opportunities you have to grab.”

What I don’t remember is when and how he invited me to join them on tour, but he did and I did. In the fall of ‘95 they were beginning a nationwide assault and I flew to Seattle to start a week of gigs in the Pacific Northwest. No agenda, no real plan, just come hang out and soak up a bit of life on a tour bus. I think in ways it was just enjoyable for Johnny to have a friend from home on hand beyond band members and crew. For this drummer whose trajectory peaked at a crappy van packed with bandmates and instruments, I can’t deny it was a thrill to know what that level of success felt like.

It would be understandable at this point to make some immediate assumptions. On the road and backstage in the mid-’90s at metal shows! Every night a potential canvas for a Jackson Pollock-esque display of Jack Daniels-fueled hedonism and destruction, rage ‘til dawn, tomorrow be damned! Hate to disappoint, but this band being the pros they already were, no such luck. Besides the odd prank or robust night out on a day off, road life was pretty business first, because so was Rob Zombie.

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I’ve always held a theory, backed up then and now proven by years of rigorous analysis, that the scarier a musician looks is inversely proportional to how nice they actually are. Some of the most insanely tattooed, pierced, black-clad, biker gang-looking badasses I helped I would happily invite to my niece’s tea party. Whereas some of the guys from alterna-bands of the moment were grade-A pricks. White Zombie most definitely fell in the former category.

The band Filter was the opening act on the tour, fronted by Richard Patrick, an ex-member of Nine Inch Nails fresh off their massive hit, “Hey Man, Nice Shot.” (The video for which was filmed at the then-closed and now long-gone historic Hollywood Roosevelt hotel on Wilshire in LA, where my then-assistant and I watched and ran around the joint at 2 am like the set from “The Shining” it felt like.) A solid double bill, the only issue here being that Richie had recently broken his leg and had to endure the indignity of singing from a chair onstage with a side table his tech would keep stocked with drinks and a candle.

Filter drummer Matt Walker at left (now touring with Morrissey), me, Johnny and guitarist J. Yuenger with yet another coffee in Seattle. Starbucks at that point was not yet the global monolith it is today and Seattle was a hub of the budding ‘90s cafe culture scene.

Running with the larger entourage quickly enlightened me to the very particular rhythm and consistency a band like this had to maintain on the road to make a tour successful. In this case, the crew and local support had to work in sync every stop to set up and knock down a massive stage set that also had complicated lighting and pyrotechnics. No small feat. It’s easy to overlook when you’re just a fan in the crowd enjoying the show, but the pressure over everyone is immense when so many unpredictable things can conspire to throw off a show.

As gear-guy friend of the band with an all-access pass, I quickly learned it was my job on gig days to blend into the background, go with the flow and know where you probably shouldn’t be. For me, a combination of unbridled excitement and dutiful self-restraint. Not that the environment was entirely exclusionary. Tour Manager Wookie (endearing nickname I did not bestow) was tough when he had to be, yet always welcoming, often escorting me to off-limits areas and steering me away from situations or people to avoid.

Some roadside stop outside Seattle, Johnny and Wookie on the right.

Goofily gregarious drum tech Andy O (who, I kid you not, had a three-ring binder that was an authoritative reference source for strip bars in every state. No Google, kids.) was just as hospitable, taking me behind the scenes to see all the intracacies of Rob’s wildly over-the-top stage decorations that were a fever dream of demonic day-glo characters, even start a soundcheck from behind Johnny’s kit with guitarist J (I’m still pretty inadequate at double bass).

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Offstage, the bus was truly our mobile home beyond an occasional hotel. For the uninitiated, a tour bus is a sleeker type of RV designed for its specific purpose of moving musicians and gear long distances in relative comfort. Couch banquette, dining table, bathroom and kitchenette up front behind the driver, 6-8 cocoon-like bunk berths on either side of a narrow hallway leading to a small lounge in the back. What it lacks in spaciousness, it made up for in terms of efficient function.

Rob being Rob, he and his girlfriend / stage dancer / muse Sherry had their own bus. At one point, we all had a long drive east for a gig in Spokane. Not exactly what you’d call a scenic route. Entertainment meant a small TV, early-stage video games and music, anything to pass the time as we wound through boring scrub, farmland and early precursors to what would become the generic chain store/restaurant clusters so disturbingly familiar nationwide. Guitarist J and I late-night bonded over early punk rock, craft beer, collecting British 45s and how Soundgarden’s “Superunknown,” released the previous year, was an unquestionably perfect record as we cranked it.

Then before I was ready for it, the week was over, the bus pulled into Portland and I was soon on a plane back to LA. I had a walkman for in-flight entertainment, but couldn’t scroll through pics to relive the trip on a phone because at that point in technological evolution I didn’t even have a pager.

Thankfully I had brought a small film camera along for the trip, but the results included here would have to wait until they could … wait for it … be taken to a drugstore, developed and printed. It all seems so laughably archaic now thirty years later, but the memories made on that tour remain that much more vivid and meaningful because of the lack of distraction and the ability to fully live in those moments. Sometimes old technology remains the best technology.

• Footnote: Johnny went on to record and tour with Rob Zombie and has been of late touring with The Cult for nearly twenty years. We’re still in touch and friends always.

Getting really crazy backstage with bassist Sean Yseult and some Oreos in my Reverend Horton Heat shirt and scary wash jeans.

Josh Sinder, drummer for Seattle grunge legends Tad and another of my favorite drummers and people, Matt Cameron (Soundgarden, Pearl Jam) after hoisting Johnny and his folding chair throne onto a table for no apparent reason.

A pass! Literally via a fabric sticker placed on your chest, leg or other body part, or a laminated piece of plastic on a lanyard, you’ve been granted the temporary means to break that wall between band and fan. To possibly enter some sort of inner sanctum and venture beyond the ropes, barriers and security guards to commune with the larger touring entourage, local radio hosts and record store owners, contest winners and assorted friends and family in whatever city this is and perhaps even the band itself.

Before the artist relations job I got in late 1993, I had little to no experience with “the pass” beyond being a college journalist and music reviewer that got me into some of the precious few big shows that hit Santa Barbara, California in the mid-’80s (to be fair, I did weasel my way backstage at a Stevie Ray Vaughan County Bowl show in ‘87 and managed to meet the man, RIP).

But really, I had no connections, no influence, save for a few L.A. pals who worked at labels and radio stations and occasionally got us free tickets. As my British friends would say, I was a mere “punter.” That all quickly changed, and with it, my understanding of the larger ecosphere of the touring band and the idea of “celebrity” in general. Because suddenly I was being given passes regularly and with a valid reason.

As the 1992 classic Mike Myers movie “Wayne’s World” quite wonderfully amplified, there’s an assumed forcefield when wielding the magic talisman that is the backstage pass. “Outta my way mere pedestrians, I’m going somewhere you can’t, experiencing things about which you can only dream, and you can’t stop me.”

It might be an after-show pass for a “meet and greet” (often referred to as '“grip and grins” by bands and label people for the need to, not entirely negatively, be nice to whoever is there and get it over with). These were normally held in some sort of unused area of a theater or arena where you were herded and might wait interminably after the show for anything to happen and anyone connected to the band to surface while you consider a weathered buffet of room-temp cheese and crackers and gaze awkwardly at others in your place.

Conversely, you might possess a more powerful pass, an all-access or VIP, that affords you some actual amenities, more comfortable surroundings, perhaps a side-stage or soundboard viewing area and vastly higher odds of meaningful and immediate interaction with the band.

The hierarchy of backstage passes is an odd but purposeful sort of caste system. I vividly remember printouts taped to backstage walls that showed every version of pass in use that night with specific access rights clearly delineated. That way, all of security was quite clear as to who could go where and who might be swiftly ushered out.

“All Access” was as advertised. You could roam. But if you compromised that gift, acted inappropriately, didn’t know the layout of the arena, ventured where you probably shouldn’t, look out.

“Working” put you in the crew realm, which was a sign of respect. Ostensibly you knew what that meant, you could help, you could stay out of the fucking way, but you were seen as someone who was there to support the band in a fundamental manner via gear and knowledge.

“Photo”, sure, you had a camera, but you had a tiny area in which to operate and once the gig was over, time to go. The whole arrangement is still in use because it works. You crossed the lines at your potential peril.

In my job, the type of pass bestowed at will-call with tickets (see a related post waxing lovingly about ticket stubs) was layered with subtle meaning that was primarily based on the strength and length of my relationship with the drummer. But then that wasn’t always taken into account on a given day when you didn’t know what had happened the day before, how long the band had traveled or who would be responsible for making the guest list and the mood they were in at that moment. The variables were endless and mercurial.

Which in my hyperactive young mind added additional questions. Have I earned the trust of the band to behave properly backstage? Does management and the road crew know? Would the drummer have time to hang out? Is the lead singer having a bad day and wants anyone but the band gone? Does the tour manager not give a shit and have the place on lockdown?

That last one was super important because the tour manager was the ultimate gatekeeper. These are people with endless responsibilities, whose day could go south instantly for any number of reasons. You win their approval, the kingdom’s doors crack. Three of my favorites were Gus with Foo Fighters, Zach with Metallica and Wookie with White Zombie. No matter what, the internal mantra was go with the flow man. And always be cool.

An All Access was of course the holy grail and I was fortunate to receive quite a few over the years. The key word being “access.” I bore repeated witness to the highly choreographed crew dance that is load in and load out, the crucial importance of the sound and light engineers, as well as many an onstage snafu quickly rectified by truly professional guitar and drum techs.

That was the well-oiled machine part of a large-scale touring band, most of which fans never see. Same goes for the human side of rock n’ roll that could play out backstage and on tour buses. Did I join crew and band members to shoot hoops, play ping pong or just kick back and talk? Indeed. Did I see my share of pranks, fights and downright debauchery? 100%. But what happened there, stayed there.

Keep in mind, I wasn’t carrying a cell phone in my pocket. On tour I’d bring a physical film camera, but didn’t always have it on me. I wasn’t tweeting from backstage because, right, no social media. Besides a few small photo albums I managed to not lose, those images and stories remain firmly stored in my mental hard drive. I highly doubt a lot of what I saw would even happen today, if just because now bands know full well that literally anyone in the backstage area could ruin your life with one damn Tik Tok post.

Nice blurry image of me, Josh Sinder from Tad, John Tempesta from White Zombie and Matt Cameron from Soundgarden / Pearl Jam, backstage in Seattle, 1995.

My then 6yo son Eamonn on his first experience with the pass after a Green Day show in Kansas City, 2009. Tré Cool lovingly put him in a trash can.

But back to the passes. I still have most of mine on lanyards hanging near my stereo and albums. In ways they’re fond souvenirs of shows and years past, but the idea of having them in a box somewhere also feels a bit heretical. They’re physical reminders of moments with people and musicians and shows never to be replicated. So I want to see them when I’m indulging in music, old or new.

You never knew what you were going to get or what the band would do with their passes. Some were very straightforward and related to the album on which they were touring, others were more creative, funny or downright provocative. The pass is an empty canvas, some used it better than others. One of my enduring faves was this ‘94 Soundgarden pass from the “Superunknown” tour featuring a ferocious lap dog. Because why not.

Or this one from one of my Top 10 shows ever, the first American stop on the 1997 “OK Computer” tour at the glorious art deco palace that is the Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles’ Koreatown neighborhood. Radiohead doesn’t fuck around and calls it what it is. Scottish power-pop legends Teenage Fanclub opened and I was able to have a nice hang with members of both bands post-soundcheck so the pass was almost an afterthought. We were too blown away by the show to do anything but head to a bar nearby to process what we’d just witnessed. But I had to save it, because look at it.

This guy below now holds a special place in my Friction Beer Co taproom as part of a wall of framed ticket stubs and passes. It was from one of the first gigs the band played after their years-long world tour for its monumental “Black Album.” A way to get their live-show legs back after a well-deserved long vacation. I was relatively fresh into the job and a massive Metallica head who hadn’t seen the band in six years, so I couldn’t deny the fanboy urges percolating in my body. I watched from the side of the stage at Cal State Dominguez Hills with a drum rep friend and met a crew for the first time with whom I’d continue to work for the rest of my years in the job. And yes, Lars is as prickly and unpredictable as rumored.

Then there was this reminder of what security deals with on a nightly basis. I moved to Boston from Los Angeles to work at Zildjian headquarters in 1998. The main outdoor amphitheatre there was called Great Woods, located a half-hour south of the city not far from Foxboro Stadium where the Patriots play. I was there constantly, to the point the head of security knew me and the job I was there to do and let me wander. But he wore this as a warning to those who might try and storm the barriers without the right pass. I felt truly honored when he gave me one.

A few months ago an old drummer / tech friend was in town with Primus, A Perfect Circle and Puscifer on the Sessanta tour. We met up the day before in Kansas City and hung out with the crew, and when I got out to the local amphitheatre for the show the next day there was a Working pass for me. Another tech on the tour was one I knew from Rage Against The Machine. Life can be fun like that. More than two decades after leaving that realm, I love that friendly ghosts still surround and embrace me and the pass still retains its seductive power.

Key to the film was the bickering crew of pals gathering in a bowling alley, the kind that’s almost an archetype of how I would dream an alley to be as a Gen-X kid. Vibrant, citrusy colors, mid-century cool, obligatory bar where you could share a bottle of macro-American lager with Sam Elliott. Yes, please.

It was called the Hollywood Star Lanes, which opened in 1960. The gorgeous neon-laden structure was located on Santa Monica Boulevard, but not the more notorious stretches of that long road through West Hollywood and areas to the coast. This was east of the 101 freeway that winds north/south through the LA basin. And as anyone who’s lived in LA for more than a year knows, that east/west divide is as cultural as it is geographical.

Call me sentimental, or a naive preservationist, but I wholeheartedly believe every city that still possesses them should, for our spiritual and historical connection to all that has come before, protect, elevate and otherwise celebrate worthy examples of period architecture that could never be truly replicated. Including bowling alleys. Alas, that’s an uphill battle. The lanes were razed in 2002 after the L.A. Unified School District seized the land by eminent domain to build what is now known as Kingsley Elementary School.

I bring it all up because I recently saw a “Dude” meme that made me think of a time in the ‘90s when the bowling alley used in the film was the setting for a meaningful musical moment. Ironically, it happened a few months before the year “The Big Liebowski” was released.

I was at Star Lanes in the fall of 1997 to bowl with a couple of work colleagues and an endorser/friend Mike Malinin, drummer from the Goo Goo Dolls. Aside from the band’s unfortunate name (which they unabashedly acknowledge), it had become an “alternative rock” mainstay by this point. Mike was an unaffected, amiable Texas dude who’d replaced original drummer George Tutuska after a band falling-out. He was a punk kid at heart, but one with talent thanks to the renowned North Texas State percussion program.

I was a big fan to that point. The Goo Goo Dolls were shamelessly reminiscent of my beloved, raggedy Minneapolis legends, The Replacements. I would put my home-recorded cassette of “Superstar Car Wash,” their fourth album released in 1993, in my Walkman and jog from my Koreatown apartment through the ritzy adjacent neighborhoods of Larchmont and Hancock Park. It launched their breakout single, “Name” and set them on an upward trajectory that now has them ready to do a big amphitheater reunion tour this summer.

That night we were just pals hanging out, trying to remember how to score the games and downing Budweisers. It was the kind of thing you did in LA in the ‘90s when you didn’t want to go to a concert or nightclub or coffee shop, but still wanted to get out of your tiny apartments and be together. Even if you pretty well sucked at bowling.

Near the end of the night, Mike beckoned me to his car to hear a new track the band had just recorded. It was also on a cassette, that he popped into the dashboard stereo. We sat in the Star Lanes parking lot, doors closed, volume cranked as it all washed over me. And the first thing I could think was: “Mike, your life is about to get a lot different.”

Think of the one damn song that rises above all others in the Dolls’ discography. The song that rocket-launched them from sideline darlings to mainstream behemoths. It’s OK, take a second. But then, yeah, you got it.

“Iris” was written for the “City of Angels” film soundtrack, but was later included on the band’s sixth album, “Dizzy Up The Girl.” Rob Cavallo was the producer, who I knew from his long-time involvement with Green Day. Singer/writer Johnny Rzeznik said it was named after singer-songwriter Iris DeMent, whose name he noticed in a concert listing in the LA Weekly newspaper (which at the time was our indispensable guide to all that was happening).

“Iris” was released as a single on APRIL FOOL’S DAY, 1998. It reached Number One in numerous countries, including Australia, Italy and Canada, and number three in the United Kingdom. In Ireland, it’s the 19th most successful single of all-time. At that moment, it was the inescapable vacuum, the sledgehammer hit.

Of course “Iris” was a power-ballad, but one with some hidden muscle. Mike had some killer drum parts and fills in the bridge. As much as I might have wanted to question the change in musical direction based on my history with the band, I couldn’t fault them for expanding their proverbial horizons and not getting boxed in. Plus it was catchy as hell.

Fast-forward. Tensions quickly flared in the band. Egos grew. Fame worked its poison magic. Mike left. He now lives in Nashville and the last time I saw him here in Kansas City roughly five years ago at Knuckleheads (a honky-tonk inspired venue under an overpass deserving your attention) he was a dad touring with country legend Tanya Tucker. Time has a way of making decisions for us all beyond our agency, desires or lack of caring. But the impact of that original night and bowling alley shared nearly 30 years ago in Los Angeles remains steadfast.

There is ample territory to explore here and I couldn’t help but take the bait. All my bands over the years wove in and out of power pop territory, partly because I love it in my bones and it’s so fun to play. It’s also a style that’s not hard to “get,” nor designed to be overly challenging. While many of its practitioners are absurdly talented musicians, they’re never trying to deliberately dazzle you with guitar wizardry, shifting time signatures or gratuitous solos.

Which is also what makes power pop deceptively simple. And I’ve always believed in the theory that the seemingly easiest things to do or create are actually that much harder to do really well. There’s precious few places in which to hide potential flaws. Like when making a French omelette.

Perhaps the “power” part is a little misleading. Though many a power pop song will have the amps cranked, under that crunchy exterior always lies a sweet creamy center. Even the Foo Fighters to me can live in this realm. Though deservedly staples of alternative and rock radio for now 30 freakin’ years, Dave Grohl channels Paul McCartney far more often than Lemmy. As a songwriter, the dude’s got more hooks than a tackle box.

At this point, I don’t overthink the original question. To paraphrase an old senator who shall remain nameless when asked to define pornography, “I know it when I hear it.” And in keeping with the overarching theme of my posts here and eventual book, I firmly believe the ‘90s were an unheralded golden era for power pop.

That decade was musically and culturally overshadowed by mini-waves like shoegaze, grunge, industrial, nu-metal and Britpop, but percolating under the surface and way down the charts were bands and songs of true power pop genius (1992 in particular was a graveyard of greatness, all buried under the larger weight of the period zeitgeist). I helped many of their drummers with used gear and tour support, knowing I didn’t have the legitimacy to sign them as endorsers but wanting to do at least something to keep them going.

Some were one-hit wonders, some managed to continually find their audiences, tour often and release multiple albums. Some were of the more verse-chorus-repeat catchy rock variety, some more reflective of the layered and symphonic Brian Wilson / Beatles school. There’s too many to list here, but I’ve singled out some enduring favorites below:

Jellyfish - The King Is Half-Undressed

Their debut “Bellybutton” was released in 1990 and little did they know it was soon to be a casualty of the tsunami that was Nirvana’s “Nevermind”. But sweet baby jeezus what a collection of orchestration, harmony, melody and overall gorgeous songwriting. Drummer Andy Sturmer was the lead singer who stood at his unusual cocktail kit at the front of the stage. This was the lead single that he owned in vocal and beat and when the video hit MTV I was mesmerized. I felt like I was watching psychedelics-fueled Saturday morning cartoons. It rocked in a way that reminded me of their influences, while delivering in a manner uniquely their own. The album was critically acclaimed and beloved by fellow musicians but went nowhere. The band soon released an arguably more complete follow-up and not long after the members went their own ways.

Owlsley - The Radio

I got this CD from a friend at a label in 1999. Had never heard of him. This song in particular checked all the power pop boxes. Sharp-edged guitar and bass interplay, undeniable chorus. But also a five-minute song with all kinds of layers (even a guitar solo!), not your usual sugar rush. The whole album followed suit. Later learned he tragically took his own life.

Superdrag - Sold You An Alibi

After an initial hit (“Sucked Out”) from their debut subsided, it seemed the band couldn’t catch a break. But from 1996 until their breakup in 2003, they pumped out a string of true power-pop masterpieces and the album “Head Trip In Every Key” should have been massive. The opening guitar line and staggered drumbeat that kicks it all off here sweep you away instantly. John Davis’ vocals can swing from a throaty growl to sweet pleading and were just made for this style of music. Full of dynamics and tasty quick turns, this song just punches you in the gut and then smooches you on the lips.

Teenage Fanclub - Starsign

Scottish. A full 1:20 intro of distortion and build up before the song actually kicks in (not reflected in this video). Sign me up. In 1991 Spin Magazine voted “Bandwagonesque” their album of the year, and rightfully so, but not without some predictable blowback. Whatever. This soldifies their greatness in granite, a dreamy, pulsing, head-bobbing romp.

Sugar - If I Can’t Change Your Mind

A paen to love from ex-Hüsker Dü frontman Bob Mould, on the landmark debut “Copper Blue” from this short-lived project that blew a damn hole in my head at the time in 1993. Guitar-driven, urgent, three guys plowing ahead with remarkably tuneful force. This song was a short and sweet standout for its sunshiny jangle and yearning vocal. Of it I never tire.

The Wondermints - Out Of Mind

I don’t even know where to start with this band. Beyond the crime of them being largely ignored, their small catalogue resides regally on my shelves. Like Jellyfish, they plumbed the depths of ‘60s-influenced pop and psychedelia with studio polish, seemingly effortless musicanship and a sorcerer’s hand with a tune. I listen to this and picture secretaries in shift dresses and bouffants doing the twist poolside at a mid-century house off Mulholland Drive, martinis at the ready, a golden sunset casting a shimmering glow on it all.

Fountains of Wayne - Denise

Arguably my favorite band of the last 30 years, whose bassist, co-writer and singer Adam Schlesinger was tragically claimed by Covid in 2020. Their gifts were so endless, the way they made lyrics about generic everyday existence so charming, their knack for writing songs that instantly tattooed themselves on your brain so undeniable, they were the whole damn package and could shift instantly from a stomping rocker to an acoustic love song. Even my kids loved them. I was going to reflexibly include here a standout song (among many) from their eponymous debut (“Radiation Vibe”), but for the power side of the equation opted for this more guitar-driven diamond from their sophomore effort “Utopia Parkway”. The video makes it all the better, with the Devo-esque suits, electronic drum kit and coordinated moves. The “sha-la-las”, the snare that sounds like handclaps in the chorus, holy hell, just please pour more pure maple syrup on this fluffy musical waffle.

Very honorable mention:

XTC - The Disappointed

Nada Surf - Hyperspace

Material Issue - Valerie Loves Me

The Grays - Very Best Years

Jason Falkner - Eloquence

Matthew Sweet - Girlfriend

Gigolo Aunts - Cope

Buffalo Tom - Sodajerk

The Cavedogs - Love Grenade

LA is uniquely unlike other cities in that is also a place onto which people all over the world project their aspirations, dreams, assumptions and judgments. So many feel they know it because it will always be an integral part of pop culture, whether immortalized in song or portrayed in film and TV (amazingly, the Altadena home that was the set for Beverly Hills 90210 somehow survived the Eaton fire).

Pacific Palisades, Malibu, Beverly Hills, Hollywood Boulevard, the Valley, all are locations of both reality and fantasy, connection and escape. They’re not ones anyone could believe would possibly be associated with tragedy. Until it happens, like now.

What we know as the Los Angeles region is at its core a desert, a giant basin of baked earth ringed with foothills of native scrub into which water has been pumped and diverted from the Colorado River and other sources for decades because it otherwise wouldn’t survive. Which helps make it disturbingly vulnerable to natural forces like wind, rain and fire that have been fueled and emboldened by the effects of climate change. Massive homes built for the wealthy by greedy developers in fire zones don’t help.

I moved to Los Angeles straight after graduating college in Santa Barbara up the coast and would come and go three times before saying a final goodbye to move to Kansas City in 2004. In total, a little over a decade in apartments from Venice to West Hollywood to Koreatown and finally a ‘30s Spanish house I miss dearly in the Eagle Rock / Glassell Park area on the east side near Pasadena (an area recently evacuated).

Those years were overwhelmingly dominated by my artist relations job throughout the ‘90s. From our tiny office just over Laurel Canyon in Studio City I’d regularly bounce around the city, from rehearsal and recording studios in the San Fernando Valley to record company and management offices in Burbank to video shoots on the westside to clubs and venues in Hollywood and far beyond.

Despite the stereotypical aura of sunshine and celebrity that still somehow surrounds the city like a glitzy cocoon, there was always a bit of a vulnerable feeling to existence for anyone living in LA. Not a question of if, but when, something bad could happen.

Like for how long as I can remember there was always fearful talk and anticipation of “The Big One,” a potentially historic earthquake along the San Andreas Fault that traverses the state like a giant scar. Or when the riots tore the city apart in 1991 in the wake of the Rodney King verdict. Or how there was a pervasive dark joke among locals that LA’s four seasons were more of the fire, mudslides and earthquake variety than spring, summer and fall.

In late fall of 1993, the first year I started my Zildjian job, wildfires raged across many of the same neighborhoods that currently no longer exist. A few months later, the 6.7 magnitude Northridge earthquake rocked the city to its foundations. I was thrown out of bed in the middle of the night just as cymbals were strewn across our office, freeways and apartments crumbled and aftershocks kept everyone on edge for weeks.

I’ll never forget huddling in our apartment the day after with a drummer endorser who lived a few blocks away, watching news updates on TV, munching on Trader Joe’s chips and salsa and overall feeling dazed and confused but glad we had each other around.

Freeway scenes north of LA post-earthquake

Then as now, in times of sadness, misfortune or otherwise inexplicable awfulness, I take refuge in music. And Los Angeles has for decades been both home and fertile and fantastic territory to explore for every genre of musicians, from Neil Young’s “Zuma” and Randy Newman’s “I Love LA” to NWA’s “Straight Outta Compton” and Missing Persons’ “Walking in LA.”

Two of my favorite songs about Los Angeles hit with totally different attitude and approach:

Soul Coughing was a New York band that surfaced in the mid-’90s and I was immediately drawn to them for how hard to categorize they were. Their drummer I helped was a diminutive Israeli named Yuval Gubay who played a wild minimalist kit of few cymbals and drums and more percussive bits and pieces.

Influences abounded, but the band’s sound was unmistakable in instrumentation and delivery (stand-up bass, guitar, keyboards and samples, vocals spoken more than sung, wut?!). They came across in the way I imagine the Talking Heads must have been received in the late ‘70s, an at times head-scratching mix of curiosity, personality, lyrical dexterity and musicality.

Soul Coughing’s first alt radio hit from its debut was called “Screenwriter’s Blues,” and at the time it sounded like nothing else. While it was an outsider’s commentary on Los Angeles, it felt knowledgeable, at once a mix of appreciation and cynical assessment:

I am going to Los Angeles to build a screenplay about lovers who murder each other.
I am going to Los Angeles to see my own name on a screen, five feet long and luminous.
And the radio man says, "It is 5 A.M.”, and the sun has charred the other side of the world and come back to us and painted the smoke over our heads an imperial violet.

Full lyrics here, and worth your time.

The band X was born out of the late ‘70s Hollywood punk scene that also nurtured the Go-Gos, Germs and others. I discovered them in high school down south in San Diego when punk was mostly all I cared about and have loved them ever since (they just put out a fantastic swan song album, a more burn out than fade away goodbye). John Doe’s incredible croon somehow meshed in harmonic perfection with Exene Cervenka’s wail, fueled by Billy Zoom’s rapid-fire rockabilly riffs and DJ Bonebrake’s propulsive drums. Getting to know and help DJ made it all the better.

The song “Los Angeles” was also their debut album title and it quickly cuts a dark tale of desperation and escape. No love letter to their home, quite the opposite. But it remains indelible and timeless.

She had to leave, Los Angeles
She found it hard to say goodbye to her own best friend
She bought a clock on Hollywood Boulevard the day she left
It felt sad, it felt sad, it felt sad

She had to get out (get out)
Get out (get out)
Get out (get out)

Prized possession.

Los Angeles remains a city of glorious contradictions. It’s transactional and transient for many and a place some love to hate even if they haven’t been there. The myths obscure the truths. It’s an easy target, often misunderstood and mischaracterized. Which is probably in part due to its larger than life persona and daunting size. So many visit and only scratch the surface, seeing the sights and little else.

But it’s between the cracks, away from the marquees and down the alleys where Los Angeles truly shines and speaks to its residents. It is what you make of it, and those who take the time find their city within a city like I did, feel deep connection and remain truly devoted. Though no longer there, I shall forever be a staunch defender of its larger promise and the dreams it will always instill.

I look forward to Los Angeles rebounding from yet another violent interruption as the target of an angry earth and hearing it sing in full throat again. I want to think it will rebuild in smarter ways that honor its past while protecting itself against an increasingly uncertain future. With requisite style of course. Mostly, I read news like this and have hope. And in our current climate, hope feels like power.

The 2000 millennium changeover was one in particular. Despite the avalanche of fear-induced panic, computers never crashed and my fiance and I walked around the frigid Boston Common to take in the lights and ice sculptures before spontaneously ending up on our condo rooftop with our neighbors at midnight. Boston was good like that.

Then there was another the year before in the winding Griffith Park hills of Los Angeles near the Greek Theatre at the gorgeous 1930s-era Spanish revival home of then-married rock-star super couple of Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale. Like, what?! No, really.

We were mere outliers, there because of my friends and our mutual relationship with No Doubt drummer Adrian Young. It was what we called a “starfucker party,” bursting at the seams with distinctly ‘90s celebrities, associated scenesters and hangers-on. We knew those types of parties happened all the time in LA, but this was one of momentous proportions to us at the time because we were actually there and HAVING it.

At one point, a fittingly lubricated Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee burst through the front door in typical fashion, loudly proclaiming his presence as his sidekick for the night, Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins, snickered and followed along. Taylor shuffled quickly past Beck through a hallway toward the kitchen where we were, and upon catching sight of each other, grabbed my cheeks and laid a massive smooch on me before we caught up for a minute and he was off again.

“What the hell just happened?!” my then-girlfriend exclaimed, both surprised and bewildered. “That’s just Taylor,” I said, chuckling and holding up my hands in a “I have no control of this situation” type of gesture. It had never happened before, but the unchecked joy in that few seconds was very much indicative of the type of person he was.

We’re soon nearing the three-year anniversary of his shitty, unnecessary death. I thought of him again recently when seeing The Darkness, an undeniably fun British rock band whose drummer Rufus Taylor (son of Queen drummer Roger Taylor, who ironically Taylor idolized) has the same hawk tattoo in the same spot on his arm as Taylor. We chatted after the gig about him and my memories of our interaction and professional friendship from over two decades ago were instantly, thoroughly vivid again.

Taylor and I first met in 1995. At the time, he was drumming for Alanis Morrisette on the heels of her pop-culture crushing debut album that unleashed one of the most indelible feminist anthems ever. I was a year and a half into my artist relations job, by then well-familiarized with the requirements but also new enough to still feel hungry to prove myself. Respectful, yet a bit rebellious.

The upstart from Laguna Beach was already a hot commodity and playing a competitor’s cymbals at the time (those preferred by another of his heroes, Police drummer Stewart Copeland). Which to me was both an impediment and an irresistible challenge. I had to establish contact and win his respect as a person, while being able to convince him that our instruments were superior and of better use to him as a professional musician. No small task, and one I would repeat many times. But I loved it and believed wholeheartedly in what I was selling.

Keep in mind, the internet then was in its earliest stages. There was no social media. I had a pager, not a cell phone. Through connections, I made contact with his drum tech and learned the band would be rehearsing in a midtown New York City studio for an MTV appearance at the same time I’d be in town for an annual live music showcase. Time to hatch a plan.

I studied his setup and hand-picked a version of the same with our cymbals. I had them sent to my hotel in New York, shlepped them in a cab and met up with the band at rehearsals, shared the new equipment and won his approval, perhaps in part from the personal attention. The next morning, I took him to an Upper East Side diner for breakfast and he ordered chocolate chip pancakes. A sign of the kid inside the man. Or as I would lovingly refer to him, “a human golden retriever.”

Not long after that, Taylor would assume the hotly contested Foo Fighters throne after Dave let go original drummer Will Goldsmith. It’s well-known that the band was always thoroughly a Dave Grohl Production™ and in first realizing his vision for a post-Nirvana band incarnation, Dave played pretty much everything. At least on the first two albums (the second of which, “The Colour and the Shape,” became a massive hit that slingshot the band skyward where it would continue to remain in orbit until … *checks calendar* … right, still one of the most popular acts on the planet).

In Taylor, Dave knew he not only had a new best friend but a drummer of his caliber who would leave his own stamp on the band’s sound and perhaps more importantly, become the yin to Grohl’s yang, a commanding but complimentary personality in his own right. So on the band’s third album, “Nothing Left To Lose,” both Taylor and Dave’s drum parts were used in the final release. Even though Taylor was admittedly intimidated by the idea of recording in front of Dave.

The rest is proverbial history and Taylor rightfully launched himself into the drumming pantheon. I worked with he and the Dave until I left the job in 2000. A couple of our best moments, beyond so many remarkable shows through the years:

The 1997 MTV Video Music Awards at Radio City Music Hall in New York. I met up with Taylor and we ran around the curving staircases, nooks and alcoves of that stunning, historic theater like it was a playground, until the band was called to literally play on the roof of the infamous neon marquee fronting the Avenue of the Americas. To get there, everyone crawled out a window from a room where I watched with management, tour crew, sundry others and a seemingly bored Cindy Crawford.

A show at the Avalon club in Boston in 1998 on Landsdowne street right outside Fenway Park’s famed Green Monster. I’d recently moved there from Los Angeles to work at Zildjian headquarters on the south shore of the city. I showed up to soundcheck with a local photographer friend and while unsuspectingly waiting I was suddenly tackled to the floor (ewww) by Taylor and instantly dogpiled by Dave.

I was wearing a very period chunky silver chain bracelet I rarely took off that under the collective weight left a mark for weeks. Somehow I appreciated it. The gig was opened by San Diego stalwarts Rocket from the Crypt, whose fantastic drummer Atom Willard remains a friend to this day and currently plays with ever-wonderful Alkaline Trio. Both bands were on fire that night.

(That floor.)

(That bracelet.)

I wouldn’t see Taylor again until I moved back to Los Angeles in 2002. By that time, he’d already had an overdose scare in Europe and I instantly knew everything for him would be different. My then-pregnant wife and I were at a Supergrass show at the ever-endearing, historic Troubadour club, our favorite. Taylor loved Supergrass too, they’d toured together and both bands had a similar uplifting spirit.

We were in the venue’s upstairs loft that overlooked the stage from a tiny, high school gym-like bleacher arrangement. I spied Taylor at the railing and excitedly yelled to him, gesturing at my wife’s lovely swollen belly. He turned and his face registered the conflicted look of someone happily seeing a friendly ghost from their past, while trying desperately to banish destructive former tendencies and everyone associated with them. Taylor was not the only endorser with whom I experienced this kind of tension and forced distance via understandable rehab program requirements.

That was the last interaction we ever had. I’ve now lived in Kansas City for 20 years and have seen the Foos a few times, twice with my son who loves them like me. Never once did I try to play the “remember me?” card with the tour crew to get backstage or into the show. I probably could have, but somehow it didn’t feel right. I didn’t live that life anymore. I wanted to remember it for what it was and be happy for that.

When Taylor passed, I was as crushingly stunned as everyone else. There are some compulsive personalities who seem absolutely hellbent on self-sabotage and unable to knock sense into themselves. The ones you fear upon meeting them might not be with us for long.

Taylor never struck me as one of those. Despite his now obvious pain, he was too full of life and later into the Foos’ career, focused on his wife and kids and friends and everything he continued to accomplish. Which is not to say he couldn’t be both all of that and a tortured soul ever-susceptible to demonic seduction.

His 17yo son Shane is already flashing signs of drumming greatness (though I didn’t try to attend Taylor’s memorial concerts in London and Los Angeles where Shane played, I watched the YouTube replays full of sadness and inspiration). Dad’s innate talent is no doubt coursing through the kid’s veins. I just dearly wish that Taylor could still be around to see it and also be there for his family, while continuing to further his own legacy.

In typical form, the post was laced with true Gen-X self-deprecating humor and pointed perspective, a memory of a late-’80s gig at CBGBs in New York City. The show was during the early stages of the band and apparently not of the highest caliber thanks to ruthless hangovers and leftover effects of aspiring rock star excess. But it still fulfilled a dream of playing that hallowed club that was so instrumental in the nurturing of anything that wasn’t musically mainstream but might soon be (RIP). So all in all, not a total loss.

There is something about looking back at ourselves at early stages in our lives and having a laugh that can feel at once embarrassing and oddly liberating. All the bad hair and bad clothes and questionable decisions, the person we once were that led to who we are now. Assuming we didn’t peak in high school and as Springsteen would put it, miss the “glory days” because our present is less rewarding.

The Black Crowes, as Steve so beautifully put in his wonderful memoir “Hard To Handle”, were all of that and far beyond. A band that wore its influences on its long sleeves yet never failed to make their sound distinctly their own. In my many times seeing them, you could tell when they were not on their game, which was still what anyone would consider good, and others where the roof got blown off, the whole theatre/arena/club felt transcendent and you bore witness to fleeting titanic heights (ironically the one that sears in my memory was a 1995 show during the “Amorica” tour at LA’s stunningly gorgeous Pantages theater when the band was arguably at a drugged-out low but guitarist Marc Ford in particular was otherwordly and the band was firing on all cylinders and we all ended hanging in an oriental rug floored backstage den of iniquity). All of which to me is the mark of a truly landmark band (e.g. The Replacements).

As I revisit my ‘90s past for this book, it would be easy to write by looking through the rosy lens of nostalgia and like social media today highlight only the bright, shiny aspects of our lives. Which would conveniently mask the reality that is daily existence, the soaring highs and crushing lows, the inevitable yin/yang that hopefully keeps us in check and appreciative of every breath.

There was plenty of all of that during those years. Bands signed, bands dropped. Band members fired, others hired. Crushing addiction, champagne corks popped for platinum albums. All of which made the time so memorable, visceral, meaningful and otherwise instrumental. That balance leads to progress. No matter what, inevitably we have to confront our demons and hopefully, eventually, ride a gilded horse to some sort of greatness. Or at least a place of peace with ourselves, our past and our future.

It’s just a piece of paper. Or is it? That scrap (if you managed to save it) that proves you were at THAT show in THAT venue, you were there before they got big or you saw them at that pivotal time of their career arc. But one always loaded with meaning and value, if just in your memory bank.

In ways now an actual ticket, whether to a play, football game, movie or other event, seems quaint and unnecessary. After all, their whole nature is of one-time admission, momentary proof that you’ve earned entry, and once inside the actual gates it becomes irrelevant.

Which is why concert tickets have understandably now become as digitized as our bills, bank statements and coffee shop rewards cards. No one anymore beyond the cranks who abhor change is denying the appeal of that convenience and ability to keep stuff out of our mailboxes and trash cans. It’s all on my phone! Lucky me! Scan that sucker and let’s get on with it.

But as so many things we once knew as physical become ephemeral or a blip in the ever-enlarging hard drive folder of things you’ll probably never reference again unless by chance, I can’t help but feel glad I still have the box of concert stubs that traverses decades.

Some are very standardized thanks to the procession of inherently evil ticket-broker monopolies that continue to this day, some are more distinct and reflective of the era and the particular venue. Each, however, is a mental rocket-shot back to that particular evening and band. Like photographs, some are faded, wrinkled, otherwise abused, but still something I can hold in my hand, feel and examine, to let myself get wrapped in the history and stories they hold like a genie’s lamp.

During my music industry years I would often just be put “on the list” by bands and musicians I was there to see. Which meant you’d present an ID, your name would be checked off and you’d be granted entry but there may or may not be an actual ticket involved. So unfortunately for the hundreds of shows I’ve attended in my life, I now have a sketchy record of them.

Just recently, I bought online tickets to a fantastic show by Fontaines DC in Lawrence, Kansas and purposefully chose the “will call” method of delivery. I knew they wouldn’t be something I could store in my digital wallet, but rather a printed ticket I’d receive, present that night and put in my pocket to add to the collection.

Because I am old, but I have the goddamn receipts.

Which is a classically LA tale as old as our memories are short. This city where I came and went but spent a combined decade between 1988 and 2002 has always been one that paid scant attention to its history, typically deferring to redevelopment and the lure of quick profit. It is one of the more transient cities in the country after all, full of people who come in droves from everywhere else to hopefully exploit it for their own advancement.

While there has been plenty of change on that part of the strip over the last 20 years (e.g. new towers and no more House of Blues), many original linchpin structures do still remain even if not as they were always known. For example, the flagship Tower Records store on the east end that opened in 1971 and became symbolic as THE place to go for music. The Comedy Store. Hotels like the ‘70s Hyatt (Riot House) and art deco gem the Sunset Tower. The bones of ghosts here can still cast their spells.

If you were never acquainted, the Strip is just as it sounds, a particularly serpentine sliver of the larger Sunset Boulevard (which winds all the way from downtown to the coast). It’s perched high in the hills overlooking the larger LA basin and perhaps as a result, this stretch developed over time into an ever-evolving concentration of hotels, nightclubs, bars and restaurants. 

Throughout the years it has always been a magnet for nighttime adventure, counterculture exploration, accessible danger, illicit behavior and occasional scandal. Each decade had its hotspots. Some like the Whisky A Go Go, Roxy and Rainbow Bar and Grill are still the vibrant touchstones they always were. Those three in particular were ones in my music job where I spent endless hours helping drummers, watching shows, soaking in the overall aura and honoring those who came before. The one time my then silly power-pop band played the Roxy, (the same tiny club where some of my all-time favorite bands played before they got big and where I first interacted with the Foo Fighters right after they’d formed), I felt like I had my own personal rockstar moment even though our applause was polite at best.

The Viper Room was a 1993 addition to the block described earlier, taking over a club known during the ‘80s as The Central (featured in the ‘84 Nic Cage movie “Valley Girl,” where the Plimsouls were the band onstage. Before that, I have to mention, it was called Filthy McNasty’s. Really.) Johnny Depp was a co-owner, the first night featured Tom Petty, they painted the whole thing black, it sucked all the air out of the Strip at the time and became a celebrity-fueled vortex of stargazers, hangers on, tourists and news crews. Picture man-mountain bouncers, velvet ropes, lines down the hill and a lot of people with whom you didn’t want to hang out. 

At the same time, it was a legit pedigreed venue with a solid sound system and a two-level bar. Big-name touring bands in town (Rolling Stones, Oasis, etc.) gravitated there to do after-show midnight performances, fostering a word-of-mouth / next-day newspaper clipping FOMO. It was always a scene. At one point, I got to know a bouncer who understood I was there to work, gave me knowing nods and speeded my entry, which made it all more tolerable. 

But then I’ll never forget some downright beautiful evenings there, most notably a ‘96 show by the stoner-blues hard rock outfit Masters of Reality (ask your musician friends, a legendary and influential band whose principals are now revered producers of bands like Queens of the Stone Age). It was one of those nights ordained from on high to be one for the books. The band went on characteristically late, around midnight, but immediately proceeded to dislodge the roof from its foundations. 

I was there with my pal J, guitarist from White Zombie who also loved them, we had beers, the air was electric, all systems go. The Masters’ drummer then was a friend and one of my faves I’d previously helped with Bay Area punk band Samiam, Victor Indrizzo (keep in mind this was a band that often rotated drummers, at one point recording with Cream drummer Ginger Baker). Vic now tours with Alanis Morrisette and most recently backed up the luminously wonderful Mexican singer Natalia LaFourcade and the LA Symphony. That Masters show was made into a ferocious live album.

But now all that is ready to be consigned to the junkyards and scrapbooks. The block is going away. The developers have worked a new Viper Room into their renderings and future plans, but I can’t help but be skeptical it will be a shell of its former self (except for the douchey parts), on life support in name and reputation only. There will be plenty of logo t-shirts sold, but in a sad sort of “CBGBs at Target” sort of way. 

The destruction of The Viper Room, the liquor store with its beacon-like arrow neon sign and the rest of the block can’t help but feel like a transitional and possibly domino-effect development. Which all sounds like I’m whining about the past going away, afraid to embrace the future. Not the case. I’m all in favor of progress, just not at the expense of everything that gives an area character, gravitas and enduring personality. This country has already in so many states become a banal cookie-cutter parody of itself, one urban sprawl housing development and indistinguishable, car-centric shopping center after another. It’s one thing in the suburbs, it’s quite another in a place like the Strip.

Even the city of West Hollywood seems to have thrown up its hands. The bottom line: Once you lose connection to your history, you lose a bit of yourself and remain forever ungrounded. These buildings about to be bulldozed might not be able to maximize the value of their square footage, but they anchor this area in ways spiritually and visually that can’t be replicated. The soul sucked out, the rough wrinkles of lived experience smoothed over in gleaming steel and undulating concrete. And there are precious few left, a tipping point reached. My memories of all my time on the Strip will remain tattooed on my brain, but I fear upon my next return to LA the sidewalks will be the same but I won’t recognize much else anymore. 

P.S.

Two IG accounts I follow that work hard to protect LA and are worth your time:

@alisonmartino

@laconservancy

In doing all this, I wish deeply that I had more physical record of these years that saw me move back to Los Angeles after a few years in Hong Kong (that’s a whole ‘nuther wonderful story), break up with a long-term girlfriend and move a couple of times. Which is a total Michelin four-star recipe for disaster when it comes to keeping track of all your stuff. Layered onto that reality is the fact that all my pictures were physical, not digital. Same with files and paperwork. The visions in my mind are still vivid and varied, but I can’t imagine how much was lost as collateral damage.

Then I stumbled across this. Whoa:

This was my office in a small, secretive space fronting Ventura Boulevard in Studio City, prime San Fernando Valley real estate over the hills from Hollywood. I would initially drive over Laurel Canyon via Crescent Heights to get there, then after a move that took me to Koreatown down the 101. There was no signage, window shades always closed, it was stucco faceless and deliberately off the radar and we existed there solely to do our jobs and help endorsers (of all stripes, from up-and-coming bands to the best drummers in the world knocking on the back door) come swap out gear and try new cymbals in a drum room we had at the back. There was a good sushi bar Teru across the street, where my first boss punked me on my first day by giving me a piece of quail’s egg and uni nigiri I washed down with beer as quickly as possible without gagging, and phenomenal strip-mall sashimi spot adjacent (all hail Asanebo) where the clientele was always majority Japanese and I would invariably go with my friend Joe (RIP) who was the artist rep for Japanese-made Tama drums. For the majority of ‘93-’98 that whole scenario was just myself and an adored assistant/friend who has since been holding down the fort for the last 25 years.

As you can plainly see, I’m VERY organized. Giant monthly calendar on the wall that was probably largely ignored. Desk phone with an answering machine. Very ‘80s curved desk. Metallica tour book in my hand (these were pretty essential for major bands and touring entourages, as you had all the tour dates and contact details in one small, spiral-bound place), probably ‘96-97 tour. My sartorial “style” at the time was largely thrift store, old and rockabilly inspired. Bad haircut (like WTF, I lived in LA, could I not find someone to help make me look good or was I just cheap and not finding the right person? Apparently the latter). High school Clash poster above a bulletin board of artist and friend pics, to-dos, a postcard of Picasso’s “Guernica” and a Reverend Horton Heat bandanna. What’s not visible in this photo are these lovely desk accessories, the Rolodexes.

Yes, back then that’s how you stockpiled phone numbers, addresses, business cards and contacts. Hulking, rotating, alphabetized, cartoonish carousels I consulted all day long. One was for artists, one was for everyone else, from labels to managers to techs to rental and rehearsal facilities, the works. Why did I keep them? Perhaps I knew we might be laughing about them in 30 years, artifacts as fossilized as a rotary phone or filing cabinet.

Until now. Despite my advancing age and the fact I recently embarked on an entrepreneurial journey to run a craft brewery and taproom near my Kansas City neighborhood, I’ve been encouraged by friends and colleagues alike to revisit a seemingly small slice of my past that had resonance beyond myself I never considered. That of transitional years throughout the 1990s when I was an LA and Boston-based artist relations manager for a global instrument manufacturer (OK, Zildjian, the foremost drumming name in cymbals and drumsticks). It was a unique job, straddling record labels, radio, artist management, extended crew and the artists themselves. One where my main duty was to connect with any drummer across all genres who was in a band making a name, sign them as product endorsers and then take care of them in the studio, on the road, you name it (many of whom became great friends and are still active today). During a period largely before cell phones, social media and other interactive distractions that have dramatically changed the way we live and interact.

Suffice to say there are always stories when dealing with new and established celebrities, let alone the inherent drama of popular music. Layer onto that social, societal and technological changes, and how all these factors interplay, and I have to believe there’s an interesting oral history to share. Particularly at a time when history is repeating, bands from that era are reforming and touring, other books are being written about the bands and trends of that decade that are now all of a sudden hot again.

This post was a stream of consciousness declaration with no second thoughts or editing, just throwing it all out there. As I go down this path, I’ll share stories, anecdotes, excerpts, photos and other bits and pieces as the larger effort takes shape, so stay tuned and thanks for any reactions, advice or thoughts.

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