Paincourt Antique

Title: The Night that Indie Rock Forgot

One day around five years ago one of my roommates decided that he wanted to try a hand at promoting concerts. It was a decent and noble move on his part as he had been involved in the indie scene for quite sometime. In college he hosted a radio show out of the local college radio station that seemed to have a large following and had also interned at the Riverfront Times as a music reviewer. All of his work was exceptional as far as I was concerned so I thought when he asked me my opinion that he should go for it. It seemed as if this would be something that would really work out for him as he was suffering from the post-grad syndrome and was getting nervous about job prospects.

A fortune of my friend was that he had a good working friendship with the guys over at Skingraft these guys are actually natives of St. Charles (my hideous hometown) and went to high school with a very good friend of mine and although I really didn't know them personally I had met them once or twice. I was never really in for becoming a part of any scene (mind you, not that I was ever asked to be).

Well, my room mate and pal Jarrett wanted some Skingraft bands to come down and play in St. Louis and had somehow convinced US Maple and MT Shasta to headline. I think they knew Jarrett from his time writing for RFT and some other little known music zine. I believe he wrote a few fawning interviews with the bands, and deservedly so. The bands agreed to play here and Jarrett then set about trying to get a venue. He was stuck on the idea that they should play in Saint Charles - I am not really sure why - but he was obsessed. Most people he talked to about this plan would ask him why he wouldn't find a place for them play down on the south side or downtown somewhere where people that actually like them would be more likely to convene on a show such as this. I mean don't get me wrong, there is a sizable college in this town, however it is otherwise the historically strictest sense of middle-class conservative and suburban idiocy that I have ever seen. I didn't think that any "indie" band would make it around here. I rarely saw anyone (at that time) outside of the group we ran with listening to any indie music.

Still, Jarrett pressed on and finally found his venue - one that surprised pretty much everyone that was involved. The venue: That old VFW hall out in Saint Peters, which has an arguably worse case of suburbia-itis than Saint Charles. I suppose the whole ordeal was looking pretty sad, but you know how shit is when a friend is involved with something that is very important to them, you egg them on, you know - follow your dream pal! I did however suggest to Jarrett that he better advertise like mad otherwise he or the bands for that matter, weren't going to make jack squat. I suggested he put it up on the local public "weirdo" station KDHX's calendar or something, anything. Well, two or three days before they arrive Jarrett did make quite a few flyers and hang them up in strategic places, which might have done some good, who knows?

So, the day came when Jarrett's production came out of the ether of bad organizational skills and into the substance of bad production. First off, if you are going to produce something, never put every friend you have on a guest list that will entitle him or her to free liquor. This is a dumb thing to do and will probably end up costing you a shit load of money, as it did in Jarrett's case. Second, never plan a show out in the middle of suburbia unless there is nothing but suburbia in you city. People like to think that going downtown means going to something cool. People like to believe that going out to the suburbs means hanging out with their aunt or uncle or something like that. Let's just say that one is cooler than the other no matter which way you try to slice it.

It was really a good show. It began with a local band that was sort of like Helmet (although I forget their names now). It was odd that they had the most people watching them but as they had built up quite a fan base here I suppose it wasn't that unusual. The next band was, I think, YOU FANTASTIC! whom I personally loved but I guess were a little strange for some of the people. It seemed the bar was pretty crowded while they played. Now I forget who played next...I think it was US Maple, but by this time I think there was only around 100 or so people left. US Maple totally rocked as far as I was concerned but I felt sad as I watch more people walk away. It wasn't their fault really. I mean I doubt that even 1/4 of the people standing around had even heard of them. I can imagine that many of the people who did like them probably didn't want to drive all the way out to freaking St. Peters or maybe didn't even have the transportation to get out there. It wasn't like you could take the bus or anything. Besides, US Maple and Mt. Shasta never struck me as the type of indie band that a suburban teenager would listen to anyway. I mean they would probably be over this show if it was a rap band or possibly some super trendy indie band that got a lot of radio/MTV play.

Suburban punks sometimes don't think about their cultural influences, and why should they as bad cultural influences have been served to them on a silver platter since the day they learned how to click a remote control. That was the whole problem, I kept thinking how much suburbia sucked as I was filming this whole situation for posterity, or something like that. I was talking to a little girl with purple or green hair who was really pissed off about something, saying like a she had a friend like who said they'd be like 311 or something and like her friend didn't even show up and like she was pissed. etc, etc. I asked her how old she was, she told me she was 17, I walked away. There is no point of talking to a girl when you're single unless she is at least 18. Later I saw some girl say that some guy was not as cool as he could be because of something he was wearing, it made me happy to hear that because that guy was in the previous band performing as the bassist. I mean all hell should break loose mentally if a musician isn't as cool looking as he should be, right? Anyway, you know how cool everyone is anyway, right? Isn't that so fucking important? Just another symptom of bored middle class kids trying to sound important. I guess so because I would also turn off the happy filters if all I ever heard was a bunch of self-worship and self-loathing over nothing. It is kind of catchy. I also guess my happy filter was getting polluted because I was drunk, drunk as hell actually and trying to film these bands. It was horrible, a
total fiasco.

Finally my cameras ran out of battery power and I was no longer tied to the job of filming. So I began to wander around and socialize. Jarrett was looking pretty angry when I saw him as he realized that there would be little if any money for the bands and of course none at all for him. He asked if he could orrow 50 bucks, I said sure, you can keep it. He asked for more money later on but we won't go over that, it was ugly. Eventually things began to calm down and we all went back to my house, we had cooked up a bunch of brats and taco dip and a keg and other shit like that.

This food was in appreciation for the poor guys who had drove here all the way from Chicago to play in this shit hole. It was probably the only good thing that came out of the ordeal. By this point and time I was drunk beyond repair and at some point dropped a glass of rum and coke on Al (singer for US Maple) and a few other people as well. Soon I had a food fight with a girl, I think I started it by smearing potato salad on her face and chest, she responded by throwing taco dip at my face, the situation seemed to be getting out of control. There was concern as I overheard someone say, "who is that asshole fucking up this house." And another person responded,"the asshole that owns the house is fucking up the house" which was true. I think I believed that I was just trying to lighten things up a bit, I mean the mood was pretty somber as everyone who was in this to make a buck or two was pretty much fucked. I even did a bratwurst play for the guys from Mt. Shasta, they were smiling as I made the bratwurst scream and dance. I thought that they were smiling because it was funny, someone told me later that they were smiling because they thought I was nuts. I am not sure if either was the case. The next day I had to work so that by the time I had got home all of our guests were gone or off visiting other folks they knew in the Saint Louis area so I never got the opportunity to expose them to my sane side. Not that it really mattered to me that much, but for some reason it did matter to some of my pals, I think I may have embarrassed them by my strange behavior.

I still am a fan of US Maple and MT Shasta so, if any of them ever read this I want to make a sincere apology for spilling drinks on you or whatever other crazy things I might have done. Although I am pretty sure that my friends were over-reacting and that you probably didn't even care or remember.

I still have the video of that night, I shot it with 2 cameras and it is the only shoot I have ever seen where the two cameramen spend most of the time actually filming each other and waving and making faces. It is so unprofessional that I can't even begin to tell you. It would make any film student laugh. It still makes me laugh quite a bit.

Now that I look back on it though, I really wish that we had our shit more together, that really could have turned out to be a nice evening for everyone involved. Instead, as I like to say - it was truly, the evening that indie rock forgot.

2010 Addendum: Fairly all true but boring as hell isn't it?