There was a point in my when I start getting paid real, honest money but also didn’t have any real, honest commitments in life. Now that those commitments exist, I look back on those times with equal part shock and awe. I don’t think I ever earned the title of Barfly, but I sure played the part.
There was this one house in New Haven that a few friends lived at that threw just absolutely amazing parties. Bonfires, three story house, full PA system — it was a good time and I got into a lot of trouble there. Trouble comes in many forms, but I got into just about all of them there.
This story is not about that house, but the aftermath of one of those parties. It was called the German Sparkle Party and it consisted of three things, in order of abundance:
- Glitter
- Confetti
- Drugs
This particular trouble didn’t have anything to do with those things, but there was a girl and there was heartbreak, which now seems highly ironic given the ingredients above. Girls usually love glitter.
The next week or two were a bummer, and I became more of a bummer due to it. Somewhere around rockbottom, some knucklehead on Reddit posted this to /r/videos, where it reached /r/all (and where it reached me):
Now to you, that’s a weird music video with a catchy song with reasonable DIY-indiefolk aesthetics. To me? “Holy shit, that’s Jeff Rosenstock of Arrogant Sons of Bitches fame.”
ASOB (AYE-ESS-OH-BEE) was a band that tilted my world in 2004. They played fast, they played hard, and… they had horns. I would have driven half-way across the state to see them had I had a car, or a license, or more than $20 at any given moment. While probably the best band I’ve ever seen live to date, it’s not exactly a sustainable business model to depend on packing Knights of Columbus halls full of broke, pimple-faced teenagers. Remember the equation — no commitments, but no good, honest money.
So here I am, 10 years later and I’m over-paid and woefully depressed and lo-and-behold, my teenage savior is pining about the exact same thing. Too proud to say that I’m struggling, too smart to not realize I’m spiraling. And on top of that, he was vomiting glitter and confetti. I don’t usually agree with the concept of signs, but here we are.
I instantly pre-ordered the digital release (lossless, natch), and then I saw him on tour, and then a few months later I bought the limited edition vinyl. By then, I had moved into an apartment with one of my best friends, I had cleaned up my act (literally, though figuratively I still had some work to do), and stayed out of most forms of trouble.
It would be weird to say that this song and the album it appeared on saved my life, but you wouldn’t be far from the truth. And it is weird, because I told Jeff that outside of Toad’s Place years later after a show and haven’t particularly lived down the cringe worthiness of that moment.