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Chapter 20 |
| I'm pretty sure it was 1993 when Taunia brought home this stack of magazines from the library... Rolling Stone
was among them. She went to the kitchen to make dinner and I sat on the bed and flipped through Rolling Stone.
There was a small article about Liz Phair. I was going to read it, but out of the range of my vision and in the
scope of my mind, I sensed a pattern of letters so familiar, so intimate with my psyche, it pulled my attention
to it... next to Liz Phair was "Chrissie Hynde - Raves", that little sidebar in each issue where "stars"
talk about their current fave whatevers. Wow -- Chrissie! This was exciting! Hey Hiney, what's up? Whatcha been doin' all this time? I was about to find out what she was up to now anyhow. But then, before I could start at the top, another familiar pattern of letters pulled my gaze downward. Martin. My eyes moved over the type. I don't know how many times I had to read it before it was fully absorbed... four, maybe five, maybe six. I read it out loud once, just to check....Chrissie was working with Martin again? Martin? Chrissie? Chrissie and Martin?!?! Chrissie and Martin. Chrissie and Martin!!!! "TAUUUUUUUNIAAAAAAAAA!!!!" She rushed in, calling out before she got there, "What? What?!!" I don't remember exactly how or when this happened, but I was now standing up on the bed. I read the words again, this time to her. Of course she had to read them for herself. To put it mildly, we were completely overjoyed. I called Theresa and told her what I'd read. At least I changed my question. "Have you heard anything about this?" I asked. "No. I haven't heard anything," she replied. (And later, as the weeks and months went by, changed it to, "No. Quit asking me.") One wondrous day in 1994, her answer changed. "Yeah, I was going to call you." (Yeah, sure you were.) "Let me get the WEA book." I waited impatiently. Very impatiently. She returned with the magical WEA book and told me what the album was called and all the song titles. I wrote them down. I still have that piece of paper around here somewhere. I asked, "How many tapes are you ordering?" "25." ""Don't you want more than that?" "No. Nobody buys tapes anymore - 25 is a lot to order..." "I think you should get more than that." "Shut up, I'll get more if we sell these." "How many CDs did you guys order?" "I dunno how many they ordered. I'd have to check the computer..." "OK, I'll wait." She wasn't really offering to check, and for revenge left me on hold for an extra long time. I made her send me their order form for the CDs and cassettes that she'd read to me from. The album title was, as mentioned in Rolling Stone, Last Of The Independents. Chrissie had talked about and quoted from the movie Charlie Varrick for years. If you've heard, "We didn't come 2,000 miles for the amusement of morons" circa 1980, then you've been Charlie Varricked. I knew she wouldn't be happy until she'd stolen a bigger part from the film. If you watch the movie, you can catch several small Pretenders bits, including the inspiration for the album title. They'd be releasing a single any day now, where was it? Surely by now the cover had been designed and the b-side carefully chosen... what would it be? What would the picture on the cover look like? What would she be wearing if her picture was on the cover? What would the music sound like? Who else was in the band? How would the lyrics go? What were these songs about? Would there be a new logo? I soon had my answers: It was here; Angel Of The Morning; really cool; nothing much (a guitar, mostly!); the Pretenders, finally!; Adam and Andy; "He's got his chest on my back across a new Cadillac, oh yeah, it feels good, it's all right, even if it's just the night in my veins...."; errr... sex and love and other stuff? Yes, indeed. It was in the afternoon when I heard it. I'd left a tape in the recorder, all set to record after the release of the pause button. The stereo in the bedroom was blasting away. I was in the living room when I heard something about "after a long wait"... (oh shit...). I got up and slammed into a chair that was in the way, spun off it, hit the corner of the pocket door that was also in the way..."the new album will be out in a few weeks"... (oh shit!) ... as I made it into the bedroom, running now, and started to go around the bed, but that would have taken too long so I jumped over the corner of it... "here it is, new from the Pretenders"... (OH SHIT!) ... I dove over a large chair that was between me and the new Pretenders song, hit the pause button to start the tape rolling just in time to catch the first notes of the song. I didn't miss any of it, but I did hit the floor head first. My first thought was to get up and check that I'd actually hit the pause on the way down. Wow. Football players get paid millions of dollars to do the same thing I'd just done for a song... And what a song it was - "Night In My Veins". Yeah. When Last Of The Independents came out, I went out first thing in the morning and bought the CD and cassette. I took the tape to where Taunia works and put it in the car where she'd see it. I went home and phoned her to tell her I'd bought the CD, which I was playing even as we spoke. That CD was not coming out of the CD player for the next month, at least. Although we live a mere three miles from where Taunia works, she was thrilled to get to hear the first song-and-a-half on the tape on her way home. Last Of The Independents is a fine example of what Hynde is capable of (I knew it was still in there!). The addition of Adam was a good deal. He just fit right in there. I was relieved that Robbie was still gone, and absolutely delighted by his replacement. The only thing that disappointed me was the fact that Chrissie didn't write all the songs by herself. The collaboration with Steinberg/Kelly was the one thing that kept Independents from being perfect. You can imitate Chrissie all you want, but no one else can be her or write the words she would choose for a particular song. That's another factor in what makes the Pretenders great: the way she writes. Look at the lyrics, listen closely to how the songs go. They sound fairly normal, but if you listen really well, you'll notice the different elements that are added -- the cat growl followed by the harmonica solo in MOR has got to be the mother of all oddities. I listened to that song for about 10 years before it hit me, that it's a very strange song. "I'll Stand By You" ended up being a monster hit. Yuck. Man, get that thing away from me. After all this time, I was ready to rock out, not be rocked to sleep. By '94, I'd grown weary of people who were all talk and no action. "I'll Stand By You"... don't promise, just do it. It's not that I don't agree with the sentiment, I just don't want to hear about it. The most exciting part of all of this was that I knew they'd tour. On the radio every Friday they'd have a "major" concert announcement. I endured these announcements and their false claim of "important" for some time. One Friday, at the appropriate time, I tuned in to discover someone I could care less about was going to be here. But I'd had that feeling in my stomach all day, c'mon...someone no one wants to see, someone else no one wants to see... AND THE PRETENDERS WERE PLAYING THE CLEVELAND AGORA ON JUNE 1! June 1? That's Taunia's birthday! What a great gift! I hadn't known what the date or location would be and hadn't thought to find any paper to write it on so I grabbed a pen and scribbled everything down on my arm, then bolted out the back door as it was time for Taunia to get home and boy did I have something to tell her. As she pulled into the driveway, I could see by the smile on her face that she'd heard the announcement too. There was great rejoicing. I told Theresa she had to come here for this. It was really going to be something seeing them in a smallish theater after enduring that coliseum crap. I couldn't believe it. I was going to get to see Chrissie again. With Martin no less. The feeling was overwhelming, I was nearly at a loss for words. It was nothing less than... blissful! To be continued... |
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