Bands play music, and bands break up all the time. But there are only two bands, who when they called it quits, I almost shed a tear (I was alone in my car, if I did shed a tear, no one can prove it!)
These two bands are Pavement and Piebald. I recently ran into Andrew Bonner, former bassist of Piebald, and told him this exact thing. He replied "That's a pretty good list to be on".
Piebald to me, was basically the soundtrack of my life between the ages of 18 and 26. So many good times spent going to their shows, and shouting to their songs at the top of my lungs ("And you've got the sexy legs!!") on the way to the beach. If you were a real Piebald fan, at some point or another through the years, you run into one of the guys around Boston, or after a show, and say "whatsup". Real Piebald fans never really viewed them as "famous", but as old friends, that you've already hung out with hundreds of times.
Yesterday I had a photo shoot in Buzzards Bay, and unexpectedly ran into an "old friend". It was an event hosted by Bay End Farm, and The Blue Room of Cambridge. It is a dinner where the chefs from the Blue Room, came earlier that day, picked which vegetables they wanted cooked that afternoon, and then prepared an organic fresh meal for about 50 people sitting at One Long Table (the name of the event)
To my surprise, when I arrived, Andrew Bonner, of Piebald fame, was one of the chefs from the Blue Room! It was cool to see him, away from the crowds, bringing his skill and banter from the stage to the kitchen. He obviously has a good time doing what he does. Observing him and chef Jorge Lopes trading barbs and working in sync as good as any musical duo, was alot of fun. Don't get me wrong, I'd rather see him throw down the opening bass notes to "Holden Caufield" instead of throwing down garnishing on a scallop ceviche, any day of the week. But until 2014, when Piebald has their 20 year Anniversary tour (huh? whatdaya think?) you can catch Jorge and Andrew putting on a show at the open kitchen of the Blue Room.
Here are a few photos I took of of Andy and the gang playing a show at the Worcester Palladium in the summer of 2001.
Cutrona! Thanks so much for posting this. I can definitely relate. One of the Piebald guys used to work at Newbury Comics in Burlington. There were definitely a couple of seconds of "awestruck-ness" when you would first see him, but after that, you just thought of them as really cool guys that loved music.
ReplyDelete..goosebumps when reading...
ReplyDeletei am glad someone else still remembers piebald that way. i ran into the gang at a superchunk show...happened to be wearing the "don't call it a comeback" tee...long story short, THEY bought ME a beer...those are some big shoes that anyband has yet to fill.