A new music club just opened in my little town, a great little venue. A blues band came through this weekend, really great, and a local bluegrass band was there last weekend. It’s wonderful to hear live music again.

I went with another older single lady, but that was no big deal; most of the audience, as well as the band members, were a little long in the tooth. There was a moderate amount of head-nodding, foot tapping and wives on the dance floor, embarrassing their husbands, but it was sedate overall. 

We sat close to the stage, which was somehow uncomfortable, floating in the sea of white hair. My favorite place to be in a club is at the bar, overlooking the action, drinking heavily. In fact, though I was age-consistent, I felt way out of place. It’s been a long time, but I miss being on the other side of the equation. I miss being in the music business.

I can’t actually say that I wish I were in the music business now. Everything has changed drastically from the environment I was in then. That was the early 90’s, just before the internet changed everything, before digital. Grunge was the music and Seattle was the town and DIY was the creed. Nirvana hadn’t sold out yet. Garage bands were everywhere and indie labels owned the underground and college airwaves, since the majors were all concentrating on pop.

Henry Rollins, in the Henry Rollins Band,  at the second Lollapaloooza in Atlanta, GA. This is after he quit the Misfits and before he became a talk-show host on Sundance Channel. 

It was only a few years, and it came during a ruinous economy, but being in that underground world was one of the most intense, dangerous, exhilarating times in my life. (Not including crossing the Gulf Stream in the middle of a storm at midnight, in a small sailboat with a crack addict on withdrawal at the helm. Another story, but pretty comparable on the intensity scale.)

You might think I was young then, a college kid, but no, I was in my late thirties when it started. You might think, drug addict, thrill seeker, but no, not really. I’m oldest-child responsible, well-educated, and properly scared of risk-taking. It was an opportunity that I stumbled on, a path that I veered onto, away from respectability. Like the saying goes, drugs, sex and rock n’ roll ensued. And then, for me, it ended and I went back to being respectable.

I am now in my late 50’s, and there is a lot of water gone under that bridge. It is now too loud for me. 

But I have so many boxes of photos and illustrations and memories of that time that I have to pull them out and remember. I am starting a separate  blogsite to put up photos and some of the stories that I remember, before I am too ancient to admit that I ever had too much fun.

 The fact is, I don't want to grow too old to rock out. I've got my glucosamine ready - where's the mosh pit?

A great shot of Kim Gordon in Sonic Youth, taken by Dan Corrigan at a show in Minneapolis.