DDecember 10, 2004-
As I sit here in my office, contemplating what to write, I am surrounded by the ephemera of my life as a music fan. All around me are posters, setlists, and photographs of shows that Wendy and I have been to over these past few years, including many, many shots of our friends and fellow fans. One item is layered on another in a hodgepodge of memories, clear evidence of a fevered mind- the kind of thing that a television detective might find in the hidden lair of an insane killer just after he’s made his escape out the bathroom window.
However, despite the lunacy evident in this display, there is a common thread that ties all of this together. Broadly, this connection is clearly music, particularly of the rock ‘n roll or alt-whatever varieties. But as I look around these walls, drawing mental lines from one thing to the next, it soon becomes apparent that the real nexus of it all is Slobberbone.
A person can point to few things that alter the course of their life, and most of them are obvious- your parents, your relationships, moves, careers, and so on- but, for good or ill, I can say with complete honesty that Slobberbone changed the world that I live in. Not only did they awaken within me a reverence for music that has become my religion, they also became in time the fire around which I met most of my closest friends, who had also gathered there to bask in the warmth. Directly or indirectly, virtually all the things that I love the most have come to me via my connections to Slobberbone. Ridiculous though that may seem, I have only to look around to see that it’s true. Amongst my closest friends there are only a couple of people who I didn’t meet at a show, and that couple- Wendy, of course, and George “Gammy Lee” Savage, to be specific, became just as obsessed as I did over these last few years. George, in fact, introduced us to Slobberbone way back when, and for that, I will be eternally grateful. Furthermore, most of the music that I obsess over these days was introduced to me either through Slobberbone or one of the many friends that I keep going on about.
So maybe it’s understandable that when I first heard rumors that Slobberbone might be breaking up, my response was “don’t even say that.” As the past year or so has slowly unfolded, these rumors became discussions among my friends, and the “hiatus” started looking more and more like a breakup, but I continued to refuse to admit to it. So, despite the fact that I knew it was coming, the announcement last week hit me like a dead fish to the face.
Ridiculous as it seems, particularly given the role that music plays in my life, I actually found myself thinking that maybe I was done. Done with live music. Done with the very passion that drives my life. That was last Wednesday.
Coincidentally. our good friend Susan “Glitter Lee” Rowland came for a visit on Thursday. Though no one else may have seen it that way, for me at least, her visit became a sort of three-day wake. A few of us came together to mourn, after a fashion, which is to say that we drank too much, cried a little, laughed a lot, over-indulged in typical fashion, and went to see a little live music.
Thursday night, we walked into the Triple Crown, a great little bar in San Marcos, to the strains of Blackwater Gospel, a band that has clearly listened to Slobberbone a time or two, but to whom I paid too little attention, preoccupied as I was with getting beer and talking to my friends.
Soon, my synapses sufficiently lubricated, I settled in at the front of the stage to listen to Centro-matic. I knew that they would be great, as they always are, but my heart was still heavy, and I thought that I could never again be as excited as I had been so many times at Slobberbone shows. This lasted about twenty seconds, as Will Johnson and company blasted through any barriers that I might’ve put up in my grief.
To quote Pete Townsend- Rock is dead. Long live rock!

That was written more than fifteen years ago. Since then, we’ve seen many, many more live shows. We saw a number of our other favorite bands fade into the past- The Gourds, The Damnations, and Centro-Matic among them- and we saw Slobberbone reunite. And I made a movie. I’ve already written about how that came about, and I talked a little about how I returned to it after years. Finally, I put it up for sale, and a number of fans and friends were kind enough to purchase it sight unseen, for which I am very grateful.
Today, Wendy and I watched it in its completed form for the first time, and here comes that dead fish again. I spent literally thousands of hours in front of a computer forming many hours of raw footage into a movie, hundreds of them these last few months. These have been difficult months for most of us, as we have had to cope with pandemics, police killings, protests, and stories of killer hornets. But, for me, music, and Slobberbone in particular, has been my saving grace. Too busy to worry too much about the state of world affairs (though painfully aware of them,) I have instead been immersed in the music of one of my favorite bands, and some of my favorite people. Though much of the work was done years ago, I still had to take what was, I think, rough stone and carve it into something more closely resembling a gem. I can’t say how well I succeeded- you will have to be the judge of that- but I think that it epitomizes the term “labor of love,” for I truly do love the music and the people who make it, despite being neck-deep in it for these many weeks.
I am too tired now to wallow deeply in the emotions that come with having come to the end of this long process. Suffice it to say that I am happy and sad, and a little overwhelmed by it all. Of course, my relationship with Slobberbone and this movie is far from over. It is my hope that we will be able to put it in front of many, many people, that we are able to grow the family that I’ve enjoyed these many years, and that Slobberbone will continue to put out new music for a long time. But I won’t be spending so much time in the company of these songs and this footage, which I hold dear because it is the vestige of a very important time in my life, so it is, in a sense, a letting go of something, and so bittersweet. It is also something of a relief, to finally put a period at the end of a very long sentence. I also know that, as Will Johnson sings in a tribute to Slobberbone which appears in the movie, that “the sun ain’t falling here, it’s rising somewhere else,” so I look forward to that “somewhere else,” which, in our case, is commencing straight away, as we go off on a new adventure. But before we go, I want to thank you all for being a part of the adventure that was and is Gimme Back My Band. Thank you very, very much.