dark noise

I've been corresponding these past few days, by e-mail, with two people who were once in a band you've heard of, unless you've been aestivating these past 20 years. One of them I've come to know quite well in person, the other I've met only once, very briefly, a lot of years ago. I've recently pulled out and scanned some old photos of these folks, which apparently has gotten me thinking about music.

When I took those photos, they hadn't played publicly yet, that didn't happen til two weeks later. We were on different ends of the business; I was at the peak of my music journalist "career" and they ranged from locally well known musicians to complete unknowns. We were peers, all part of the inner circle of what was essentially a major market but cult-level alternative music scene. People look back at that band today, kids who weren't even born yet when it all began, and they must think it's all so unreachable, so mysterious and remote. Yet at the time, they were just another band, getting ready to open for a then-better known band now lost in obscurity for all but those of us who were there. Most bands didn't make it, of course, so no one in the scene ever took anything for granted. This one turned out to be one of two from that time and place who did break out nationally, a little later.

But I got so jaded in those times, when rubbing elbows with local and touring British bands was so routine, and so many of them are so well known now. It's strange, hearing songs on the radio these days, and remembering hearing that same song in a small club, with perhaps 100 people in the room, then attending the afterparty with the band, drinking with them til dawn. No names needed, it's all out there if you really want to know, it's all written down and documented elsewhere.

Tonight after responding to one of those e-mails, one of those random connections happened, someone I met briefly a few years ago popped into my head. She was born probably around the time I took those early post-punk photos, she's in her late 20s now. She has a band, one of regional and cult-level notoriety, not unlike some of the people and bands I knew so long ago; well known within a small and specialized niche market, completely unknown to anyone outside of that group. Not my taste in music, really; hard to describe, but the same issue I had with so many bands back in the old days. Too fast, too loud, taking themselves much too seriously; burying (an appropriate word, in a way) so much potential, so much talent, under layers of barely harnessed youthful rage.

I don't know this young woman well at all, don't even know her real name. We had an interesting conversation once, and she played her latest CD for me, and we learned that we have at least one common influence... a now well-known band that I played pool with once and photographed another time, in fact wrote a scathing review of their show for the 'zine; yet a band that to her is something remote, something possibly heroic. She has their bumper sticker on the back of her car (a black car, of course). I think of seeing them as 20-somethings, drunk at 5:00 am, and I smile.

Where was I... in that conversation, in that couple of hours, I learned a lot about some aspects of her. She's very open about some things. She guards other things very closely. I know that she had a very difficult childhood. I know that she considers that "not necessarily a bad thing." I know that her dreams, her nightmares, are dark, that what is in her music comes from inside, from her darkness. I know that she's hardened in a way that most could never comprehend. I know that she's afraid. I'm not sure if she knows that or not.

Tonight I went looking for her online, even though that conversation was quite some time ago, and our most recent e-mail exchange was perhaps a years ago. Of course, I found videos of her and the band, mostly live footage from one show.

I watch her, in a torn white dress and garish makeup and black boots, spin across the stage, throw her soul into her music. I listen to lyrics so dark, so primal, intended to frighten and repulse the ordinary person. I know that it's real, I know that there really is controlled hatred of... something... in her. I know that she's more real, more dangerous, than any of the scary-looking people I spent so many big city nights with so long ago. I know that she contains the rage, measures it out slowly, controls it.

And I look at her, and I see a girl fighting against her fear. For me, her edge is an artifact. She's let me see behind the shadow, just for a few seconds at a time.

She's a strong one, she'll make it. Even as she endures the flames of her own personal hell. In 25 years, I wonder who she will be, what will come of it.