Last night i went to see the Slackers at the TLA. I was more excited than usual to walk a mile and a half in a snow storm. I had a simple goal in this endeavor. It was to meet Vic, the frontman of the slackers, and invite him to play at Ava House. He ended up coming to Tattooed Mom’s, as most bands do after a show at the TLA. Before i could realize how silly it was, i had already been effectively shooting the proverbial shit with one of the most unintentionally cool men i’ve ever met. Truly a man out of time. I feel like he’d fit better and probably be just as happy as an eccentric janitor at a middle school in 1955, constantly ignoring his duties to play with his guitar in the boiler room. Me and Vic talked a lot. He told me about his involvement with Rancid’s Life Won’t Wait. Elaborating on the touring he did with them for this album and even more so on him bearing witness to their group discussions on involving themselves in popular culture. He reminisced “i was there when MTV was puttin’ the squeeze on ‘em, they felt they’d be betraying they’re fans, I thought that was cool.” He later explained how their relationship dissipated.
We agreed that the best version of the slackers tune ‘Old Days’ was the EP version which is limited to Piano, Hand Drums, and Vocals. We also agreed that this version reminded us of “X-ray Style” By Joe Strummer and The Mescaleros and that we both liked that very much. Later Vic came back to my good friend Curtis’s house where we all drank a bit and Vic sorted through the essentials on his Ipod. We then proceeded to talk about ‘life and shit’. He agreed to play a show for us at Ava House on January 23rd. I would have liked it to be a bit later in the year so i could take more time to promote, but he’s a busy man and i couldn’t let this linger.
It really was a trip being in friendly presence of a man whose persona you’ve spent so much time focusing on. Though after the Ben Weasel situation, this was comforting. I guess the Copyrights were wrong, not all my heroes are assholes.
