Score 24's so cool they fake drunk dial their friends. You wish you were that hardcore.
Apparently on their way home from a Hamilton Lanes show, Score 24 finds themselves bored and in traffic. They do what they do best and asininely pick up Rob's cell phone, no doubt laughing like fiends at themselves before the prank is even initiated. Back on Long Island my phone vibrates in the cup holder next to the driver's seat. I'm just pulling in from a drive I took to clear my head, though no amount of perfect songs have helped thus far. I ignore the 1 new text message from the scene cutie who is trying to text me right now and answer the call instead. Not only are they not drunk, but they have me on speaker phone and I can hear the rest of the delinquents chuckling in the background. Rob does an okay job, but Ryan takes the Grammy. That really is what you sound like drunk, well done. Both manage to ask me if I'm blogging which leads me to wonder whether I'm being mocked or not, yet I haven't smiled let alone laughed all day so I'll take the prank. Rob insists he is not on a boat, but a motha fuckin bridge! And Ryan declares Andre and Jay are the same name, just change the J to D and add an AN. He also announces he'll be calling him Dr. anDre from now on. The whole time I feel like they aren't quite what they say they are but to be sure, I want to talk to Jay for confirmation that the idiot frontman really isn't driving drunk. He's not, but they do wanna know if there's gonna be a blog about this. What have I created.....
Here's what you're looking for:
Setting: Vibe Lounge, the East Coast Indie Stage BOTB
Time: just at sundown, when the working people turn in and the world becomes the scene kids'.
Characters:....boy is that an understatement!
I am sitting on the couches behind Score 24's merch table which Andre is running, feeling like I am relaxing in my own living room and everyone is home from school. The thing that tips me off to my true surroundings is my own face...I don't smile like this just sitting at home. They played 3 songs but it only took about one verse for me to notice they are different onstage then they are in practice. This.is.the Follow-up. The off-day grunge has gone and show nite gimmicks are on. They've pulled on fitted caps (known locally as 'penis hats') and skinny jeans, and there in lies my smile. Paul looks spiffy; his excitedly colored shirt seems to fit Score's like to party image and appeal. Ryan. I hate to say that it doesn't matter what Ryan looks like because he's actually adorable, but it just doesn't. Any half-musically minded person isn't looking at what he's wearing when the kid drums. He's one of my favorite rim shots on the Island. It's still kinda weird not to see Joey stage left and their vibe is noticeably different, but you can't deny that Jay holds his place down well. I've forgotten the way he moves onstage and for a second it looks foreign to me. I look closely and realize the difference is he's happier now. Rob is the most evolved since practice, having the mysterious demeanor of a cute frontman and the assertion of someone who plays these songs. He's also officially one of my blog's Long Island band boys since he "I saw the Book," and knew exactly what it was. I wonder through their eyes if I define the Book, or the Book defines me.
Back at the merch table Mike and Andre are...entertaining...these 4 girls. It's their first show, they came to see "the rock band." Mike, like a jerk, calls them out on how funny that sound's to a veteran such as himself. But he makes up for it by answering all their questions: "Are you in a band?" "What's your name?" "Do you have a manager?" Oh god, these girls are me 6 years ago! Flyers are shoved into the girls' hands (good, at least they are working as well!) Andre talks up his internet celebrity while Mike boasts his summer tour. I'm not sure whether they'll know me as the friend or the manager since both titles have been throw out there already. It hardly matters since the conversation ended right after, "How old are you?"
Now Score's van...is an entity all it's own. Most vans are. With the exception of Ezra I've kept a relatively safe distance from band vans since the one parked in a driveway in East Meadow. So again, I stand only in the open double doors and make my obervations from there. The work of a journalist is dangerous at times, especially now as I try to look around while the very mature, very serious musicians shoot BB guns at the train platform and at each other. Inside they have one Valet Parking sticker, one diagram of the male reproductive system, and two remains of my best friends; white rimmed aviators and an empty Arnold Palmer. It's pretty clean in there, which I sadly realize means they haven't gotten to tour much yet. And clearly, they have a hidden arsenal of toy guns which they playfully use to kiddingly pelt passing cars and jokingly make Bobby bleed. How sweet. I'm unnervous though because I think they'd never hurt me, so I casually lean against the hood and write about their amusing stupidity.
Before long Mike, Andre, and I are back in the car listening to new tbwb AGAIN. We hit a gas stations and Moe's for a continued discussion about sex and the having of it before winding up at Ryan 24's house looking up into his lighted bedroom window. Creeps. When we called him to come out we learned he was grounded, again, for reasons that will go unblogged to protect the guilty. But we hung out anyway, via speaker phone, as Ryan seriously googled how to make a rope ladder. I had to remind them that ordering online was not an option since it clearly wouldn't be delivered in time for a hasty escape.
We then drove to the exclusive Chestnut to see Set In Color. It was me sick of texting the bassist and wanting to scoop the new guitarist. We based the cold night circle conversation on the hot topic of the scene this week; Bride's new tracks. And while Kenny stood with his moith open, Matt trashed, Joey assessed mine and Mike's hair cuts, Trey actually spoke, and Andre defended Devin, Mike and I laughed to ourselves, and Anthony just stood there not paying attention in all his sceneness. Almost as soon as we left to go back to Adelphi I resumed texting 2 In Colors, 1 24, and tried to be gracious to 1 Wore Black while enjoying the company of 1 Condition. A smart scene girl plays before she gets played.
Fast forward days ahead and I am at some church in Northport on a Friday evening. I took notes on my hand and Rob tried to read them, but as I recall seeing my blog open on a computer screen in the very same room as I...I am having confidence issues with typing those scribbled thoughts out. I would have written about Paul's outfit again. The sunglasses he wore inside that actually made it hard not to watch him. About the many cool intricacies that you'd see if you let the melody go and just focused on Paul and Ryan at times. I'd have to mention, as I warned, about the mistakes they made and the tension I felt in the line-up. I'd write about the bass swing aand the better executed correction of it. Mostly I'd write about the way the sticks echoed in the auditorium as the drummer called out the time. I would have declared that they've all become official LIbb's in recognizing the Book and that I felt both flattered and nervous that they all confessed to having read this stuff. And my bottom line would have read; "All you need to know is, their new song has a 1st verse to kill me with."
...Ricky.
"You Might As Well Be In Space" The Years Gone By
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