As most of you know, I'm just about done with my law school career. Presuming I pass International Law, I will soon be a Juris Doctor. The next step is passing the Missouri Bar Exam. Yesterday I had my BAR/BRI books delivered to me: almost two feet of legal knowledge and outlines, all of which I'll be expected to discuss intelligently in Jefferson City, MO in late July.

So from approximately May 20 through the last day of the bar exam, I will be putting myself on internet lockdown. That means: this blog goes dark; no MySpace or Facebook; mailing lists on hold; no updates to the YMG site (not that anyone would notice, so infrequently do I work on it); very few RFT pieces; email checks twice a day at most. Web browsing will be limited to job hunting. No going out except to the library, work, BAR/BRI classes, and maybe to the park with my daughters.

I will be in a virtual Bermuda Triangle. Honestly, I'm almost looking forward to it. I really need to get off the Internet for awhile. It's way below an obsession, but slightly above my need for a cup of coffee in the morning. Mindless web-surfing is just about as useless as mindless channel-surfing, and I could use a summer without it.

No live shows, either. Well, except for the Cannanes on June 6th. I cannot miss the Cannanes. Who knows when they'll return to St. Louis?

Blogging will continue as scheduled in the meantime. Expect a few more entries before the 20th.

One quick email to Teenbeat HQ later, here are some Hot Pursuit tracks for you to sample and enjoy.

Number One (external link)
1999 Teenbeat Sampler CD

Basketball
7" single, 1999

Mousetime USA
The Thrill Department CD, 2000

Thanks to Mark Robinson for permission to upload these tracks. Look for a small-scale CD-R release of Hot Pursuit demos sometime in the future.

Labels: mp3

Wait a minute: Bridget Cross just made a record with Mark Robinson and Phil Krauth? All three members of Unrest, together in the studio for the first time in a decade, and it's gone completely under the radar? 'Fraid so.

Looking at the Teenbeat website, there's also a forthcoming release by Cotton Candy, which consists of Robinson and Evelyn Hurley. You may remember Evelyn from the wacky Blast Off Country Style, but have you heard her work with Hot Pursuit? Talk about an overlooked band: The Thrill Department and the "Basketball" 7" are among Teenbeat's best back catalog items.

It seems like Teenbeat has gone back to what it was in the beginning: a small-scale operation designed around a limited number of bands, for a small but devoted fan base. I'm just glad they've persevered, even if they (and I) left the "teen" part behind a couple decades ago.

If there's any good to come from a friend's passing, it's the chance to reconnect with old friends and acquaintances. It's sad that it takes this sort of tragedy to pull us all back together, but I'm grateful for the opportunity. Callie and I have moved around so much this decade, and though St. Louis has treated us well, I've missed talking to people who've known me since childhood.

A few days ago, for instance, my old friend George emailed me. I've known George since kindergarten and certainly consider him one of my all-time best friends. We were inseparable throughout high school. He even went to see Devo with me: my first real show, his second or third. (He'd previously been to see Ozzy Osbourne with his metalhead neighbor Jeff.) George's legendary sense of humor really deserves a separate entry. Suffice to say that he was the funniest person I have ever met. It served him well as a coping strategy through those turbulent adolescent years.

We both went to Rutgers but didn't see each other much. Rutgers is a huge school - really a small city - and it's easy to get lost. When I saw him at the 10-year reunion in 1994, I was pleased to have a grown-up conversation. I was shocked at how many tiny details he remembered.*

I haven't seen George since 1994, and I've often wondered what happened to him. Spurred partly by my Don comments, he found my blog and emailed me. It turns out that he's married and had two daughters of his own; it's remarkable how much they look like him. Hopefully I can meet his family next time I'm in NJ. Seriously, I can't tell you how pleased I am to know that we've all made it this far, and that so many of us are happily settled down with spouses and children. Or at least beloved pets.

* A trait I share. As Callie will tell you, I can't remember to take out recycling, but I can practically recall what I was wearing on any random day in 1982.

Post-Dispatch columnist Bill McClellan is our local Champion of the Everyman. He writes about local people and issues in a gently curmudgeonly tone that's half Andy Rooney, half All Things Considered. His local celebrity is such that there's even a band named after him. But was I the only one disturbed by this morning's column, in which he imagined St. Louis being devastated by a follow-up earthquake at 4:52 p.m this afternoon? It was completely out of character for him, as if Art Bell was guest-ghostwriting. Given that we had a scary earthquake last week, the column left me a little paranoid until, I'll admit it, 4:53 p.m. I kept imagining phantom aftershocks all day.

But then I've always been susceptible to these sorts of post-apocalyptic scenarios. Doomsday movies like The Day After and 28 Days Later tend to creep me out for weeks, and don't even ask how afraid I was of Y2K.

I don't have much to say about Record Store Day. There was a time in my life when every day was Record Store Day. It's kind of like Mother's Day or Valentine's Day in that I don't (or shouldn't) need an officially-sanctioned holiday to celebrate life's important things. I hit Euclid Records and Vintage Vinyl late in the day anyway, dipped into my Vintage credit and bought a compilation CD. I received several label sampler comps (Sub Pop, Matador, WEA) and a Destroyer/Wye Oak split single with my purchase. Euclid had bands playing; Vintage had free Pabst and members of Stars and New Pornographers DJing. All lots of fun, but I don't expect that Record Store Day will stem the influence of Rapidshare and iTunes, not to mention other leisure-time activities vying for the same entertainment dollar like DVDs and video games.

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If anyone cares: this is probably the first 7" single I ever bought on my own volition. Well, either this or Elton John's "Crocodile Rock." I would have just turned five years old. "Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep" sounds exactly like the kind of hit single one would buy at age five, but that does not entirely account for its brief national popularity. Someone really needs to sample that opening drumbeat. Where are Mac and Katie Kissoon now? The web is virtually silent on that detail.

It's hard to imagine my eldest daughter displaying aesthetic tastes beyond what she sees on Noggin and what she hears from us, but it's coming soon. I was barely two years older than her when I bought "Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep," after all.

Just felt the aftershock.

I hate earthquakes.

We experienced a 5.2 earthquake early this morning. In my half-awake state, I had no idea what was going on until it was almost over. Luckily there was no property damage and (amazingly) both girls slept through the whole thing. I am not surprised Esther did - she could sleep through a tornado - but Abby is such a light sleeper that we practically tiptoe around her door at bedtime.

I've only ever been through one other earthquake in Seattle. It was scary then, and remains scary out here in the heartland.

However, I can't just study 24 hours a day; I need a break sometime. That's why I'm going to find time to watch NOFX's "Backstage Passport" and, without a doubt, the proposed Suge Knight reality show. It looks absolutely terrifying.

The Missouri Bar just released the February 2008 exam results. They are instructive for those of us just getting revved up to take the exam ourselves. According to this chart, about four-fifths of first timers passed the bar exam. To some, that would be encouraging: Hooray! There's only a 21 percent chance of failing! But I'm a glass-half-empty sort, so I take a different reading: Uh-oh. There's a 21 percent chance of failing. As it happens, I know at least one person who didn't reach the magic 1300 score required to practice law in Missouri.

So from the time I march in the hooding ceremony to those fateful late-July exam days in Jefferson City, I only have one goal: to pass the bar exam. If my MPRE experience taught me anything (besides, you know, how to be an ethical attorney), it's that I will fail if I don't take the bar seriously and don't work to the absolute peak of my limits. Anything less than a 1300 is simply not an option. It can be a 1301 for all I care. I'm not trying to set any world records here. I simply need to be in that 79-odd percent, get this exam out of the way and proceed with the rest of my life.

I've paid BARBRI their extortion. I've submitted my character and fitness application to the Missouri Bar. I have cleared my entire summer schedule. I have made plans to unplug the Internet from Memorial Day through late July. I am ready to rock.

I've been going on job interviews lately. In these interviews, I tell potential employers the story of my law school experience - paralegal at a busy law firm by day, part-time law student by night, both of my kids born during that time period. Inevitably they look at me with mild amazement and ask, "How did you do it?" The truth is that I don't know. I honestly have no idea. It just fell into place.

My day yesterday started out in court. I am taking Trial Advocacy II this semester, and our "final" is to get up in front of a mock jury and do a voir dire examination. As with last year's Trial Ad I experience, I was surprised how much I enjoyed being in court, interacting with the judge and potential jurors. Callie was even more surprised than me, but I've talked about my latent exhibitionist streak before. It's funny: performing with a band was always terrifying, but I used to love being in school plays, and that same part of me can appreciate the ritual of the American adversarial system and its courthouse rules and procedures. Who knows if I'll feel the same way at a real trial with a real adversary? But I think my ideal lawyer job would involve at least occasional court appearances.

Last year, I capped off my mock trial experience by seeing the Decemberists at the Pageant. This year, it was The Besties at Lemmons. The Besties are at the top of their game right now: their Hugpatch single is fantastic, with "Bone Valley Deposit" far and away the best thing they've ever done. They moved to NYv C long after I left, but we seem to have the exact same friends and run in the same theoretical social circles. Therefore, it's always a pleasure to see them on tour and chat about what's happening back on the East Coast. As it happens, the band is planning to move out of town for awhile. Marisa and Rikky are planning to stay in Florida for a few months, and Kelly is weighing her options about which warm climate would best suit her (right now she's thinking somewhere between NC and GA). They plan to reconvene in NYC this summer, play a bunch of shows and tour again in the fall. After that, who knows? I'm surprised they're not moving to Portland. Everyone else seems to already made that move.

That's My Daughter opened; they have a real way with pop hooks, and I really need to see them play more than once a year. The Besties started off in fine style, but slowly lost focus over the set due to equipment malfunctions. You could see them get more and more self-conscious toward the end, until Rikky finally threw down his guitar, tired of dealing with it cutting in and out. It was still great to see them - and they'll hopefully be back again, as they've learned to love St. Louis - but last year's CBGB set did a better job of catching them at their best.

Bunnygrunt headlined. They opened with "Carmelita," a Warren Zevon song that, ever since Hated, it's hard not to associate with GG Allin. I'm guessing Matt and Karen know this and are enjoying the incongruity of it all. Favorite new song: "South Kingshighway Bubblegum Factory."

1) "Can I be a choreographer when I grow up?"
2) "The great thing about pianos is that you can play them with things."

I don't know many three-year-olds. Do they usually know words like "choreographer?"

A bonus Abbyism: "If you sit on that light, it will break and turn off."

Last night I went to a law school-sponsored party at a local law firm. This firm had something I'd never seen before: a bar on its second floor. Now, when I say "bar," I'm not talking about a conference room or a foyer temporarily stocked with drinks and ice. No, I mean an actual full-service bar, complete with stools, tables, chairs and a full array of intoxicating liquors and accoutrements.

Wow. Think this firm gets its pick of attorneys? Cue Groucho: "I've heard of the Missouri Bar, but this is ridiculous!"

I've been asked to provide an RSS feed to this here blog. Happily, the entire process took me about 10 minutes. You can now subscribe to my blog here through the RSS reader of your choice. (Let me know if this doesn't work.)

Just got word today that I passed the MPRE on my second try. This means that I am officially ethical enough to sit for the Missouri bar exam and practice law here.

Great news. I needed it. Mostly I'm just relieved to have this impediment out of the way.

Word of advice to current law students? If anyone tells you that you can pass the MPRE without really trying, don't believe it. You will fail the test if you don't take it seriously. The MPRE is all about subtle judgment calls that you can't possibly make unless you know the basic rules inside and out. If I'd properly studied for the test last fall, I wouldn't have had to take it twice.

Today's Home News-Tribune includes Don Buchanan's obit. Visitation is tomorrow; info here.

I've been getting emails about the blog post I wrote. Bill Luther copied and pasted it as a MySpace bulletin, and it's apparently been a source of comfort to his friends and family. That's a real relief.

UPDATE: Blogger/drummer Larry Grogan pays tribute here. I agree that the 13th Floor Elevators' "You're Gonna Miss Me" is a perfect farewell song - though its lyrics are absolutely terrifying in this context.

Here's what I keep trying to reconcile: How does it get to this point? How do you find yourself walking along Route 1 in the middle of the night while your wife and your stepdaughter are asleep at home? With no wallet or ID, but a gun and bad thoughts in your head? What goes through your mind in those wee hours? When, on your early morning walk, did you decide friends and family and music weren't enough? Is this really how you pictured it - your body discovered by a garbage truck, no one even knowing who you were or how you got there at first?

I just don't get it.

That's not exactly true. I understand depression and despair. I've been there. I had suicidal thoughts in my teens and 20s. I'm going through a rough patch right now. But I stick it out due to three things: 1) my wife; 2) my daughters; 3) the realization, hard-won with age, that most bad situations can always get better. This means that we all have an obligation to keep trying, keep fighting - if not for ourselves, for those around us.

I used to think that suicide would be almost romantic, that my friends and enemies alike would gather around my coffin and reminisce about what a great guy I was. Now I realize what a lie that is. You don't just kill yourself in that desperate act: in doing so, you transfer your burden onto your loved ones. Think of Kurt Cobain; I'd argue that his suicide continues to devastate people he didn't even know and never wold know.

Of course, this is all rational thinking; and a suicidal person is not always thinking rationally. But again: how does it get to that point? What makes you leave your house, drive down to the highway, walk over the litter and past the streetlights and closed strip malls, think about your options, choose one, and let the police and the medical examiner try to sort out who you were and why you ended up here?

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It's been years since I've talked to Don Buchanan, but from all reports, he was doing well. He'd gotten married and started playing bass again. His new band had a show at Asbury Lanes this past weekend. In the audience was Bill, his best friend since age 8, and Mary, whom I've known since kindergarten and Don's known since junior high. By all accounts, it was a fun night and Don was in great spirits. No one saw this coming, apparently.

I met Don in seventh grade. I'd just begun to make the transition from the Beatles to new wave and punk rock; he was one of the few people in junior high who understood. By the time high school started, Don was part of a small clique of punks, or at least what passed for "punk" in our semi-rural New Jersey township. There were three or four of them, and they each specialized in a different subset of punk. Bill Luther was the mod: he loved the Jam and dressed like a young Paul Weller. Scott "Rudie" Rosinski dressed like Sid Vicious and liked your basic '77 punk; later he got into garage-rock. Don usually wore a leather jacket and thick Coke-bottle glasses, and preferred the Damned and the Cramps.

I hung around this group to some extent, but wouldn't have considered myself part of it. I was too shy, too nerdy, didn't dress the part. If I had a posse, it was mostly the misfit smart kids, but I didn't even really fit in with them. Then as now, I flirted with many social groups without actually being a part of any of them.

Of the MTHS punks, I was probably closest with Don. He was basically a friendly guy, with a sharp sense of sarcastic humor that could turn absurdist at times. At the same time, I knew he had a dark side. One year, he submitted a poem to our literary magazine. It was called "Cold Steel," and followed the path of a serial killer through a series of slayings, finally turning the gun on himself. Nowadays, such a poem would probably get Don labeled a potential Columbine killer. We definitely had some would-be Dylan Klebolds in our school, but Don was not one of them. Through punk rock and hardcore, I knew that one could use violent imagery without acting on it.

We hung out together a lot during our senior year. Once Don gave me a ride to New Brunswick to go record-shopping at Music In A Different Kitchen; how I convinced my parents to let me do this, I'm still not sure. During that car ride, I mentioned that I played guitar and wanted to form a band. He suggested that we play together. I didn't think much of it until a few weeks later, when he asked me if I wanted to audition for the talent show. We worked up "C'mon Everybody" by Eddie Cochran and actually passed the audition.

It was the first time I ever played music with someone else outside of concert band. I remember rehearsing in Don's basement and loving the process of making music. We pulled in our friend Rich to play drums. Don named us "Johnny D.A. and The Rockabilly Hamsters," a typically absurdist phrase. The night of the show came, and with it the most cinematically awkward moment of my teenage life. It was the night we learned why bands have monitors. I've told this story to so many people, and it always gets a laugh.

School ended. The night before I went away to college, I turned on WPRB and there was Don doing a radio show. In his typical low-key voice, he described "Institutionalized" as "the 'Stairway to Heaven' of hardcore" (as true today as it was then), and introduced Killing Joke's "Wardance" as "the ultimate furniture-breaking song. You might want to pick up an end table or a chair as it plays."

Around 1985, I started seeing the Monroe punks around again. Bill and Rudie had started a fanzine and aligned themselves with the Mod Fun/Vipers/Dive crowd. I used to see them at Maxwell's. Meanwhile, Don began playing with New Brunswick bands. He played bass in the Plague Dogs, a X/Gun Club-influenced group led by David Aaron Clark (who's gone on to be a porn mogul). Later he joined the Mad Daddys, which was a perfect fit for his influences.

Rudie died in 1986. Bill called me while I was on the air at WPRB and told me about it. Suicide, Bill said. Rudie was only 21. People from a certain time and place still remember him.

The last time I saw Don was in 1994 - at our ten-year high school reunion, of all places. I didn't expect to see him there. He wore a shiny suit and had slicked back his hair into an early-Elvis pompadour. He danced when the DJ played "Rock This Town."

As the '90s progressed, I didn't see Don or Bill much. I knew that Bill was DJing and writing, besotted as ever with vintage mod and Northern soul and continuing to seek out new discoveries. It's only within the past couple of years I've begun to reconnect with that crowd. Internet social networking may be all the rage with the kids (and the predators who love them), but it's also enabled older folks like myself to reconnect with long-lost friends. I added both Bill and Don to my MySpace account and sent Don a brief message. I never heard back from him, but he did add me as a friend.

Eventually, I figured, I'd see Don again. My mom still lives in central New Jersey. At some point I'd go visit her, and I'd also give him a call. And maybe we'd get together, maybe with Bill and Mary. We'd have a few drinks and laugh about our high school years; I'd go home relieved and proud that we'd all made it to age 40.

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Don Buchanan was a unique and irreplaceable personality. My life is enriched for having known him. I suspect other people will come out of the woodwork to say the same. To his wife, his stepdaughter, his friends and family, I offer my condolences. But at the same time, I don't think I will ever be able to get this story out of my head. If only he'd turned around and headed home, this blog entry wouldn't have even been necessary.

I've just received terrible news about a high-school friend. I'm waiting for confirmation that it's not some kind of April Fool's joke before proceeding (I wouldn't put it past this particular friend), but I suspect it's actually happened.

Checking my old hometown newspaper's website brings up this story. I don't like the way these dots are connecting.

More soon.

UPDATE 2:30 PM: No, not an April Fool's joke. My friend Don was, indeed, the subject of the above link. I'll post my memories later; right now I need to prepare for a class and do some more jobhunting.

Since I apparently can't resist joining e-bandwagons, I signed up for an account. Nothing up yet, but perhaps I will upload some choice MP3s for your listening pleasure - perhaps some of the stuff I've made available on my site to date.

Update: I've now uploaded 12 songs. A little more than half by artists who've appeared on this blog in the past, rounded out with some of my favorite deep cuts. Hope you enjoy!

I'm not in the habit of linking to Pitchfork items - nothing against Pitchfork, but they're probably already one of your daily links. However, the following news item piqued my interest, albeit for completely unintended reasons.

So Liz Phair just signed to ATO Records (the Dave Matthews-financed concern that also released In Rainbows). One of her first acts as an ATO artist will be to reissue Exile in Guyville with bonus tracks and a self-produced "making of" DVD. Here is the paragraph that stuck out of my screen, emphasis added:

In the documentary, Phair herself interviews a series of luminaries connected to the scene, including radio/TV personality Ira Glass, actor John Cusack (whose role in High Fidelity pretty much epitomized the kind of guy Phair disses on Exile in Guyville), Steve Albini, Matador's Gerard Cosloy and Chris Lombardi, Guyville producer Brad Wood, members of Urge Overkill, and John Henderson of Chicago label Feel Good All Over.

Whoa! Someone actually found John Henderson!

John and I were fairly good friends in the early '90s. He and I would spend many hours on the phone discussing Rough Trade bands, especially Lora Logic (his favorite) and Young Marble Giants (mine). In the early 1990s, his FGAO label had one of the best rosters in all of independent music - Scrawl, The Cannanes, Nice, DQE, the Magnetic Fields, Linda Smith, the Mekons, Alternative TV. John released an Embarrassment retrospective LP long before the rest of the world had discovered their cult appeal. He single-handedly engineered YMG guitarist Stuart Moxham's return to the music world and helped set up two American tours - an amazing experience for those of us who were too young to see YMG at Hurrah! or TR3.

Then, one by one, FGAO's acts began to complain that John either wasn't paying them, had released records without their knowledge, or had otherwise flaked. I have no firsthand knowledge of the truth or falsity of such allegations; all I know is that some point around 1998, John Henderson vanished from the musical landscape. He popped up once on a YMG message board with a long post that I wish I'd saved. All I remember is that he'd moved to Minnesota and gotten married. I've tried to find him online, but you try Googling "John Henderson" and see what a futile exercise it is. For all I know, he is currently in some kind of Indie-Rock Witness Protection Program, hiding from various Aussie pop musicians who want royalties for Witchetty Pole and Ashtray Boy CDs.

I don't listen to Guyville much anymore, and when I do, I tend to skip the explicit songs that have long since exhausted their shock value. But I'd buy this reissue if only to see what John has to say, if only about his role in the CD. (What, no Tae Won Yu? He's the one who virally distributed the Girly Sound tapes in the first place.)