So this is a little too true for fiction, and a little too astute for anything else. It's for class.

I am not a groupie. I don’t have the financial resources or the time to follow any of my favorite bands. That, and my all my favorite bands are more or less defunct. At most, I think that I’ve seen a band four times, maybe five. It was during high school, and if I told you I’d have to kill you. There may have been shiny pants and heavy choreography involved. The next highest, is a tie between Jack Johnson and G. Love and Special Sauce, saw them both twice. The royal title of the band I’ve seen more than any other belongs to My friend Ray’s band. The Oscillating Fan Club.

I’ve been following Ray’s band around since the spring of 2007. We met during my stint in community college in a rock history class (the music, not the geological formations). During break, all the smokers would congregate and bitch about how wrong our teacher was about everything from the blues, to the hippie movement, to ‘Nam to new wave to the 90s and beyond. It was enough to make two audiophiles such as ourselves rage every Friday. It soon turned into a game of how many times per class we could correct her. We were those kids. I was sweet and sassy, while Ray would be a straight up asshole. After one class that had been particularly horrendous (we had been discussing Carole King, or maybe it was Rod Stewart), we stuck around for an emergency rage session. Once we had mellowed out slightly (I only say slightly because I am fairly high strung), he asked for a ride home. It turned out that he was on my way home. During the ten-minute car ride, it came to light that he was in a band and that they were playing tonight. Some bar on the east side of town. I said I might show up, but then I went home and watched Degrassi and went to bed. Over the span of the next seven days I decided that his pants would fit and that I should try to get into them. It all hit me at once, that mountain-man-in-training beard, those natty unwashed faux dreads the color of old and/or dirty pennies. And then I felt ashamed that I decided that Canadian teens and sleep was more important than rock and roll. I decided to rededicate myself to the sisterhood of the rock n roll lifestyle: shrouded in artfully faded and ripped black, taking communion of whiskey and menthol cigarettes.

The first OFC gig I went to didn’t happen until after the end of the semester. It took place on a cool spring night at a bar that lingered in the shadows of historic Tiger Stadium. I only got a little lost, and that was due to me gunning my Saturn a little too fast down the brick paved street. I missed the turn, and ended up cursing a labyrinth of one-way streets by the Goth club. Twenty-one years in more or less the same fucking city and anything past West Grand Boulevard gets me lost. I finally arrive, and park in the spot where I’m least likely to get raped. After some difficulties entering the actual establishment, I settle at the bar and knock a couple back. It was pretty noir. Dame walks into a bar, says ow. Dame sits at bar, chain smoking and trying to look like she’s not looking for anyone in particular. Dame chats up the wannabe Bukowski barflies. Dame waits for the band. Black Flag’s playing on a jukebox that can’t see, but I know is there. The empty seat to my right is suddenly filled, and a transaction without money is made. A tag of red paper in exchange for a cup of cheap beer. I watch without watching and poke my ice around with the stirrer. He’s a friendly looking guy with a broad face, floppy brown hair and dimples you could be buried in. only a few seconds passed before he cordially said hello. His name was Pierce, and he’s with the band. We had met before. But I had been drinking heavily and shooting pool most of the time. But he still remembered me. We briefly shot the shit and he excused himself to set up. I resumed idly sipping on the melting booze water. It seemed that the bar was clearing and the patrons were funneling into the performance room. I tried to dismount, and pretended I wasn’t staring so hard at the floor, calculating my steps. The feedback was loud and I could feel it through my high heels in my sternum. The band was moments away from the first notes I would ever hear from them, and I already had the tingle. A rush starting at my toes, up my sides, into my biceps, up my neck, and flooding my entire head. I only get the tingle when they’re going to be good. Usually I’m in church. Or listening to Mariah Carey. The last time I got it for a rock band was the spring of 2001 (maybe 2002), watching The White Stripes.
Given Ray’s charisma (if you could call it that), I just assumed he was the lead singer. He had the looks, he had the ‘tude, and he had the style. Not fashion style, but archetypal style. Hand-rolled cigarettes, sucking down cheap beer. My brain was jarred when a slightly older, unremarkable looking chap was singing, playing, and moving in time with the heavy, not quite psychedelic surf rock sounds filling the bar.