Sleepwalking (creative nonfiction)

It’s another tired night at another lifeless club. The haze of secondhand smoke wafts through the sparse crowd, collecting the putrid scent of body odor along the way. I am sleepwalking through yet another newspaper assignment, reviewing yet another boring radio-rock band for no other reason, it seems, than obtaining a paycheck. It’s hard not to laugh at how clichéd the band is, with their cut-off sleeves and bad tattoos. Its members bear more in common with a football team than a group of artists.

It appears as though most of those who are in attendance are merely bar regulars. I’ve seen most of them before, and their enthusiasm for the band varies. A middle-aged white guy seems lost in the repetitive guitar riffs and forced choruses. This is probably his escape from cubicle Hell. In a way, this is my cubicle Hell. A woman a few years his elder and a decade or so past her prime fawns over the lead singer, referring to him by his first name and requesting whatever modest hit the band may have had during their prime – years before being relegated to playing small bar shows in Flint.

This has become a typical assignment for me. The bands and fans, often times, are anonymous and interchangeable, and far too often lately I have walked into each assignment with such contempt for the music and atmosphere – not to mention attitude – that it’s a wonder I accomplish any shred of objectivity. Sometimes a friend tags along and we sit in the back of the bar and sip overpriced beer, quietly poking fun at the unconvincing onstage antics of whoever is performing. Part of me wants to exclaim, “I’m too old for this shit!” but I look around and see handfuls of people who are infinitely more qualified to express such sentiments, yet they don’t.
It was a lot different six years ago.

My friend Keith and I launched an online music magazine and we set out to interview and review as many new bands as possible. Our goal was to bring exposure to lesser-known artists and expose ourselves to new music. A few years in, this plan began to backfire because we had heard so many new bands in such a short period of time, we became jaded rather fast. We became harder to impress, and it got to the point where bands would have to beg us for coverage, insisting that their band could somehow change our lives. I never had the heart to tell them that they sound almost identical to about 12 other bands I had heard that month alone. Occasionally a band will surprise me and steal my attention for a few months at a time, but so many of their peers come across as little more than empty hype.

It sucks, too. I used the music scene in high school to find a sense of belonging. I loved the same bands so many other kids adored, so we automatically had something in common. I built long-lasting friendships with concert promoters, band members, fans, sound engineers and record label owners, all based on the fact that we had similar record collections. We would introduce each other to new bands and new ideas, and we would head into weekend all-ages shows with nothing but enthusiasm. Our hard-earned money wouldn’t last, as we would collect CDs and t-shirts of obscure touring bands who made an impression with their honest music. But somewhere between then and now, that magic escaped music. I can’t even remember the names of the bands that did impress me.

I don’t know if it’s music in general, or if it’s just me, but music means a lot less to me now than it did back then. Maybe it’s the idea that music has been reduced to digital files that can be freely swapped over the Internet that makes these artists lose their significance. I do, after all, remember browsing through liner notes as an obsessive fan-boy, picking out inside jokes and pondering the significance of certain artists’ album covers. For me, there’s less emotional attachment to music when there is no physical product to admire.

I certainly hope that it’s not my age. Hell, I’m only 25. I have read horror stories by much older rock journalists about how music has essentially become ruined for them over the years, obsessing way too much over the individual elements of each recording, as is the nature of their job, to the extent that a complete album cannot merely be taken as a complete entity, but rather a sum of many, many parts.

Yeah, six years ago music and live performances gave me a sense of belonging. Tonight, I am merely an outcast. The bands are here for the money, girls and free drinks. The one thing I have in common with these guys is that I too am here for the paycheck. I have no desire to talk to the bands after the show. They needn’t inflate their egos any more. I just want to go home, file my story before deadline and get a good night’s sleep.