Perpetual Change @ The Brooksider

This was the band I wanted to be in when I was a teenager. I went to junior high with the bassist and drummer, who remained the constants as the band perpetually changed singers and guitarists. Actually, they were called ATB before they came up with Perpetual Change, I believe because they couldn't think of 'Any Thing Better.' I think that name worked against them because it looked like a dyslexic was listing them as 'TBA.'



Anyway, a good bassist is essential to a rock & roll band, and since everybody plays guitar, they're hard to come by. A good drummer is in close second on the hard-to-fill roles for a high school garage band, and Mike & Andrew were both very good as well as being very good friends.




I managed to insinuate myself into their rehearsal once, and rendered myself totally obnoxious. I wanted to be in the band that got gigs and chicks, but I wanted that band to be too cool to play a song just because it was popular. There was a wide swath of 80s rock I was, at that age, unwilling to embrace, and it was probably 70% of the band's repertoire.



Plus, I was thinking 'jam session,' and they were thinking 'rehearsal.' Mike was teaching (I think Jim Parker, though it may have been the guitarist before that) parts to I forget what song, probably something by the Police, and my ADHD was in high gear. I tried to steer them into playing some Black Sabbath, Van Halen and Rush, and they did include those bands in their covers, but these kids were too well adjusted to be exclusively heavy metal or exclusively prog rock. And in the Rush case, they probably also noticed that band is pretty much only loved by guys, so a Rush tribute band is a bad idea from a chick-attracting standpoint.



I remember several times being told, 'You're killing my ears.' I didn't think I was playing that loudly, and maybe I wasn't. Maybe what was killing ears was my attempts to make their rehearsal into my Black Sabbath Festival. I wasn't invited back, and I think my social skills were more to blame than my chops.



All of which set me up, once I got to high school, to decide I was too cool to play any sort of rock & roll. When I got into jazz I got seriously snotty about rock & roll, and honestly that was partly because I had made friends with a bassist and drummer who were into jazz. It's not that my affection for jazz was insincere, it's still easily 3/4 of my CD collection, but my hatred of rock & roll was a lie I made up, told myself and mostly believed for a few years.



Once I grew up a bit and quit trying to figure out what I should and shouldn't like and just went with what I actually responded to, I found out those first two Ozzy solo albums really are awesome. And a lot of that 80s rock that I shunned in junior high has its virtues.




Anyway, 20 years out, these guys have started playing together again. I think Andrew's a dentist these days, not sure what the others do for a living. But they play the Brooksider from time to time.



And they still sound great. They're obviously having a blast, and still have to beat the chicks off with a stick. The same chicks, in fact, the place was like a high school reunion.



Good show. They were joined by the singer for KC/DC for 'You Shook Me All Night Long' and by the guitarist for Rattle & Hum for a couple of U2 numbers. Good stuff, and two more bands I'd like to catch at the Brooksider sometime.