I Have Some New Enemies....

Some kids that live right across the street from me have started a band. I should have seen it coming, really. How long could we have been the only game in town?

It started some point over this summer, my recollection wasn't completely crystal, therefore the exact time that I first noticed the banging I can't quite put my finger on. But one day I did hear it; the birth of a shitty drummer. There was the sound of muffled crashes and snare drums, slow, embarrassingly offbeat fills, shifting, changing beats without rhyme or reason. And thus it began.

Some weeks later I first heard the addition of a second instrument to this mess. I began to hear the sounds of a thin, trebley guitar over the din of those talentless drums. Upon the addition of this new threat plaguing our gentle eardrums, my friend Karl and I dragged my amp out to the front stoop, plugged in and played some improvised front stoop blues. With Austin holding it down on the mouth organ (harmonica for the uninitiated) and Karl on guitar I sang a song of Mexican food gone bad:

I could have a burrito,
I could have had a quesedilla,
But I had a bad taco
Now I've got diarrhea

Yes, I really am quite clever aren't I? Anyway, we claimed our victory and drank our beers in celebration. Where were their beers you may ask? Losers don't get beers.

But alas, our victory was short lived. Now this rag tag bunch of moppets (I assume them all to have their hair in disheveled mop-tops that flow wildly as they twitch and bob their heads as is so popular with these "beat groups" of today)has added a screechy, worbly lead singer to howl over their unexciting, amateurish clatter. (I have no problem with amateurish clatter, as I do it often myself, but please, give me EXCITEMENT AND DANGER!)Now this all fine and good. These kids are just starting out on their road to local obscurity and poorly recorded demos, house shows and maybe even a 7-inch that they will lose money putting out, and that's all well and good, but, the real crux of the problem is this: They play "American Music" by the Violent Femmes at their rehearsals somewhere between 10 and 30,432,122 times per practice. And it's my favorite Violent Femmes song.

Well, at least it was.

First they come into my hood, where I am the reigning king of rock n roll, and try to usurp my throne. Next, they set about a campaign of psychological warfare by ruining one of my favorite songs. Oooh, they have no idea what I have in store for them. I'm going to steal their guitarist (the only member of the band who doesn't suck) and we're going to start an amazing garage rock band, he's going to get addicted to heroin and then the band will implode. For the other two, well I'm just going to fuck their girlfriends. And then I'm going to steal all their equipment.

That'll show 'em.

-Jon J