"Get Free"
originally by the Vines
The audio is pretty muffled, due to age and quality of amplifying device and quality of recorded tape and quality of digitalization equipment and just the general fact that 400,000 fans were in attendance and screaming at a higher decibel than Beatles fans at Shea Stadium in 1965, but you can kind of hear Mike say something like "This was the first song that me and Joe ever played together!" before we rip into our version of "Get Free." Assuming I hear it correctly, I have no reason to disbelieve the truth in that statement.
I don't remember the first time Burholme played together, is the thing. Not really. And Mike might even be referring to a jam session pre-Kev, which would explain why he said "me and Joe" and not "we" or "Burholme." There were a few of those, I guess. Philadelphia is large but our corner of the Northeast feels small, and the number of guitarists and drummers are limited, especially when you consider the fact that it's easier for guitarists and drummers to connect musically when there is already an established friendship between them as well.
I've known Mike since first grade. I don't recall a meeting of any kind. The friendship just all of a sudden was one day. It probably had a certain amount to do with Boy Scouts (well, Cub Scouts at first). We had a sort of anti-rivalry in grade school, both of us with good grades and both of us trying really hard not to make a big deal about having good grades. When I kid around with Mike today about how I beat him in grade school by winning the award for highest GPA, the joke is that he knows I don't care and he knows I know he doesn't care and we're just kinda playacting what it would look like if either of us cared. (I really did have a higher overall GPA in grade school than Mike, but only because I peaked too early. Mike remains one of the smartest people I know.) At a certain point, it made sense to play music together, because we were already hanging out anyway, and the instruments we had chosen to play went together in accordance with rock 'n' roll scripture.
I don't remember the first time Burholme played together, is the thing. Not really. And Mike might even be referring to a jam session pre-Kev, which would explain why he said "me and Joe" and not "we" or "Burholme." There were a few of those, I guess. Philadelphia is large but our corner of the Northeast feels small, and the number of guitarists and drummers are limited, especially when you consider the fact that it's easier for guitarists and drummers to connect musically when there is already an established friendship between them as well.
I've known Mike since first grade. I don't recall a meeting of any kind. The friendship just all of a sudden was one day. It probably had a certain amount to do with Boy Scouts (well, Cub Scouts at first). We had a sort of anti-rivalry in grade school, both of us with good grades and both of us trying really hard not to make a big deal about having good grades. When I kid around with Mike today about how I beat him in grade school by winning the award for highest GPA, the joke is that he knows I don't care and he knows I know he doesn't care and we're just kinda playacting what it would look like if either of us cared. (I really did have a higher overall GPA in grade school than Mike, but only because I peaked too early. Mike remains one of the smartest people I know.) At a certain point, it made sense to play music together, because we were already hanging out anyway, and the instruments we had chosen to play went together in accordance with rock 'n' roll scripture.
And then, at another certain point, Mike decided that we needed a bassist, and he either had long known or had just found out that some random fucking jabroni on his in-house soccer team played bass, and that's how Kev found his way into my parents' garage. I barely remember that session either. Did we play "Get Free"? Probably! It was fun and loud and didn't require a whole lot of finesse. By 2005, it already felt like a throwback to an even simpler time. Weird to describe 2005 Joe thinking that any other point in his life was "even simpler," but there you go.
It's tough determining what is truth and what is fiction that my brain created after all this time, but so here's what I remember, and do the requisite grain-of-salt thing if that makes you more comfortable.
The inaugural Burholme jam session ended (well, we were actually called "Schmooze" during the first half of our existence... maybe save that story for a different time), and we split up and went our separate ways for the evening. I don't remember who I was with that evening or what the circumstances were, but we ended up at Burholme Park, deep in the woods. I don't know if I was looking for a particular group of people or a particular clearing, or just random walking around the woods, but all of a sudden, I run into Kev.
"Hey, you're the dude who played bass today, right?"
The inaugural Burholme jam session ended (well, we were actually called "Schmooze" during the first half of our existence... maybe save that story for a different time), and we split up and went our separate ways for the evening. I don't remember who I was with that evening or what the circumstances were, but we ended up at Burholme Park, deep in the woods. I don't know if I was looking for a particular group of people or a particular clearing, or just random walking around the woods, but all of a sudden, I run into Kev.
"Hey, you're the dude who played bass today, right?"
Eighteen years later, and we're still friends, I'm sneaking away from my three kids to meet him at (f.k.a.) McNally's to plan his bachelor party, since I don't trust Mike to plan the bachelor party for Kev and I feel the need to have my say, even in lame-ass sobriety, and here I am, writing about when we met and the band we played in way back then.
It's funny in a sort of ironic sense that one of our first songs, if not the first song, was called "Get Free," because in creating these friendships, we were doing the opposite. This wasn't breaking free, this was battening down the hatches. Not so much a weight or anchor, more so a commitment to staying here, staying true to each other. Loyalty and comradery are not values that I yearn to "get free" from by any means. Especially when it's with these fucking assholes.
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