The Burholme Tapes: "Goodnight Goodnight"

Joe's weekly reflections on the greatest teenage rock 'n' roll cover band to ever come out of Rockledge, PA in the mid-'00s, covered on the blog one song at a time.

"Goodnight Goodnight"

originally by Hot Hot Heat

If you had asked me at the time how important Burholme was in my life, I would've said: pretty important. It was a hobby that occupied a lot of the space in my brain at the time, but I don't think I or anyone else would've said that it was the most important thing in my life either.

And I certainly didn't consider it so important that I thought to document the Burholme story in real time. It was just something fun we were doing. I didn't think for a second that, as a mid-30s adult, I would consider it a great gag to spill a 50,000 words on the experience over the course of a year. That the gag would simultaneously claim that Burholme was the most important thing to come out of my teenage years and also that the sarcasm in that claim should be clear to all involved.

It should be pretty evident by now, on this blog at least, that I am enthralled with the idea of taking a subject that is limited in scope, and writing about that subject to an almost obsessive degree. Writing about Burholme is the same as writing about one single episode of Reba, when you think about it. The concept is taking something that you have a purposefully limited knowledge of, and seeing how long you can write about that one thing, over and over. The only difference is that I didn't know much about Reba because I only watched one episode. I don't know that much about Burholme simply because there is a lot I don't remember. And still: we write.

One of the ten million aspects to the Burholme story that I remember very little about is the story of how or why we chose our first name. If you were hanging around the blog four days ago for a different column, then you already know that name: "Schmooze." According to my old Xanga, Mike and Kev and I christened our power trio as Schmooze on May 20, 2005. Again, I don't remember much, and honestly the entirety of what I remember probably comes from whatever I deigned to type into that fucking Xanga at the time. But there it is, the proof.

However, I do not believe that that was the first time that the three of us jammed in my parents' garage. My read on the Xanga thing—and my guess is as good as yours, despite the fact that I originally wrote it—is that May 20th was the first day that we decided on a name. There must have been jam sessions prior to that. I mean, I met Kev at our first jam session together, and this Xanga entry from 5/20/05 makes it seem like we were already acquainted.

And plus, I remember at least the bones of the story of that first jam session, and it involved a different night at Burholme Park. So Mike and Kev played soccer together, and this is how Mike knew that Kev also played the bass (this is the only good thing that soccer has ever done for me in my life). And on a day in probably the late winter or early spring of 2005, Mike brought Kev to the garage. I don't remember what we played or for how long, and it wasn't, like, a magical moment where we knew we had something special or anything like that. But it was fun enough that we decided to make it a regular thing. And then we went our separate ways, probably to eat dinner at our respective parents' houses or whatever.

So then later that night, I'm with friends who are not Mike and Kev. I don't remember a lot of the details. Maybe Mike was with me, I don't know. Or probably I was with some of my Cardinal Dougherty HS friends, because it makes sense that they would've known that some other Dougherty kids were hanging out in the woods at Burholme. This was around the time when I was obsessed with finding the infamous "firepit" that was located in the woods. (I don't remember why the obsession either, but that's not important here.) And so we walked into the woods, and managed to find a Dougherty girl named Ciara, and her boyfriend... Kev.

I said, "Hey man, you're the guy who played bass today." He laughed and said "Yeah, I am." That was almost nineteen years ago.

So Schmooze got to play some music together over the next two years and change. The music grew, and so did the friendships. I had known Mike since like first grade, and we had been good friends for years. While Kev remained an acquaintance for a few more months after the Burholme woods meet-cute, we solidified the friendship that summer, when Mike went away to summer camp for a week (all I remember is that it was a nerdy type of summer camp, maybe a book-reading summer camp or something?), and Kev hit me up every day that week to hang out. Nine years later, Kev and Mike were groomsmen in my wedding.

While the music provided a good foundation for the friendship, let's be real here: we actually cut our teeth in those woods of Burholme Park. Drinking and acting the fool in the dark with as many friends as we could convince to be there. I fondly recall one time (let's say summer 2006, I could look it up but it isn't important) Kev texting me at like 6 PM asking me if I'm doing anything. I wasn't, and so we decided that we would text everyone in our phone books and meet at Burholme in 90 minutes. There we were, at 7:30 PM, a random-ass group of 20 friends and a trash bag filled with ice and two cases of beer. The band is something we can hang out hat on, friendship-wise, but we all know, and have known since the genesis of this Burholme blog column, where the true story is.

We had some music on MySpace, by the way. Those files are long fucking gone, but they were there. Schmooze had an online presence. Which was cool, because it was something to show friends, if they were interested. However, the internet also alerted us of a problem: there was another band called Schmooze out there. Damn. It felt wrong to share a band name with someone else halfway cross the country. We wanted to be unique and original. We needed to change our name.

And so, there was a meeting of the minds at Willow Grove Mall, in the food court. The four of us—me and Mike and Kev, and also Brianna (who is not only one of my favorite people, and was not only Mike's girlfriend at the time (now wife), but also, I would say, acted as a sort of manager for the band, or at the very least was creative enough to make some cool merch, and so yes, was definitely part of the so-called "meeting of the minds"). Over some fourth-meal Taco Bell, we started to spitball some ideas.

I don't remember how long the conversation lasted, and I have to think that the reasoning as it stands now was only established retroactively, but so what: we wanted a name that meant something to us. Meant something to our story. And, if you think about it, Burholme Park really was important to us, back in the day (and sometimes even now). The choice was simple.

(Sidenote: there was definitely some discussion regarding whether we should be "Burholme Park" or just "Burholme." This is in reality the only section of the discussion I actually remember from that night. Mike made the good point that "Burholme Park" sounded too much like "Linkin Park," who were still pretty big at that point. At the time, I thought Mike had said "Lincoln Park," and I unquestioningly thought that Lincoln Park was some fucking emo band I had never heard of at the time, and so I didn't agree or disagree with the point, and was totally cool with just being known as "Burholme." It was literally like eight years later when I suddenly and randomly had the realization that he was talking about Linkin Park, not Lincoln Park. The brain is the most mysterious thing, and I'll never understand it.)

Maybe my old Xanga will eventually reveal more details, but for now, suffice it to say that Burholme was once known as Schmooze, but we were always the same band. The Schmooze story and the Burholme story are one in the same. It's not the name that means anything, it's the people involved. The friends involved, both in the band and supporting the band by drinking in the woods with them.

And yes, sometimes part of that story also involves an absolutely dreadful cover of a really great landfill-indie-rock tune from the mid-'00s, featuring a lead-vocal turn from a drummer who cannot sing, and certainly cannot sing while drumming. Very bad. Very, very bad. I am very sorry that y'all have to witness "Goodnight Goodnight" by Burholme today.

It's less than two minutes, and so you hopefully gritted your teeth and bore it and then moved along to a relatively heartwarming tale of three young lads who played music in a garage and then went about your day. Because this isn't that important. Some music made by three amateurs two decades ago isn't that important. Not at all. Except, also: it's the most important goddamn thing in the world.