Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 102: Joe

Prompt: "A song that feels specifically written about you"

Selected by Joe

"Stay Positive"

The Hold Steady ft. Mosh Pit Josh

Live in Philadelphia 7​-​27​-​18, 2018

Yesterday's emphasis was on the word "feels" in the prompt. There was an acknowledgment that there are no songs written for me, but that we as individuals can, under certain circumstances and in the right mindset, pretend that certain songs are written for us, each of us individually, like the song is a conduit from artist to audience member, an audience of one, at least in that moment we've constructed in our minds. And that gives the music an electrical charge, when it happens.

We can apply the same logic to today's prompt. There are similarly no songs on earth that are written about me. I don't know how or when that could've happened. The musicians in my life are small in number, and most of those don't write their own songs as far as I know. I can count on one hand the number of people who I know personally, as friends, who were actively composing music during a time period in which we would interact even semi-regularly. No, I do not think that Science Club has written any songs about Puke on Your Birthday. (I guess there's a Burholme song that counts as "about me" on a technical level, but even if we consider technicalities, there's is nothing more to say about any of those songs on this blog.)

But I like considering this hypothetical, and so for today, in stark contrast with yesterday's post, I am going to ignore the word "feels." I am going to consider my general proximity to the heart of every song I've ever known, and try to find the one that I am closest to. I will reiterate that there are no songs written about me, but are there are songs to which I am even tangential to its narrative? There is one I can think of, and it's a fucking stretch.

Some caveats. One, I am acknowledging that "Stay Positive" by the Hold Steady was not written about me. That should be obvious. I'm not saying that. I'm specifically referring to a live version, but it's still "Stay Positive," and it's still not written about me. Two, there's a story attached, but the story occurs within one hour after the song was performed, so nothing I did or have ever done had any effect on the performance of the song. Three, it's not even that good of a story, so don't get your hopes up. I'm just telling it because it fulfills the prompt in the way that I'm trying to fulfill it today, however wrongheaded it ends up being.

We gotta start it with a positive jam. Me and Nate and Gilson and possibly others attended show #2 of the Hold Steady's mini-residency at Union Transfer. I always get this gig mixed up with the Japandroids one from seventeen months earlier, because it featured some of the same pals, the same Dude Rock vibes, and the same pregaming at Nate's old Olde Richmond house. As I was wont to do for reasons both general (alcoholism) and specific (a discomfort of standing in loud crowded rooms filled with strangers), I got drunk (more on this tomorrow). And it's the Hold Steady, so getting drunk is more or less a prescription that the good Doctor Finn hands out at the show anyway.

It was amusing (and also rather sad, depending on how you look at it) that a few months after the fact, a live album recording of the show ended up on Bandcamp, and I listened to it and didn't really remember the songs from the second half of the performance, due to being too drunk. I know I lived the moments, and I know I sang along to the songs that are inscribed in my heart because I could do that even while in a coma, but, ya know, no lasting memories were formed during certain sections of the show. I guess you know how that goes.

After the show let out, I stumbled out of the venue, passing the merch table on the way out. If you've ever been to UTX, you can picture the merch table looking sort of like a bar. I gotta assume that it literally functioned as a bar when this place was the Spaghetti Warehouse. And I think in my blasted, twisted mind in that moment, I thought it was a bar too. Even though I had been to UTX enough times to know that it wasn't. I had the remnants of my final PBR pounder of the night and so I crushed the can and placed it on what I thought was a bar but was actually the merch table.

I don't remember the fine details about what happened next, but I remember it in vague flashes. The guy behind the merch table yelled something like "Yo asshole!" and I turned around and he threw the can at me. Which was surprising to me because I didn't know why he was so upset, just couldn't comprehend it. I don't know for sure whether I maybe threw the empty can on there aggressively or something, but that doesn't seem to be the vibe I would typically give off even in blackout mode. My body doesn't do more, it does less in those moments. It starts shutting down. I was drunk and so I didn't even react to this extremely angry dude throwing an empty beer can at me. If my memory is correct, I just slowly turned around and kept walking out.

The next morning, this memory came to me in a flash, and I was concerned for a little bit. Not concerned that I would face any sort of consequences, but more so that I actually had done something to warrant such an aggressive response, and that I just couldn't remember it. I'm not saying that leaving a piece of trash somewhere that it isn't supposed to go and leaving someone else to take care of that trash isn't unfair. It's totally unfair. But it's a small action, and would require a small reaction, ya know? And in my admittedly opaque memory, this dude's veins were popping out of his forehead and he looked like he was going to tear me in half, and for what? Accidentally leaving an empty beer can on the merch table? Either the dude went way overboard due to whatever reason, or I actually had done something that warranted such a response and I just couldn't remember it.

Then, around Christmastime at the end of that year, I had my hands on a recording of that show, and gave it a lot of listens. It felt personal, because I was there, and it felt redemptive, because I wasn't actually there, at least not with a sound mind. Something interesting was that the Hold Steady invited a dude named "Mosh Pit Josh" to come up on stage with them and sing the bridge. No idea who this guy is, but he's really going for it. Probably just a friend of the band (especially with a nickname, which indicates friendship). And the guy's probably a little nervous too, I'm sure, but adrenaline is taking over. Mosh Pit Josh growls the bridge like this is post-hardcore song. You can tell that he is pumped to be there and that the adrenaline is rushing through him at a high rate.

So I did some light googling to figure out who Mosh Pit Josh is in terms of the Hold Steady universe, and it turns out that he is... the merch guy. And everything clicked. I would have no way to confirm this personally (unless he's still the merch guy the next time that the Hold Steady come to town and I manage to get off my ass and attend a concert), but it kinda makes sense, doesn't it? "Stay Positive" with Mosh Pit Josh was the penultimate song of the night. The final song was "Killer Parties" and it's an eleven-minute version. I can't imagine I was in the concert area for more than another four minutes before stepping out into the foyer and pass the merch table. And science tells us that it takes about 20-30 minutes to start calming down have a huge adrenaline spike.

This is why he overreacted to my petty crime! He was pumped up from just having sang a motherfucking Hold Steady song with the motherfucking Hold Steady, live on stage! Shit, man, I'm surprised he didn't throw a punch after getting an adrenaline rush like that!

At the very least, it confirmed as much as it could that I hadn't done anything egregious that had required such a strong pushback. Not that I was totally clean, but I could live with having been simply thoughtless and idiotic, and would've had more conscience-clearing to do if I had done something violent or reckless. And it doesn't excuse anything, because it starts to become a problem when thousands or millions of low-grade thoughtless, consequence-less occurrences happen over the course of many years, and just because this was only one of them doesn't mean that it didn't contribute to any sort of a long-tail downfall.

Optimistically speaking, it's just a goofy interaction that was somehow explained retroactively through a recorded piece of live music. It is almost certain that Mosh Pit Josh does not remember this, and even more certain that even if he does, that Craig Finn and the boys were not told about it afterward. Still, though, I'd like to think of that small moment as part of the mythology of the Hold Steady. How a song about a Positive Unified Scene ironically caused a member of their family to add to what I might call a Negative Fractured Scene at the merch table. And as far as my own myth goes, this might not be an important incident in the grand scheme of things, but it's fun to hear the live version of "Stay Positive" and have a tangible reason to remember something that happened to me all those years ago.

I would love to hear if Nate or Gilson had anything to add to this tale, though I suppose it's unlikely that they were in search of sobriety at the Hold Steady show either.