speed of dark

A few weeks back, after spending the night at Indie Mom's because we had gone to a concert the night before, I was watching Saturday morning kiddie shows with my grandson, He Might Be Giant. He had made and brought me coffee (he is so going to make someone a good husband one day), and we were staring at Nickelodeon's Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide. A familiar-looking music teacher was telling the main character, a middle-school student, why it is important to practice scales.

"Holy cow, that's Art Alexakis!" I said.

"He says he was a rock star," said HMBG.

"He was! Look..." I rummaged quickly through Indie Mom's CDs and managed to come up with Sparkle and Fade. I showed him a picture of Alexakis from before HMBG was born.

Just then, the music teacher on screen loosened his tie, rolled up his dress shirt sleeves to reveal tattooed arms, and leaped into the wide-legged crouch of a rock god. His fingers peeled sizzling licks off an electric guitar.

I was immediately whisked back in time to March 22, 1996. I was at the front of the crowd at the Roxy, a tiny club in L.A., a few months after the release of that album but before the song "Santa Monica" became a radio hit and pop anthem that turned the album platinum and launched Everclear into mainstream pop.

Everclear gave one of the most energetic and engaging performances I've ever seen. Alexakis played with such fire that he broke two guitar strings during one song--and just grinned and kept on playing. Afterwards, Alexakis, bassist Craig Montoya, and drummer Greg Eklund all came out into the crowd to meet and greet the audience and sign autographs. I remember that Alexakis actually looked at me when he signed the CD insert I had brought. I am glad that I got to see them in that moment, when they were fresh and glowing from their first success, and the golden carrot of fame had not yet lured Alexakis to write blandness like "Volvo Driving Soccer Mom."

The Everclear of the early 90's had a different character from the band it devolved to beginning with 1997's So Much For the Afterglow. I went back from Sparkle and Fade and bought 1993's World of Noise. This was a much rawer and more painful album, and I came to like it even better than Sparkle and Fade. Compare the drug-drenched paranoia of these lyrics from "Nervous and Weird" to "I Will Buy You a New Life" and "Father of Mine" that would follow only four years later:

I remember you back in '83

You were dressing insane

You were my everything

You were so different then

From all the other girls

A blind Electra in drag

So cool and casually lame...

I sit alone when you're not around

I read aloud just to hear a friendly noise

I see your scary dolls

They always look at me

From the corner of my eye

I see them shake their heads

The desperation of being close to the edge in "Sick and Tired:" I am livin' cause I keep it all, keep it all inside.

The effort to stay clean from "The Twistinside:" Breathin' fire doesn't look good on a resume; neither does anything else we do.

The poignancy of not being able to keep private matters private from "My Sexual Life:"
Buried in the heavy water/Buried in the sand/Happy hearts fall from my shaky hands/I can't hide my sexual life.

It doesn't take a Proust scholar to know that nothing prompts musical creativity like personal pain, so when the pain faded I imagine it was harder to write striking music about middle-class comfort. Maybe it got too hard to make money on the overdose deaths of his brother ("Fire Maple Song") and girlfriend ("Heroine Girl"). Maybe songs about backsliding into addiction ("Strawberry") were no longer relevant. Ironically, "You Make Me Feel Like a Whore" on Sparkle and Fade is about selling out.

Alexakis was ambitious, ten years older than most of his punk peers, and probably something of a media chameleon, like Madonna. He has reinvented himself several times over the past two decades, from punk druggie to clean pop rocker to MTV moderator to television actor. Maybe that is what he has always been--an actor. On one hand, that looks like selling out. On the other, it's simply survival.

From World of Noise (1993):
Sick and Tired
Nervous and Weird

From Sparkle and Fade (1995):
You Make Me Feel Like a Whore
Heroin Girl
My Sexual Life

The other two former members of Everclear are also surviving just fine. Craig Montoya traded his bass for vocal duties with his band Tri-Polar. Former drummer Greg Ecklund also took a new musical route, providing guitar and vocals for the up-and-coming L.A. band the oohlas.

Sources: Answers.com

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Find "Fire Maple Song," "Santa Monica," and "Strawberry" on The Best of Everclear on itunes