There are times when I’m bothered by the direction the band took after the initial change up of members. I’m convinced that certain members were convinced that we needed to emulate the sound of our southern Maine brethren. Sitting here listening to Cerberus Shoal’s “Broken Springs Spring Forth from Broken Clocks”, it’s so clear that the final song that was completed was a blatant rip-off of the style that these guys were using. The initial three songs have their own similarities to each other, as they should considering they were written with our original bassist and were written by Scott and Jordan, as far as the instrumental parts. The fourth song, which on the CD is actually track #2, was written the next spring and is by far my favorite. This song was written by Scott, Jordan, Aaron, and Jassen. The fifth song, track #4 on the CD, is the song I am referring to. The length is kept short at around five minutes compared to Broken Springs nine odd minutes of music. Yes, track #4, titled “Samsara”, sounds like the backing music and features me doing a vocal sounds jam, but just seems out of place on the entire CD. It just eats at me, after all those years. “Move on, that was a long time ago”. I know, but some things just can’t be let go. The whole experience was a big part of my life. I mean, in the years since I’ve still run into people who saw us, heard the songs, or at least heard of us. Fuck, I mean I used to get recognized in public once in a while as the “guy who sang for SAMSARA”. It was weird, not cool at all, but then again I guess it was. It is the closest I will ever be to being some kind of local celebrity. Not my intention at all, by the way, I just wanted to make new music that no one had ever heard before. I wanted to be part of the experience and express my inner most thoughts on the stage. That’s something that I haven’t done since. Karaoke is such an empty experience when you’ve done what I’ve done. It’s still nice to perform for a crowd, but it’s not my words or music I helped to bring into existence. Some say it’s been too long for me to still care about all this, I say “fuck them”. It must have not meant that much to them, not as much as it meant to me. I am proud and at the same time ashamed of everything that happened. Friendships ended when that band ended, maybe they weren’t even friendships now that I think about it. I mean, Scott and Jordan were friends of mine for sure, but the other two. Hard to say now that we’re ten years out. Ten years. I’ll be back on here sometime to really write the second and final part of what the band really meant to me and what I saw and did. Check back once and a while. Fuck following the crowd, by the way. Too many Maine bands do this very thing. Thank God for groups like Twisted Roots who’s songs will live on in my heart, always.
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