I’ve mentioned before that I quit trying to be a rock star a long time ago, when I realized I was too old and too fat for the job. I saw this as a liberatory moment — since I’m never going to have to worry about making a living as a musician, I can just make whatever music I want to make, and people can listen or not. Likewise, the fact that I have a very satisfying day gig allows me to write whatever I wish.
However, that doesn’t mean I long for oblivion as a musician or as a writer. It’s nice to establish some sort of small-but-respectable presence, to think that when I’m gone, there’ll be some hint of my creative work that remains and can be remembered for a while, even if I’m not remembered by name.
And that’s why I’m happy to report that The Berries are included in the latest edition of The Knights of Fuzz, Timothy Gassens’s encyclopedic survey of the garage rock revival movement from the early 80s to the current day. To wit:
These boys describe themselves best: “A little surf, a little fuzz, a little psych, a little Merseybeat… and a whole lot of garage. It’s The Berries, and they want to install the spirit of 1966 in your head.” Though more gentle than a really nasty fuzz-garage combo, “Candy Apple Sky“, from their 2013 self-titled CD (on the Go Zombie! label) is a fine manifesto of their garage love. Welcome to the fuzz, lads!
So it’s a paragraph or so, out of 500+ pages — a tiny scratch on the walls that time wears away. But it’s much more satisfying than leaving no mark at all, and like the peasant who carried a single stone for the wall of a great cathedral, there’s satisfaction in realizing that I’ll always have been a part of it.
(And it’ll also be a kick to think about before our acoustic gig tomorrow night, as we open for Steve Katz for a house concert here in Mondoville. I’ll tell you how it went on Sunday!)
Dig you!