Last Thursday Katy, Eloy and I flew into Newark, NJ for the final Vivian Girls shows. We landed at night on my mom's birthday, so I went down to Toms River, while Katy went home to Ridgewood. Eloy stayed with our friends in Elizabeth.
Friday morning my parents and I got breakfast at a little deli in Beachwood, NJ and my mom and I went to the Ocean County Historical Society Museum. That night Eloy and I stayed with friends in Long Island and I drank Fireball for the first time.
It's now been one week since Katy, Cassie and I played the very last Vivian Girls shows. Having come up in Brooklyn, we agreed we should lay it to rest there as well. When our Death By Audio show sold out in a matter of minutes, we added a second New York show at a new Brooklyn venue, Baby's All Right.
Night one, we had Juan Wauters of the Beets (who we toured with in 2009) and Waxahatchee, one of my current faves. On the second night, and the true final show, we asked Shellshag and Potty Mouth to open. We curated two nights of old and new. I think it's a bit self indulgent to make a break up too nostalgic. I prefer to look forward and keep momentum. Celebrate the happy memories, express gratitude, and get excited about the future. I am not a fan of living in the past.
However this weekend, living in the past was sort of inevitable. It was a unique feeling to celebrate a period in your life in front of strangers. The first night I didn't know how to process it. I wondered if I regretted agreeing to play these shows, but the Baby's All Right show changed that. I noticed a girl crying in the front row during our encore and I just looked at her and shook my head, urging her not to cry. As soon as the set was over I cried my eyes out. I hugged Cassie and Katy backstage and spoke to fans through my tears. Anything remotely nice or inspiring anyone said to me made me well up all over again. I didn't know what to make of it, and I spent the next two days in mourning in my childhood bedroom.
In tandem with the death of Vivian Girls, I was home to pack up the bedroom I grew up in. My parents are moving to Florida in the summer and giving the house to my brother and his wife. I packed up junk into boxes for donation and rifled through old photos and diaries and love letters for preservation. It was strange and touching to look at my life thus far. All of a sudden the old show flyers and demos of my first bands seemed much more profound. I found photos of myself drumming behind Katy in a New Brunswick basement and thought "Man, if only you knew what was next."
The tears I cried over the weekend weren't tears of sadness I don't think. They were due to the profundity of the moment. The symbolic death, closing of a chapter, celebration, transition, change, whatever you want to call it. My tears were born of the same feeling I get at weddings and graduations; excitement for what's next, mourning for what's gone, and satisfaction with the way it came to be.
Jenn Pelly summed up these feelings beautifully in her piece for Pitchfork. You can read it here.
Since I can't live a moment of my life without posting about it online, here are some of the photos I came across while packing up my room. I also brought my Hi-8 video camera back to LA with me so I can digitize the film. God only knows what's on there, but I am certain there is a very young Dog Party and a lot of footage from our tour with Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti.
