First Person
On July 16, my lady and I will close on our first house. It’s a vaguely MCM ranch number: one floor, big windows, clean lines — really, the thing is pretty nice.
Facing the Music: The Author Hopes for More Than a Blurry Recollection of His Past | Photo by Shawn Brackbill
That said, the fact that it was built in 1955 meant that we were in for a bit of hassle come inspection time, and, indeed, having finally settled on repairs, we find ourselves staring down a hefty renovation bill. Still, I’m pretty excited about it all and, when I finally get through with my portion of the relocation bullshit, I’m sure that I’ll feel appropriately thrilled.
The post office is the last entry on our largish to-do list. And, after I’ve filled out the appropriate online forms, I’ll send a quick email to all of the various folks who send us stuff from time to time. That includes the folks at Dischord Records who, for the past seven-or-so years, have sent me royalty checks every six months. These things are by no means Jacksonian (or even, I’d guess, Svenonian) in nature, and though they have been a nice little income pick-me-up on a few occasions, their larger role has been to serve me as a reminder of something I did, remain very proud of, and miss to some degree. When they dry up — which they inevitably will — it will mark the passing of a period of my life that I’m not quite sure I’m ready to give up on.
There is a fair amount of irony in the fact that all of this has come down to a check. I grew up and found music in Washington, D.C., and so, naturally, I idolized Dischord and the people who founded it and participated in the scene that was built up around that icon of independent music. And when filtered through the idealistic ears of a fifteen year-old, the no philosophy that various publications would use to caricature the label and those associated with it sounded like something more along the lines of we don’t need your money — which is, of course, a gross over-simplification. As I grew up and found myself on the receiving end of what would amount to something of a complication of how I saw things, I began to realize just how powerful the checks — earned thanks to the hard work of my friends, colleagues, and fellow musicians, and not rubber signed by some anonymous chief executive — were, even if they didn’t fill my bank account. And though the band I played with no longer exists, the connection that I feel to what happened and continues to happen musically in the District is still tangible — reinforced every six months with the arrival of my royalty check.
Our shares of the proceeds from the sale of our records are divided evenly among myself and my former bandmates. Eventually, the very particular market for the music that we made will reach a saturation point, and as it does, my cut will, of course, shrink. When it gets below $10, Dischord will hold the amount made for that particular six months until the next royalty period, and I will be left waiting for my account to climb over the no-pay rate. I will not, I hope, need those seven or eight or nine dollars. I will not at first notice that I didn’t get my check. But at some point — maybe this September, maybe next February — I will remember that I’ve missed my biannual Dischord check. I will probably email the folks there, just to check and see if I sent them my change of address. And when they confirm that I have, I will realize that the portion of my life that I dedicated to all of this is really, formally, psychic-ly over (even if I’m six years removed from our final performance).
I won’t be bummed, exactly. Nor, despite the tone of this essay, nostalgic. I will be, I think, finally sort of over the immediate relevance of it all. And, in that respect, I will join the rest of the world — whether I’m ready to or not.
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