SOUNDTRACK: RunHideFight-“He’s a Jerk”/”Because I Love You” (2018).
RunHideFight is (was?) a Philly band which features author Christine Weiser on bass. This is their only available single and I love that the cover features lead singer Geeta Dalal Simons holding her double neck 12-string guitar (which is in fact a custom 12 electric neck / 12 electric sitar neck).
“He’s a Jerk” is a two minute blast of garage rock fun. The song has lots of fuzz and a simple riff that sounds like “All Day and All of the Night” but isn’t. Lead singer Geeta Dalal Simons has a great rough, unpolished scream of a voice. And the chorus is really catchy. There’s even time for a guitar solo from John Terlesky.
“Because I Love You” slows things down with a nifty sitar line. I really like the start-stop nature of the main riff. The intertwining backing vocals really flesh this song out. It clocks in at 2 and a half minutes, but really fits in a lot of different musical moments.
This seems to be the band’s only release and it was from two years ago, so maybe they are no longer. Which is a shame, these two songs are pretty great and although I listened because if Weiser, I want to hear more from Geeta Dalal Simons.
[READ: July 25, 2020] Broad Street
I saw Christine Weiser play bass in Suffacox a few months ago. When she was introduced, it was mentioned that she was a writer. I found this book, her first novel, and decided to check it out.
Weiser has been in a number of bands. One in particular was Mae Pang (if you don’t know the origins of that name, do look it up–I had no idea). Mae Pang was an all-girl garage rock band based in Philly. As far as I can tell, they didn’t release any music.
However, Weiser has mined her experiences with Mae Pang for the basis of this book. She has chosen the far superior band name of Broad Street for the book.
Kit Greene is a proofreader for a medical publishing house. It’s the kind of job where an errant decimal point can be deadly (literally–it could effect the dosage of medicine). It’s high stress and her boss doesn’t make it any easier.
Kit has just been dumped by Dale. Dale is in a local band and Kit complains that he basically just uses the band as an excuse to hang out with his buddies and drink and redefine monogamy.
Kit is invited to a party and decides to get out of her funk by going.
The party hosts are Pete and Margo. Pete is also in a band, which Margo isn’t too thrilled about (anymore). Margo doesn’t really like Pete’s band and tells Kit that she could write better songs–she messes around on Pete’s guitars. Kit says that Dale gave her a bass a while ago. Margo says they should form a band. It’s a drunken pledge, but they stick to it.
The book mostly follows the travails of an all-girl band in Philly in the late 1990s. The sexism isn’t quite as bad as I would have imagined. It’s there, but I would have guessed it would have been worse (maybe she downplays it so the book isn’t too depressing). Indeed, the sexism actually helps them out a little bit. The novelty of an all-girl band gets them some attention–local newspaper stories and a slot at a local festival that hasn’t met its “female quota.”
Most of the depressing stuff in the book comes from Kit’s terrible choices. Holy crap does she smoke a lot. And wow, does she make bad decisions about the parties she goes to. On at least two occasions she wakes up unsure exactly how much sex she’s had and even with whom on one occasion. And the drugs–jeez.
Part of the problem is that she starts seeing a guy in one of the more successful local bands–Ben, the charismatic lead singer who confesses that he often thought she could do better than Dale. She could. But Ben is not the guy. At one point he pretty much takes her out just so they can do coke and have sex. That’s not what Kit (or anyone, really) is looking for.
The story actually makes getting a band together and playing shows seem pretty easy. Maybe it was. Maybe she was connected enough or maybe Philly just has enough clubs that a local band can often find a gig somewhere. Or maybe Weiser knew it would be boring to read about all of the minutiae of a small band’s struggles.
So she fleshes out Kit’s life with some other problems. Her father’s health isn’t great. He is also a little disappointed in her choices (he is a retired professor). Her sister Nikki is far more successful than she is, with a good job and a nice place. Although Nikki winds up with her own problems when she reveals that she has been dating her (married) boss.
I though the story was going to go in some obvious directions. Kit bemoans the fact that she only dates jerks, when really she should be dating nerdy nice guys. Broad Street winds up with a groupie–a hilarious nerdy guy who is full of stats about bands. It seemed obvious that they would get together at the end, but that issue is never addressed. She also seems like she might hook up with a nice guy drummer friend who helps her out. But again, the story never really gets there. There’s a few loose ends, I suppose (we never hear about her father’s health at the end) but they aren’t the point of the story so the fact that they don’t resolve is fine.
The best surprise comes with her boss. She has a hilarious melt down and disappears. I assumed we’d never see her again, but we do and it’s great.
The book ends with Broad Street doing pretty well. They are even offered an early slot at the local Lollapalooza stop.
I was surprised at the sort of climactic scene of the book. The book is set in the real world–real bands (included Mae Pang) are name checked throughout. But the sort of climactic moment comes when Kurt Cobain kills himself. It has no direct impact on the story or her–she didn’t know him or anything–but it brings reality crashing down on them.
I wonder if this moment would have been more impact ten or fifteen years ago. The book came out in 2008, but even that seems kind of far removed from the 90s.
The epilogue was satisfying (if brief) and I recently found out that there is a sequel, which I’m rather interested in.
I enjoyed Weiser’s writing style although I felt like she spent too much time on certain details which slowed down the flow of the book. Mostly it was the descriptions of peoples–everyone’s hair and clothes were described in great detail and we may have seen every single cigarette lit and smoked. But that’s a minor quibble.
I appreciated that she in no way glamorizes the rock life. From surly audience members, to disgusting backstages to aggressively flirtation men, reading this book might make you never want to be in a band. And yet Weiser still plays.
And I want to see what happens to Kit next.
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