READING IS FUCKINMENTAL / Jason Matthew Smith

GATES CRASHER

On David Gates and bad bands. Yes, I’m talking to you.

Maybe you were in a band in high school. Or maybe you were like me: You hooked up with a bunch of guys (or gals) just out of high school with the misdirected notion of forming a band, and the whole concept went down in flames faster than you can say “thank you, everybody—goodnight!” Your experience was probably much like mine—when the bandmates managed to get together, they ended up fucking around more than anything else. Drinking. Smoking. Occasional drug use. And one or two horribly executed cover tunes. Truth is, none of us (and I’d dare say none of you) should have been allowed within 100 miles of an instrument. Well, except the drummer. Seems like the drummer could always pull off a passably mediocre cover of Pearl Jam’s “Even Flow,” while the rest of us sounded like a busload of Scottish bagpipe players rolling down Mount Kilimanjaro.

One of my favorite writers of all time perfectly captures the mood and miscues of a bunch of fuckups slaughtering another band’s song. In David Gates’ (not the lead singer of Bread) Preston Falls (1999), anti-hero Doug Willis falls in with a bunch of musically retarded idiots who stumble through songs in a booze and drug-fueled stupor that will seem all too familiar to those of you who once harbored delusions of musical grandeur. Gates’ ear for dialogue, however, is pitch perfect, and he completely nails the sheer idiocy of a pack of overgrown boys arguing over which song to butcher next.

Gates is a senior writer with Newsweek, and covers music and books for that publication. He’s a fine journalist as well, and his reviews outshine the usual lusterless fluff found in news magazines. And while you’re hunting down Preston Falls, check out Gates’ first novel, Jernigan (1991). It’s every bit as good as reston Falls, and the novel’s sad-sack protagonist will make you feel really good about how awful your life has turned out.

One piece of advice, while we’re on the topic of youthful forays into music. If your shitty cover band recorded anything, do the world a favor and destroy said recording. Please, think of the children. I’m still hunting down a cassette tape loaded with my former band’s caterwauling. Please, God, don’t let my daughter find that—I’d rather she stumble upon my stash of amputee porn.      

Jason Matthew Smith is a Texan who never developed an accent, thanks to a steady diet of television reruns during his formative years. He now lives in Utah, where everyone thinks he sounds just like John Astin, the original Gomez Addams.