Vol 1: Max
Here’s how I picked the name Max: I didn’t.
What I did was walk into a stranger’s apartment in Burlington, VT where I heard a band was supposed to play. Stranger is an exaggeration, Burlington doesn’t have strangers so much as it has co-op members you haven’t met yet.
Picture me around the time I started playing music (me + Danny and two guitars, a lot of Wilco) I’ve never been in a proper band and I haven’t been invited so much as told the approximate location of the show which is, give or take a few niceties, an invitation if you don’t think too hard.
I make a lone trek to the (probable) front door through an icy slalom of shared driveway on the promise of seeing a band called G.F. with a cohort of musicians I hope to one day call peers. The half-renovated colonial house is packed with the expected faces, but I only hear talk of a band called “Flame Resistant Suit”.
“Have you seen Flame Resistant Suit?!”
Confused giggles, heads shake No, plastic cups spill over stacked winter coats.
“Oh, you’ve never seen Flame Resistant Suit?”
The initiated know that F.R.S. is really G.F. (presently, R.R.) and game of the night is to worship the newly birthed and potentially nonexistent F.R.S. while scoffing at even the suggestion of a band called G.F.
I am only half-initiated and wearing the wrong shoes, but understand enough to say:
“Yes, I’ve seen Flame Resistant Suit. They’re my favorite band.”
The mischievous party-goers (I will later call these people friends) smile and shake my shoulders. Without explanation we leap into the next game: Flame Resistant Suit rumors and speculation.
“Did you hear? They’re going to play the entire first album tonight.”
“I heard some of the original members are here.”
“I heard Flame Resistant Suit refuses to go on until the noise ordinance starts.”
By all appearances, the Rolling Stones are about to play in this New England dirt basement.
The crazy things is, I actually start to believe it. The air changes like it did when I was 16 at Worcester Centrum (W.C.C.→ Centrum → DCU) about to see my first show, it starts to buzz. I cram into the dense crowd of turtlenecks and knit sweaters, desperate for a glimpse of the band we made up. I find a precarious perch on century-old plank stairs, the string light-wrapped railing now a safety bar pressed firm across my chest. I feel about as safe as I did going up the wooden roller coaster at Canobie Lake Park (I spent the entire sixty seconds screaming last words, a memorable minute for the rest of my church altar-server group and a long bus ride home for me). When our rattling cart came to a halt, I wasn’t quite sure I really made it.
The much anticipated Flame Resistant Suit takes the stage.
Silence.
Buzz.
Drop.
The basement erupts, reaching decibels rivaling any arena named “Garden”. Pieces of ceiling crumble and fall down in time to thumping, unrelenting bass. We scream, the negative G-force pulling me out of my sneakers. The keyboardist holds up power cords drenched in beer. He shrugs, we scream louder. Last words: Oh my GOD! With my eardrums barely intact, I finally stop thinking about my shoes.
I come up for air and I see my first familiar face, a bespectacled artist sitting criss cross on the ground. We played a show together once. They’re rationing out a 12-pack of PBR to the delighted masses, gleefully holding court for chattering heads when I walk by.
“HEY MAX!”
I freeze. I wave.
“Hey! Max! How are you?”
Nobody has ever called me Max, but I know it’s me.
I can hear it.
The flip of a light, it’s shining on me.
I say
“Hey!”
For the rest of the night I am Max. I don’t think too hard about it. Max talks about Danny and the two guitars. Max has a lot in common with this crowd and it’s Max who gets on the roller coaster again and again.
I leave the FRS/GF/RR party a believer.
Everything doesn’t change right away, but I find the right places to grow. Places where there is less explaining and more understanding, where I make sense effortlessly.
That is to say, I keep finding people who say yes.
Photos: @artchanning
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