Punk Rock

A long time ago, back in 2001, me, Russ and Kevin put together a band, with music influenced by the Mushuganas and reruns of the Kids in the Hall. Musically we played mediocre-to-competent sloppy punk rock, lyrically, we were rather deficient (I never got around to writing lyrics, so I just screamed a lot.) Our one redeeming trait, was that we found a schtick: we named ourselves after Oil Can Boyd, a player for the Expos, who was known for more his name than his outright ability to play. Adding to this gimmick, we played most of our shows in sports uniforms that we bought from Play it Again Sports or thriftshops. We would toss out Big League Chew to the audience, elicit fights, and would hand out baseball cards to our fans. I played guitar, Russ bass, Kevin on drums. Kevin would make funny faces when playing fast and I earned a drumstick to the head one time for making a mockery of him. I deserved it.

For some reason, we actually earned something of a fanbase, which was made up mostly of our friends. It was a good time and I miss playing in the band terribly. Oil Can Boyd gets brought up with some regularity, most often by me, and if I had my druthers, I'd still be doing it. The only reason we stopped was that our work schedules couldn't really fit the band in, plus Kevin was in Death in Graceland, Russ in a precursor to Voyageur, so our joke band became less a priority. We played something of a reunion show back in 2005 at the Warner House basement, our setlist consisting of the song "Oil Can Boyd" four times and I think "Boomer Esiason's Son..."

Favorite show? Probably at the 2001 "JamFest" in the Cheviot Fieldhouse, which was broadcast live on Public Access. Russ said some terrible things; I acted the rockstar. One of my favorite nights ever. We played "Oil Can Boyd" three times at the end and I jumped over the fence separating the audience from the stage.

I have a copy of the CD we recorded in storage in my dad's basement, but imagine my pleasure and surprise when I discovered that someone went through the effort to rip our album and load it onto Mediafire. Click here and download it and try to imagine me, 21 and with hair, playing shitty punk rock in a suburban basement. Few things are less important in the makeup of who I am as a person.