Customer reviews of “Dreams Are Unfinished Thoughts”:
"I loved this book. Your narrative is so terse and brave; I couldn't help but appreciate its honesty. Life is made up of small and peculiar moments that puzzle together perfectly, and you achieved that. This is my favorite book of the year. This is an engaging story about a friendship that could have just easily never transpired. Goosebumps, laughter, sadness... despite its very personal feel... it was epic in its courage, detail, and love. Congratulations on a tremendous first book."
"This is a book I could not put down. As someone who has friends in the music industry, I can tell you that from the fan's perspective, Brian's book is as close to the ‘real thing’ as you're going to get. Far past where you are a fan and become a friend, the music part almost becomes secondary to the person producing it. Brian's book is a MUST HAVE for not only [music] fans but also the process a fan only dreams about - from becoming a fan to becoming truly part of that musicians' life."
"You get to see the human side of [a] rockstar..."
"Dreams are Unfinished Thoughts, is a powerful and thoughtful collection of vivid memories detailing every moment of a life changing friendship. The range and intensity of the memories, from silly to mournful, keep the reader fully ensconced in the story until the very end. It is a compelling story definitely worth reading."
DREAMS ARE UNFINISHED THOUGHTS
-by Brian Paone
Published by Brian Paone at Smashwords
Copyright 2010 Brian Paone
Discover other titles by Brian Paone at Smashwords.com or http://www.BrianPaone.com
Artwork by J. Nothing
Edited by Stephanie Paone
MANTIS ONE
“What do you think you mean to me, how important you must seem…”
God Lives Underwater
“Waste Of Time”
GLU
So here I am, it’s the beginning of a new year, and it will be the first year since 1995 that I will go through without one of my best friends David Reilly. It also happens to be the year that I am getting married, the event I am looking at as the most joyous moment in my life. Yet, my insides tend to get pulled back and forth, right and left, thinking that David won’t be there, but at the same time knowing he will be there. David has never let me down, he’s never even come close, and I am confident that he won’t miss that day for anything. David always had a talent for making our friendship so trying, tribulating and rewarding all at the same time, but never once disappointing.
June 21, 1995 is probably the date where I can look at someone in the face and say that it “started it all,” even though I didn’t meet him until the next night on June 22, 1995. Funny how almost every major life changing moment never really just “happens,” it develops, especially if you can trace the domino effect back to somewhere. Driving around yesterday, I tried to trace why David and I met in the first place, I tried to bring it all the way back to the absolute moment that would even allow me to know that he existed. Bringing it back to the infancy of the birth, I have to take it all the way back to the third concert I ever went to: Lollapalooza ‘92 in Mansfield, Massachusetts with Bill Reilly (hmm… I actually didn’t even make the last name connection until I just typed his name onto the page.)
Billy was a high-school friend who was very fundamental in starting to shape the music I listened to in my mid-to-late teens. Coming into high school as a freshman, I was only listening to old ‘70s prog-rock, (Pink Floyd, Yes, Rush, Genesis, Jethro Tull), as well as other bands like The Who, Electric Light Orchestra, The Beatles, and eventually stuff like REM, INXS, Midnight Oil, and Guns N Roses (I completely skipped over the ‘80s hair band movement). In addition, I was also listening to a lot of Public Enemy, 3rd Bass, Digital Underground and that late ‘80s early ‘90s old school rap. My first two concerts were Yes in the summer of 1989 and Jethro Tull in the fall of 1989.
Billy talked me into going to Lollapalooza with him since he had no one to go with and at this time he had already started to get me into bands like Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Faith No More, Butthole Surfers, U2, and Led Zeppelin. Lollapalooza ’92 had Pearl Jam, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Soundgarden all on the bill. I had to go. Even if I had just gotten into these bands a few months prior, I had to go. This was the tour where a certain band called Ministry was co-headlining with Red Hot Chili Peppers. I had never heard of Ministry and, honestly, I just wanted to get through their set to get to the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
It was sitting in the first row of Section 8 next to Mr. Billy Reilly at Great Woods that lead me down the path of who I am now. Ministry came out and opened with “N.W.O.” and it was like this whole new undiscovered world opened up in front of me. I had no idea what industrial music was prior to this moment, but it was angry, it was raw, it was militant, it was pounding, but still empathetic, and it didn’t care if you were listening or not, ‘cause it was going to be loud! I had never felt a merger of such human emotion with such mechanical sound before.
I bought the Ministry album they were promoting on that tour, Psalm 69, the very next day and I haven’t looked back since. What then continued to open my eyes to a larger world of industrial music was approaching my high school friend, Jim Schunneman, during lunch our junior year. He had his headphones on and I asked him what he was listening to. He answered, “A band called Nine Inch Nails, their new album came out this week.” I had heard of Nine Inch Nails but I had never actually ‘heard’ them. He didn’t even ask me if I wanted to hear it, he told me I wanted to. “You need to listen to this song,” he said. So I put the headphones on and he pressed Play, and my introduction into more ‘commercial industrial’ began with the opening notes to the song “Wish” off the Broken album. Broken was the album that had just been released and I listened to this three and a half-minute song and it was exactly what I had been looking for emotionally in music. That Friday night, I went and bought Broken and Nine Inch Nails’ first album, Pretty Hate Machine, and spent the rest of the weekend dissecting them.
It was through the discovery of Ministry and Nine Inch Nails that I then discovered, with much love, Front 242 and Pigface. After going with Jim to see Front 242 live in 1993, I realized I had finally found my niche in music. I wanted to know, own and memorize every industrial band out there.
During the summer before my senior year, I was driving home one day, and the local radio station played a song by a brand new band called Stabbing Westward, titled, “Nothing.” Upon hearing this song, I realized that industrial and rock could live together. I was completely bitten by the bug, and I needed to become a rivet-head (or, in layman’s terms: an Industrial-Music-Elitist). Any musical suggestions anyone gave me, or if a review of a band mentioned the word, ‘industrial,’ I bought the album without hearing even one note. I began to discover: Skold, Skinny Puppy, Revolting Cocks, Machines Of Loving Grace, Big Catholic Guilt, Bile, and My Life With The Trill Kill Kult in this way.
As a rabid fan of the genre, I couldn’t get enough. At the time, I was in a thrash-metal band called Vertical Smile. We had only played one show and written two songs, when I arrived at practice to tell them that I was quitting to start my own industrial band. I had few friends in high-school who were becoming rivet-heads like me, and who also had the motivation to be in an industrial project. And so, my first real band, (and by real, I mean we actually released an album), called Yellow #1 was started. Starting this band only made me even hungrier for anything under the “Industrial Umbrella” that I could get my hands on.
Now that we are up to speed on where my own head was in the year of 1995, we can return to the afternoon of June 21, 1995. It was already warm enough in Massachusetts to be swimming, already warm enough for my high school friend, and a member of my band, (Yellow #1), Dave Ouellette, otherwise known as “Dogboy” for a hairdo worn one day resembling Dogboy from MTV, to have his dad open the pool. Often, we would bring out one of those small boom boxes and listen to WBCN while we took turns beating each other up in the pool with pool noodles.
On this particular day, the WBCN DJs were between songs discussing a contest for 104 tickets to see two bands the very next night at the Paradise club in Boston. The two bands were Maids Of Gravity and God Lives Underwater. Oddly enough, I was a subscriber to a new magazine at the time called “huH,” (which didn’t run for too long). “huH” was a monthly magazine focusing primarily on new and upcoming bands. In the last month’s edition at this time, they featured a full-page story on God Lives Underwater and included a photo of them, (which I still have somewhere in my apartment). With each edition, the magazine came with a free sampler CD of new bands. God Lives Underwater wasn’t on the sampler CD, but Maids Of Gravity was. As the radio aired the contest, I remember liking their track, “Only Dreaming,” on the sampler, as well as being very interested in God Lives Underwater due to the write-up they received in the magazine. The article compared them to Nine Inch Nails and Stabbing Westward. I don’t exactly remember if Dogboy’s portable phone was outside already, or if he had to run inside and get it, but one of us said to the other “we should call; I’m not doing anything tomorrow night, are you?” and the other replied “no.”
The DJs were looking for a certain numbered caller to win the tickets. This was a win-only show, you couldn’t buy tickets, so they were giving away a pair every 30 minutes or so until they reached their 104 quota (the station’s frequency is 104.1). I know it was me who eventually called the station and I don’t believe we were the correct numbered caller on our first try, but eventually there was a call where the DJs said, “Yes! You are the ___ caller and win two tickets to tomorrow night’s show!”
Now, what does one do when they just won tickets to see a band that they had put in the back of your mind to check out based purely on a review in a magazine? Well I don’t know about you, but if you’re me…you leave immediately, find your nearest CD store, and buy the debut album! We had to go to the store Soundwaves in Danvers to find the God Lives Underwater album GLU. This store has long since gone out of business due to Newbury Comics and Best Buy coming into the area and was owned and run by the drummer of the ‘70’s mega-band Boston. I think they only had one copy of GLU, so Dogboy said I should buy it and not him since I was the caller and got us the tickets. I wasn’t going to disagree to that, so I put down my eight dollars and we went back to his house. While we returned to our pool-shenanigans, we put GLU into the boom box. This was the first time I ever heard David’s voice. Over the next 24 hours, up until leaving for the show, I must have listened to that album 10 times.
I embedded the GLU album into my head so well before leaving for the show, that I felt confident that I could sing along to every word to every song, and I was determined to get there early and get right up front. I even studied their photo from the “huH” article in case we accidentally “bumped into” any of them at the show, I would recognize them.
Dogboy and I got there maybe a little too early. We were the first ones in line outside the front doors on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston. We sat with our backs to the bricks on the sidewalk, listening to a low thumping that was sound check coming from inside. The sound was too low to distinguish which band it came from.
With our backs against the bricks, we looked out over the congested Boston street with buildings so close they almost touched each other. Slicing down the middle of the street was the infamous T Green Line, roughly bumping along its tracks in midst of the traffic, filling the air with its high pitch screeching of its brakes at every stop. After some time of waiting, the front door opened, and out came the four members of God Lives Underwater: David Reilly, Jeff Turzo, Drew McGee, Adam Kary and their roadie/guitar tech Tim Turzo. Despite my diligent studying of the photo from the “huH” article, the only reason I recognized them, and in particular David, was because of his nose ring. David’s nose ring resembled a stereotypical silver ring a bull wears in his nose, as can be seen in many cartoons. This ring gave David the illusion that he was the front man, he was the leader, he was the important one, and that he was king of this moment.
I said to Dogboy, “I think that’s God Lives Underwater, and that guy is David Reilly, the singer.” Dogboy replied, “If you think it is, go say something.” Now, I don’t know if this happens to anyone but me, but it’s one thing to be 100 percent sure that I am looking at a certain person, but when the moment comes to possibly approach them and actually ask if they are that person, I am filled with doubt and if this was David his hair had grown considerably since the picture from the article. So, here we are with a guy that is so obviously the lead singer of God Lives Underwater, (he just came out of the club for Christ’s sake), and I completely doubt myself because I realize I am basing everything off a picture in a magazine. As David began to walk away down Commonwealth Avenue, I started to think, “Okay, that’s obviously him, and he’s walking away from you, so are you going to miss the only chance of saying hello to him you might have all night because you are afraid to make a fool of yourself to a stranger if it isn’t him; especially, when it will be so much harder to talk to him after the show with a ton of people around.” Getting over the initial illusion that I would be like a lost puppy scurrying up to meet the wise and elder wolf, I moved off the wall.
I did a little fast trot to catch up with the band, and I opened my mouth and said, “Excuse me, are you David from God Lives Underwater?” David gave me this look, and it may have took him only a second to reply, but it was almost a second long enough to make me want to apologize and go back to leaning against the wall when, he saved my flight response by saying, “Yes I am.” Now, at this point I feel like I need to justify bothering him, so I say, “We are here for the show tonight, absolutely love your album blah blah blah.” I would have a better time remembering what I ate for lunch every day of the second grade than to remember what else I said at that moment. What I do recall, is him telling me that he and the guys were going to get something to eat but the guys in Maids Of Gravity were in the poster store across the street if we wanted to say hi to them too. I said something short of a “thank you” and a “goodbye, can’t wait for the show” and they walked away, leaving me standing there in the middle of the sidewalk.
What struck me at that moment, that I would later use to describe him to people who have never met him, was his demeanor in speaking. I was actually surprised at how soft spoken he seemed to be. It might be the way his lips form the words around his teeth. You notice almost immediately how thin his top lip is, causing his front teeth to show more than normal when he speaks and giving the illusion every word or so that he had buck-teeth. He only had to curl his lips slightly in a smile for his teeth to shine through. The bullring hanging down from his nose, almost resting right on his thin top lip probably didn’t help either. His speaking voice was a little higher than his vocals on the album, and almost nasal with a subtle lisp, but it had a hidden charm. It was very non-threatening, but at the same time, it had a lot of presence. His tone of voice almost matched his posture and body size. David was average height, but very small frame and lanky. He had presence standing there, but he also gave the impression of being meek at the same time.
I walked back to Dogboy, who never moved off the brick wall of the club, and told him Maids Of Gravity were in the poster store across the street. We decided to stop looking like two little girls at a Michael Jackson concert, get away from the line that only consisted of us, and go to this “poster store”. Sure enough, Ed Ruscha of Maids Of Gravity was inside. We spent a little while speaking with him, commenting on all the old movie posters together. After some time, we went back to claim our spot in front of the club, still being the first two people in line.
After another long uneventful period of waiting on what we could now safely claim as “our wall,” the God Lives Underwater members came back to the club. Three of them and the roadie Tim went inside, but David came over to us standing there. I wish I could remember what the conversation was really like, but I only recall a few key points. I remember him telling me that God Lives Underwater had a new album coming out in September and they were going to perform a handful of songs from that album, called Empty, to fill in the headlining spot time. I told David that my favorite song off GLU was “Nothing.” David then made a comment, saying that I wasn’t being fair to the other songs on the album. Just when I thought he wasn’t kidding he told me his favorite song was “Lonely Again,” (and until their third album, this stayed his favorite song). I was wearing a Rocky Horror Picture Show baseball hat and David inquired about it, asking if I liked to see the play live. I told him I was an avid attendee of the show in Harvard Square. From then on, he started to call me “Rocky” and sometimes “Rock” because of my hat. He told me he was awful at remembering names and it would help him remember who I was. Little did I know this nickname would be carried through the next 10 years.
David then proceeded to ask if Dogboy and I wanted to come inside the club with him so we wouldn’t have to keep waiting outside. I was so taken back by his offer that I almost didn’t know what to say. He turned around to the guy at the door and said, “They’re with me.” The doorman then gave him a nod of understanding and in we went. Following behind David, I noticed how the dimming sun shined off the rings on his fingers. It seemed that every finger on both hands was decorated with a silver ring, all different in sizes and designs. I always thought this very much added to the “Industrial” machine illusion of the band’s sound.
Walking through the front glass doors of the Paradise, you are welcomed by a long, skinny hallway. At first, you think you are entering The Bat Cave. To the left is a set of doors that leads to the Paradise Lounge. The Lounge is a smaller club, separate from the Paradise where local bands or bands with smaller draw can play. Next to the Lounge is the coat check and the merchandise counter. The hallway is dimly lit, but brightly covered in old posters of bands that have played before. Just when you start to think the hallway isn’t going to end and there isn’t a club at all, the hallway gets even darker and smaller. As you turn a corner, you are opened up into a long, skinny room. The stage here is enormous. It is only about two feet off the ground, with no barriers, but in contrast, sprawling. You could fit George Clinton’s entire band on this stage and still not have to worry about space. Not wanting to lose David, but trying to look around, I couldn’t miss the big, thick, white pole in the middle of the floor directly in front of the stage. This pole is so large that no human could get their arms around it. If that wasn’t enough, it’s in the most undesirable place, smack dab in front of where the singer would most likely be. In between the pole and the stage, there is only enough room for maybe five rows of fans. Beyond this point, there was a possibility your view of the stage would be obstructed. Looking up, the Paradise has a very “open” feel, with a balcony that goes all the way around the club, and booths on little platforms for people who want to sit at a table and watch the show. Walking past this, David took us backstage into the dressing room of the Paradise and we were able to stay with the guys in God Lives Underwater and Maids Of Gravity until it was time for Maids Of Gravity’s set. All 104 people were there, but the club holds 600+ so it seemed empty. Dogboy and I stayed off to the side of the stage while Maids Of Gravity were playing.
God Lives Underwater came out on stage next and seeing them up there was so comfortable for me. I already felt like I knew all of them and they weren’t “the band we went to see” anymore. Dogboy and I pushed our way right up front, almost directly underneath David’s microphone stand. I made sure I was singing along to every song they played off GLU, and listened intently to the new songs off Empty. If memory serves me correctly, they played “Fool”, “All Wrong”, “23”, and “Empty” off the upcoming album. They played every single song off GLU except “Drag Me Down” (I later found out that it is the only God Lives Underwater song off GLU that has never been played due to the song being too fast for them to play live and still keep up with the click track). During “Waste Of Time”, David lowered the microphone just enough where my vocals were being picked up in the speakers during the chorus. I had to push my body up on the stage to get my mouth closer to the microphone. During the second chorus, a bouncer didn’t know what I was doing, or that David was letting me do it. He ran over and pushed me so hard off the stage that my head hit the pole that sits in front and my Crow tee shirt that I was wearing got ripped by the force of his push when his fingers let go of my neck. I will never forget that, you bastard.
David had a very unique stage presence for the type of music that was coming out of the speakers. You would think this genre of industrial-rock (i.e. Stabbing Westward, Nine Inch Nails) would command some anger and chaos, but it doesn’t. While David stood there between the dual-keyboards that he and Jeff played, with a guitar hanging in front of him, and a microphone eagerly waiting to be sung into; it was amazing to me how much, not only David, but the whole band, emanated energy in subtle movements. It wouldn’t be until later that I would realize that his stage presence reflected his personality, always intense, but always subtle. This presence may have been what made the entire club of 104 people take notice to what was happening on stage. His blonde hair was in twisty but not “dirty” dreads, both hands on the microphone with his silver rings breaking up the pattern of the strings of the guitar, looking down at the ground when there were no vocals, shaking his head to the beat. David rarely moved side to side on stage, but he didn’t need to. It was his command presence on stage, along with his black Mantis tattoo taking up his entire right forearm that made everyone in there know exactly who he was.
God Lives Underwater ended their set, and David made a motion for us to meet him by the side door. Dogboy and I made our way through the emptying crowd to the side door, and I knocked. David opened the door and said “C’mon” as Dogboy and I were brought back stage again. They had a load up time to leave for the next show, 1 a.m., which fortunately for me, gave us two hours to spend with them backstage.
The back room of the Paradise is just a long, skinny room with couches and chairs. The members from Maids Of Gravity were there and a case of beer had been brought in. David offered both Dogboy and me a drink and I told him I didn’t drink. At this time, I realized that Dogboy and I were the only two people that were invited backstage to hang out with the bands. I began to wonder: “Where were the girls? The groupies? The stripper pole in the middle of the room” (okay, I never expected a stripper pole, but when you are 18 years old and this is your first time “backstage,” your base of knowledge in this area comes from what you see in Motley Crue documentaries). This was completely different. It was literally me, Dogboy, and the band members from the two bands. David, at first, was a little shocked that I didn’t drink. I remember him not necessarily grilling me about it, but simply asking, “Why?” I told him I never had the urge to. I didn’t care if other people did; it just wasn’t something I was interested in.
There were a solid few seconds at this point where all I wanted to do was impress him. I mean THIS was David Reilly; this was the King and the man had opened the door for me to hang out with him. He didn’t need to do any of that. He could have sent me on my way and traded me in for those strippers that I was still keeping an eye out for. So much of me wanted to meet him at his level. So much of me wanted to even be able to catch a glimpse of his “coolness.” So much of me was just waiting for the shoe to drop and have him realize that there was no reason, nor any fun in hanging out with us anymore. He was the one that needed to be impressed and entertained to keep the company…not me.
I don’t know if it was because I had just turned down a free beer, or he was intrigued about what my limits were, but he paused for a second and asked, “Do you smoke dope?” The thought flashed through my head in under a second that if I said no to this, he would deem me totally uncool and the bouncers would be called to take me away and then I would really never be able to see the strippers. (Okay, there were no strippers, but I was 18, c’mon). However, so far David had been so hospitable to us that my immediate reaction was to be honest, and I said “No.” He didn’t grill me too much on this answer, (thankfully), but he was still a little surprised. I proceeded to tell him that I had never even had a cigarette before. At this time, I realized I looked completely uncool to everyone in God Lives Underwater and Maids Of Gravity. I even think out of the corner of my eye, I could see Dogboy shaking his head and mentally waving with his eyes “NO NO NO,” but even so, everyone seemed to respect my answer. Even David looked right at me and told me how much he respected my choices, as well as not being afraid to stand firm with them.
Dogboy and I were sitting on a couch that was on the right side of room while David sat next to us in a chair. The guys from Maids Of Gravity had left the room at this point to either go get food, get drinks (or figure out where the heck those strippers were) and Jeff, Adam, and Drew were either back in the club shmoozing it up with the radio people, or out getting food, I don’t really know. The door to the backstage area closed and David was left alone with Dogboy and me. I was shocked that this man, this singer of the headlining band, would rather hang out with two 18 year old kids than get food with his band and opening band, (or looking for those damn strippers). I would like to think that David and I always had a very different relationship than everyone else, and it started at this moment. Looking back, even when I woke up the next morning, even sitting here, writing this book 11 years later, I believe that something happened where the line was blurred and all defenses were dropped, and this was the exact nano-second of our friendship. At this moment, David took the initiative to blur the lines between some kid who showed up at his band’s show and harassed him outside, and someone that will go to bed that night with something personal. I still think back on this and have my own theories as to why he started to let me into something so personal, but whatever the reason that was hiding behind those eyes, he decided to let me inside the man more than the music that was burnt into a CD.
The significance of that moment still didn’t stifle the feeling that he had the upper-hand and at any time could kick us out, nor did it make me feel any better about having to prove myself to him and there was no real concrete reason why he should even keep my company. I may have felt the lines beginning to blur, but it would be a while before I could finally let out that exhausting breath.
Soft spoken, innocently, and with a twinge of sadness and power, David said, “I have a story about why you should never be a junkie.” I paused for a second, forgetting my entire environment. I forgot that just a few hours before I was running up to this man and asking him if he was who he was, I forgot that I was backstage at a club with the singer of the band whose music I had force-fed and immersed myself in for 24 hours straight, I forgot I was sitting next to a man who I didn’t know much about other than his name and a handful of lyrics. When he began to speak, none of this mattered, and all of that went away. David always had a very high wall of privacy. Perhaps it was because I didn’t even accept a beer from him, or that I was half his size and non-threatening, that he dropped this wall to a complete stranger.
“Almost everyone I have met has believed that all my songs are about girls, or relationships.” David started. “If you really listen to the lyrics on both GLU and the upcoming album, they are about Heroin.”
It was at this point that I realized I didn’t even know what Heroin looked like, had never seen it in my life, but I gave him my best poker face so he would keep talking.
“Take ‘No More Love’, that song is very specific about my girlfriend Heather and a fight about drug use we had in her kitchen. ‘I can feel your heavy stare, I run my fingers through my hair.’ Those lyrics are very specific because during the fight, all I could do was play with my dreads.”
As straight faced as I could keep, I nodded like I knew what he was talking about, partly because I was intrigued about the rest of the story, and partly because I didn’t want him to think I had no idea about what he was talking about. So he continued (not realizing myself that this next piece of dialogue would be discussed over and over again in the coming years).
“A different ex-girlfriend of mine, before I met Heather, was a junkie. We started using together. After a while she got clean and I couldn’t. She told me that she would leave me if I didn’t get clean and stop using. She wound up leaving me and I realized I had to get clean. We kept in touch, but nothing serious, she recently met a new guy and they are engaged now. The twist here is that this new guy is a junkie too and she started to use because of him. So here I am, clean because I was a junkie and she left me, and now here she is with someone new who got her using again. That’s my story about Heroin and pretty much what the new album is about.”
It was at this moment that I felt like, at least from a humanistic perspective, that I had big brother emotions. Not just to his story, but to David as a person. I didn’t know how to respond, or even act. I could feel every second that I had ever felt betrayed by someone I loved come rushing into me. I could sympathize but I could not empathize. I would later realize that it wasn’t empathy David was looking for. He was looking for someone who he could tell his situation to that didn’t know the parties involved and could see it from an outside angle. I would come to know that the majority of his band’s lyrical emotional struggle was started on those few sentences that he just told me.
At the time I never would have thought about it, but now I realize how much of a blessing it was that David opened up so much about this right from the beginning. With it getting late, and discussing more surface stuff like movies and bands (and realizing the strippers were never going to show up), the bouncer told David the gear had to be loaded soon. It was about 1 a.m. and all their gear remained on stage. It was very surreal and quiet in the club when the other band members returned. Dogboy and I helped Adam carry out all his drums and load them into their white van that was parked in the alley. David gave me his e-mail address and I told him I would e-mail him soon, and I promised to be at every show every time they came. He told me that it didn’t look like they would be touring again, at least not to Boston, until after September when Empty would be released.
Before they left, David said to me something along the lines of, “You seemed to be the only person here tonight that really cared about the band, if we don’t get in touch with each other before the next show, I’ll make sure you’re name will be on the guest list.”
I still couldn’t believe that they had a new album coming out in only three months. For helping him load his drums, Adam came back in and gave Dogboy and me both a cassette sampler of three God Lives Underwater songs. On it were two songs that are going to be on Empty: “All Wrong” and “Fool”, and also “Nothing” from GLU. The case the tape came in was a cardboard sleeve that had the Mantis logo on the front and just the three song titles on the back.
I ripped a poster of them, which was advertising the GLU album, off the Paradise wall and had all the band members, except for Drew who wasn’t around, sign it. David signed it “Thank You.” He said, “See ya later, Rock” and off they went.
I may have had to wait four months to see David again, but it would only have to be another three months before the new album came out…
MANTIS TWO
“What does the next life bring, I just want to feel okay…”
God Lives Underwater
“23”
Empty
Dogboy and I listened to the three-song sampler that was given to us in our cars over and over for the next three months straight. I think we grew to know “Fool” and “All Wrong” better than we knew our own songs, (remember, we were in a band together at the time, Yellow #1). One specific time, Dogboy and I were in his car at a red light in Danvers square as we were listening to the three song cassette. We were having a conversation on how “All Wrong” and “Fool” just sounded like God Lives Underwater. What we meant by this was that on the GLU album the band had created their signature sound, and these new songs were exactly in the vein and style that the band had perfected. We decided that God Lives Underwater definitely had their own unique sound that was a result of their keyboard and synth lines in their music.
The second God Lives Underwater album, Empty, came out on September 12, 1995. I bought it the day it came out, rushed home, put on my headphones, opened up the lyric book, pressed play and was ready to read along with the album. I saw that “All Wrong” and “Fool“ were the second and third songs on the album, and having listened to those songs for three months non-stop it really didn’t make the opening of the album all that excitable to my ears except for the unheard first song “Still”. However, I did now have the real lyrics (as oppose to what I thought David was saying from the sampler). It was interesting though, as I was reading along with the song “Still”, I noticed these lyrics listed in the booklet were wrong:
“Back and forth through the course,
Of the last few years,
My mind is not made up…still”
And these lyrics were included with the booklet but were never sung by David in “Still”:
“You can’t see me in the dark,
When will I start working for me,
When will I stand tall like the trees,
Am I just praying for sin…still”
I made a mental note to ask him about these lyrics next time I saw him. At this point, I was certain now that the Paradise show was not going to be the only time I ever spoke to David Reilly in my life.
I had gotten my, at the time, best friend Matt into God Lives Underwater with the GLU album. We were discussing our thoughts on Empty while we were standing outside waiting to be let in to the David Bowie / Nine Inch Nails show at Great Woods (David Bowie was touring on his Outside album and Nine Inch Nails were still promoting The Downward Spiral for this co-headlining show.) This was the week the Empty album came out and he was telling me that he thought it needed to grow on him, that he didn’t warm up to it as quickly as the GLU album. I took this personally, I almost felt like he was telling me that he didn’t like something I had written myself. Maybe it was the fact that I knew and understood where so much of the emotion came from and I was beginning to feel like I not only knew David longer than that one night, but I also knew his problems with his girlfriend Heather and his ex-girlfriend before her because they were trusted to me. Heather had started to become a name that provoked emotions in me that I didn’t even deserve to have.
I was allowed to digest Empty for almost a month when I got my weekly copy of the Boston Phoenix, (a local newspaper devoted to shows, movies, and art happening in the Boston area), and there was an ad for God Lives Underwater opening for KMFDM and Life Of Agony at the Avalon on October 17, 1995. My first reaction was that I immediately took the show personally. Who do these people think they are to be advertising my friend David’s show in this newspaper? My second reaction was that I better make sure I am there because I am the only friend David and the band have in Boston.
Of course with those thoughts came a level of doubt that he would even remember me anymore. The night at the Paradise had been embedded into my head so deeply, that I was afraid I viewed David after only one night completely differently than how he looked at me. Could he be thinking, “It will be great to play Boston again because I will be able to see Rocky?” This was unlikely that he was, but I know I was having that thought, about the news of the band coming back, towards him. This is where a lot of my nervousness with this next show came from. David was still being placed on this pedestal in my head, and I still felt like the follower in the friendship. What if I start to fade back over that line into “fan” when I had already started to put so much emotional weight in my own head that we were above that status? What if my own thoughts were much bigger than the truth, and were becoming a lie in itself?
I decided that it was best if I went to the God Lives Underwater show as early as I could. I hoped to be there early enough to grab anyone in the band, even if it was Tim the roadie that I had talked to at the Paradise show. I had confused Tim with Jeff the night of the Paradise show because they both had dreads. Also, what I didn’t know at the time was that Tim was Jeff’s younger brother. It wasn’t until I was contacted by Tim recently; after he found out that I was writing this memoir, that I found out he was Jeff’s brother. All along, through the whole Empty tour I thought Tim was just a roadie/guitar tech. I had always thought I confused Tim with Jeff only because of the dreads, but the fact that they are brothers makes so much sense to me now.
Dogboy had gone to college in Westfield, Massachusetts, (which is 95 miles away), and couldn’t come back for the show. So I took another member from my band, Yellow #1, who I had been friends with for a long time named Dann. Dann was also a KMFDM fan, so this show was going to be perfect for him.
Dann and I showed up on Lansdowne Street in Boston in plenty of time. It was about two hours before doors even opened at Avalon. Lansdowne Street is like a universe in itself. It’s a small street, only about one-fourth of a mile long and there are only clubs on the street. Each club touches itself. If you were to look down from a helicopter, it would look like one long roof, not about 10 different clubs. Now, what makes the street really unique is the fact that it is tucked underneath the bleachers of Fenway Park. Unfortunately, it makes going to a concert on a Red Sox home game night almost unbearable at times due to zero crowd control.
We stood outside the door where the bands came in and out of hoping that anyone from God Lives Underwater would pass through. I was nervous and yet at the same time anxious about seeing the guys again. I kept looking up and down the street, but never took my full attention off the closed door. Tim came through the door and my heart leapt. I almost felt like Tim was the messenger for the entire band, sent out to specifically see if I was out there waiting and hold me to my word to David of always being there for him. I had purposely worn my Rocky Horror Picture Show baseball hat again to the show, just in case everyone in the band completely forgot who I was and needed a reference.
I yelled, “Tim!” and he looked down at me and recognized me. I saw it in his eyes that I was viewed as a welcomed sight. I walked over to the steps that lead up to the door he came out of and said, “Are any of the guys in there?” He replied, “Ya, I’ll tell them you’re out here.”
It felt like I got a Golden Ticket from Willy Wonka. Obviously, the guys in the band already saw me much more than a fan of the band. They saw me as their Boston support and friend.
It was October in Boston and there was a good chill to the air. It took a few minutes for anyone to come out after Tim disappeared back into Avalon. The door opened again and out came David. He was wearing sunglasses, even though the sun was setting. He also had a chain wallet attached to him with his cut off shorts and long johns. I had butterflies in my stomach as he walked down the steps towards me. He had a purpose; he was coming to me on his own accord because he wanted to talk to me.
He walked up to me and out of his mouth came the one statement that I can, even now, still hear ringing in my ears. He had this very specific way of greeting me and saying “Hey man.” It was more like “Hey me-han.” I realized wearing my Rocky Horror Picture Show baseball hat again was just a stupid paranoid reaction. It was now obvious to me that it wasn’t necessary.
I introduced David to Dann and he asked, “How do you know Rocky?” Dann replied that we were in high-school together and in Yellow #1. We were standing all alone on the sidewalk outside the club as I had several emotions flash inside me all at the same time. I was standing there in front of a man that I admired, owning both God Lives Underwater albums, but was also still wondering how much more than an acquaintance I was to him. He seemed genuinely happy to see me, but it wasn’t until we started talking that I realized that David and I never were anything but friends.
Of course I had to tell him what I thought of Empty and the specific songs on it. I remember telling him that I thought “Weaken” was their masterpiece, even though it wasn’t my favorite song on the album. It felt a lot less forced when I told him my favorite song off the album was “We Were Wrong.” He looked at me and kind of nodded and he never asked me about it. I began to realize, and this would carry throughout our friendship, that I didn’t need to tell him how I felt about his music. It was always understood, and it would be the least of our conversations.
I spoke up first and asked him if he had eaten yet. He said the club had provided some sort of food, but he would rather get something real to eat. I told him we should go down the street for some food, maybe some pizza. At this point, there was a piece of me that realized this was a very important question. On one hand, David might either decline because he really wasn’t that interested in hanging out with me outside of a club setting, or he could confirm how I had already had been perceiving our relationship. His answer could either cast me back into fan-boy status, or let me know that I was something more.
David not only accepted my invitation to dinner, but seemed very enthusiastic about it as well. It was just the three of us walking up Lansdowne Street. Leaving the club, we left behind the line of fans that had already started to form and the rest of the band. We were just three people, all equal, going for something to drink and maybe some food.
We got into Boston Beer Works, right outside Fenway Park, and a spot at the bar opened almost immediately. I sat on one side of David and Dann sat on the other. Dann was being a little quiet, taking everything in and just adapting to the fact that we were sitting at the bar with the singer of God Lives Underwater. I felt obligated to play some sort of middleman between them in order to get David and Dann to open up to each other. I wasn’t there with Dogboy, I was there with a new person David didn’t know and I felt it was my responsibility to create the atmosphere between them. Little did I know, Dann and David would become closer friends than Dogboy and David ever would.
David ordered a beer and Dann and I ordered regular soft drinks with some appetizers. It was just the three of us sitting at the bar, waiting for our drinks to arrive. We discussed everything from the Empty album, to the most recent Depeche Mode album, Songs Of Faith And Devotion, to movies and how the tour was going. It was very surreal to think we were sitting at a public bar, with the singer of God Lives Underwater, who was playing a show not 100 yards down the street, and no one paid him any mind. It felt good that he was all ours. This started to set the stage with my protective side of David that would carry with me for the next 10 years. Inside the bubble that was Boston, he was mine. And if I needed proof of that, here he was taking time with Dann and me at a restaurant.
Dann started to get more comfortable with the situation and eventually became more vocal in the conversation. We started to discuss Empty more and the correlation between that album and the GLU album. I would like to think the reason David opened up to Dann at that table was because David trusted me and because of that trust, anyone I brought into the situation was automatically deemed “okay.” Perhaps this is a little presumptuous of me to think, but I felt at this point David had already begun to trust me in ways that even people I had known for 10 years didn’t trust me. Once again, I had to ask myself, where did this trust come from? Was it because I was not part of the drug scene and yet still wanted to be a part of his life? Did I interject a different desire in both of us for a friend neither of us had experienced yet? Either way….
David completely opened up to Dann over our sodas and beer about his ex-girlfriend and his substance abuse problems. David pretty much reiterated to Dann what I had been told at the Paradise show about his ex-girlfriend: the addiction, the drug use, the trying to get clean, the deception, and ultimately the feeling towards her that she was just as detrimental to his well being as the drugs were. This was something David always seemed to carry with him in his eyes when he talked about his ex-girlfriend, this very large sense of betrayal. They had become one in the same. His ex-girlfriend and his addictions were synonymous and interchangeable. This is what made David so vulnerable to me, so much like a younger brother, despite the fact that I was five years younger than him in age.
As David went through the story of his ex-girlfriend again, for Dann’s sake, I listened intently making sure I got all the details down. After listening the story again, he focused around what I could see was really the central point of his pain and his inspiration for the two albums. I could see how betrayed he felt with the sequence of events that she dragged him through.
It is a different experience to sit at a table of three with someone that you only met once, but have so much confidence in, telling a story that you have already heard to someone that you know so well. There’s a level of pride and yet a level of somberness that comes with that. Dann listened very intently. I’m sure he did not know what to make of it, never expecting to have this conversation with someone he looked up to. I was glad that David was opening up to Dann. One of the many endearing qualities of David Reilly was his ability to immediately sense who was good for him and who was bad. This didn’t necessarily mean that he didn’t associate with the bad; it just meant he knew. Maybe he was blessed with second sight at that moment and could see how he and Dann would become friends in the future. Especially with no one else around, he was able to open up.
After about an hour, David, with a few beers in him, looked at me and said, “Ya know, what do you think of the vocals in ‘Fool’?” I have to admit I was a little taken back by this question.
“What do you mean?” I questioned back. “Well,” he began, “I have been hearing that I sound too much like Scott Weiland from Stone Temple Pilots in that song.”
I was a little afraid to tell him that not only did I see the resemblance in his voice in that song, but so did almost everyone else I had spoken to who had heard the album. The three of us started to walk back to the club and were crossing Lansdowne Street when, David turned to me again and said, “Seriously Rock, there are two ways that I could sing ‘Fool’ and I can’t decide how to sing the song live. Tell me what you think.” So, David began to sing the first verse of “Fool” as we were walking down the street just as it appears on the album. David continued, “And here is the other way I think it should sound.” David went through the first verse again, in a completely different vocal style. What was great about this moment was that his voice was actually echoing and bouncing off the outside of the Green Monster of Fenway Park. Dann and I listened intently. I thought it was odd to hear the same lyrics, sung by the same singer, just in a completely different vocal style.
“David,” I started when he was done, “I actually really like that second style a lot! At the same time, everyone has the album and is use to hearing the vocals the way they are on the album.” Looking back, I wish he didn’t agree with me, but he did. I wish he didn’t agree because how amazing would it have been to seen them play “Fool” live and surprise the audience with completely different vocals on the same lyrics! I have to apologize to everyone about this; in retrospect I see the error of my ways.
There seemed to be a very light bounce in David’s step walking back to the club with us. There was a vendor that was selling sausages and pizza out of a small square window. David stopped, pulled out his wallet that was attached to the chain from his back pocket, and bought a slice of pizza. There was a homeless man sitting on the sidewalk with his back up against the wall underneath the pizza counter asking for money in a white paper cup. It surprised me when David took all his change from the pizza and dropped it into the man’s paper cup, making a metallic clink noise as the coins collided with the other contents inside.
The three of us then continued towards the club with David eating his slice of pizza with a paper plate underneath. As we got closer to the club, David said, ”Okay, well I’m gonna go to the van. You are on the guest list with a plus one.” It did not dawn on me at the time that David didn’t know my last name, and clubs usually need a first and last name for a guest list.
Dann and I got into line. When we reached the box office, I said that I was on the guest list for God Lives Underwater. The woman at the box office asked me my name and I said Brian Paone. She flipped through the papers and started to shake her head. “Nope, don’t see that here.” I started to panic inside my head. How could I get this person to understand that I was supposed to be inside this show? I was friends with the band for Christ’s sake. It was then that Dann saw David walk by the line again and I yelled to him.
“Hey David! My name isn’t on the guest list!”
“It might be under Rocky Horror.” He yelled back and kept walking.
I turned to the lady and said, “Try Rocky Horror.”