Last night (Friday, April 28th) in Dallas, after Dinosaur Jr’s show at the newly renovated, historic (Bob Wills! The Sex Pistols!) Longhorn Ballroom, I was chatting with my old friend Tim O’Heir. Tim produced many of my best-known tunes back in the early 90s. He recorded (at Fort Apache studios) most of Sebadoh’s Bakesale and Harmacy LPs. He engineered Folk Implosion’s 4-track transfers for Take A Look Inside and several songs from the Kids soundtrack. The recordings that changed the course of my life. Our sessions were a joy, full of story-telling and experimentation.
We caught up a bit, then our conversation drifted to the U.K. band Idles and two similar groups from Ireland, The Murder Capital and Fontaines D.C.. Powerful, noisy post-punk flavored bands known for their arresting live performances and positive vibes. Young bands that tweak the ears of us old guys with their apparent affinity for the underground sounds of the 80s and early 90s. It was cool to know that Tim still had his ears to the ground.
When I woke up this morning I thought of my cover of Fontaines D.C.’s Hero’s Death and the video Adelle and I made for it. It documents our daughter Izzy’s first playdate with her Grandma (my mom) during the Pandemic, in March 2021, shortly after the vaccine had made it safe for us to hang out inside with the elders. Specifically, the video shows the ride to Grandma’s house and ends with me hugging my mother for the first time since shit went down.
Adelle and I were on to making our 3rd Holiday special. Another in our 20-30 minute videos of Pandemic home life wherein we seized the opportunity to dress up, sing songs and do goofy stuff. It was a survival mechanism, something to keep us busy and sane. Ultimately it lead us to do a podcast and this here Substack. Our first special was Christmas 2020. The second Valentine’s ’21 and then St. Patrick’s Day. The soundtrack would be covers of Irish bands and Hero’s Death was an obvious choice. It’s a song that miraculously turns a long list of aphorisms and cliches into an extremely powerful reminder of the basic truths that guide our lives. It fit the tenor of the time, the slow recovery from the trauma of separation and doom that pervaded during the Pandemic. For me, a passionate reminder of things that matter.
As the light on the horizon got brighter Adelle and I made plans to see Fontaines D.C. in Boston. Their music, like that of Idles, lends itself to live performance and we didn’t want to miss out. It would be our second time alone overnight in the 5 years since Izzy’s birth, time we sorely needed after the Pandemic slog.
The band canceled the day of the show because the vocalist lost his voice. Adelle and I had already arrived in Boston and checked in to our hotel. In my retelling I like to say he contracted Covid because it fits my narrative arc: we were denied seeing them by what brought us so intimately into their music. It also fits nicely with the cathartic first babysitting date with Grandma and the time it gave Adelle and I to be together, alone, after being alone, together for so long. Shout out to all the other locked-down parents of young children, you surely know what I’m talking about.
We never saw Fontaines D.C. but we did have a lovely night.
Footnote: after I covered Hero’s Death someone thought I should interview the band for a music podcast. They were approached but demured having no idea who I was. Fair enough.
Hero’s Death was recorded live, played on my 12-string guitar with 6-strings in my 4-string tuning: DGCD.
here are the lyrics:
don’t get stuck in the past
say your favorite things at mass
tell your mother that you love her
and go out of your way for others
sit beneath a light that suits ya
and look forward to a brighter future
sink as far down as you can be pulled up
happiness really ain’t all about luck
let your demeanour be your deep down self
don’t sacrifice your life for your health
when you speak, speak sincere
believe me friend, everyone will hear
bring your own two cents
never borrow them from someone else
buy yourself a flower every hundredth hour
throw your hair down from your lonely tower
if you find yourself in a family way
give the kid more than you got in your day
never let a clock tell you what you got time for
it only goes around, goes around, goes around
take your family name for your own great sins
‘cause each day is where it all begins
and don’t give up too quick
you only get one line, you better make it stick
if we give ourselves to every breath
then we’re all in the running for a hero’s death
written by Grian Chatten, Carlos O’Connell Conor Curley Conor Deegan III and Tom Coll.
Life Isn't Always Empty