Reeling from a massive tear in my personal space/time continuum, this week I got the rare privilege to join truly one of my favorite bands, Thanks to Gravity, in preparation for their reunion concert on May 20th. In what might be the most flattering and humbling invite, my friends Andy, Drew, and Sean asked me to play percussion for this fantastically rare event. The meaningfulness of this reunion concert swirls at such a current, it’s hard to know when the “then” stops and the “now” starts.
After my graduation from high school, I moved from my hometown of Nantucket to the North Shore of Boston to attend college. My bandmate Billy Voss, fresh of our summer busking together on Nantucket, moved shortly thereafter to Boston proper to pursue his music career. Obviously, Billy’s gig offers were infinitely more interesting than Old and New Testament classes, and I joined him frequently to gig around the city. At the same time, just a bit north, Thanks to Gravity was cutting in to their craft and making fans and currents of their own in the process.
In the years that followed, Billy and I had to realize that we were just a few steps behind where Thanks to Gravity were treading. They frequented our island in the summers over a few years for shows, and last I looked, their 8×10 glossy photo was still hanging in the Muse. We were unable to succeed in the major mission to get a song placed on the latest AWARE records compilation that summer, but I’ll be damned when it was released, we saw TTG had the opening and closing track on the release! And, while we met and hung with all the cats that came through the island on their tours like Vertical Horizon, Dave Matthews Band, Edwin McCain, and countless others, we missed getting to hang with Thanks to Gravity. Now I know its because they all drank milk and went promptly to bed after shows.
After I left college due to excessive absences, my roommate Nate shared his love of TTG, as he’d grown up in New Hampshire, and still considers them the state’s greatest band. Nate just reminded me the other day of his original artwork that appeared on the cover of our college’s literary journal, IDIOM, entitled “Eating the Moon,” inspired by the TTG tune of the same name.
When I first met Andy Happel some 15 years ago, I never thought I’d have the opportunity to share a stage with his band, never mind have the friendship that this time has allowed. We’ve played countless shows together through the years with Don Campbell, Andy’s solo material, and now our band, Los Galactacos.
Somehow, I feel that I’ve been practicing for this show with Thanks to Gravity for 20+ years now.