I have a show tonight with Here Comes Everybody, a band my wife and I formed together 40 years ago. This show is remarkable or significant for a number of reasons. It’s a record release party, as we celebrate and release on vinyl for the first time a 20th anniversary edition of our album Submarines. It’s the first gig we’ve done as Here Comes Everybody with a full band in ten years. And finally, it reunites the band members that played together for the first time in HCE at the tail end of 1986 and into 1987, the same band members who played together for the first time ever when they were barely out of their teens in my parents’ garage. It has been wild and wonderful to reunite musically with these players, neither of whom played on the Submarines album, but who have in recent rehearsals nevertheless added their signature and expert touches to make the tunes feel new and fresh. This is just a short little reflection about how deeply grateful I am to the musicians that have been so kind and generous as to help René and I flesh out our crazy musical ideas now for decades. We have been so lucky. There has not been a single musician we’ve ever worked with in Here Comes Everybody that did not significantly enrich our lives and our music. But in this moment, I’d like to speak of my gratitude specifically for these few:
First, for Fred Chalenor, who played the extraordinary bass parts on the Submarines album, and who, sadly, passed in 2018. Playing music with him was nothing short of a sublime experience; he was so enormously talented and innovative with his instrument and knew exactly what each song needed, but did so much more than just hold down the bottom end. His parts became integral to the songs and to the overall vibe of this, our first and only concept album. And he was simply a great, decent, kind, generous human being. We miss him mightily. Tonight’s show and the anniversary edition of the album are dedicated to his memory.
And then, for two of the earliest bass players and guitar players to ever play live and record with Here Comes Everybody, these two fine human beings who have so graciously agreed to come back for more some 45 years after our first musical excursions in the garage, Allen Hunter and Greg Kirkelie. The last few rehearsals have been so wonderful, and strange, too. Strange in that there was absolutely nothing strange about it. René and I talked last night about how comfortable it was, how safe, how much fun it was to play with these two guys again after so long. It felt almost as if those decades just kind of disappeared and we were back at it in my parents’ garage. I attribute this good feeling in part to their professionalism, but mostly to just how they are, and how they have remained, as humans. I felt a great affinity and love for both of these guys when I was 18, and I feel that same way even more deeply now.
And I am grateful for René Ormae-Jarmer, my partner in crime now for 40 years of musical and marital collaboration, without whom there would simply be no music, no Here Comes Everybody.
Finally, tonight we are joined on background vocals by Willow Bacon, the lead-singer extraordinaire in SuperWave, the cover band we both play in, whose friendship and musical collaboration over nearly a decade now has been so enormously valuable and vital to me. She is perhaps one of the kindest and most joyful human beings I have ever met in my lifetime.
As I get older, I find myself spending more time (or more of my emotional and mental capacity) just sitting in gratitude for these kinds of people in my life, dear friends and musical partners or writing partners–mostly one and the same–because the friendship rarely if ever falls completely away from some kind of creative relationship. I treasure these people. And especially now, in these difficult, crazy times, they have all become a kind of life-line, a touchstone.
Here’s to long-lasting friendships. Tonight! Here Comes Everybody!
If you live in Oregon, in the Portland metropolitan area or thereabouts, here’s the poster for tonight’s gig in all its glory. It would be lovely to see you.
michael jarmer 