Subtle Hint

I spent my youth playing guitar in various bands in various permutations to varying degrees of success. Subtle Hint was our name for the short-lived manifestation that accomplished the most. Certain milestones were attained, others remained just out of grasp, others still were only proverbial pipe dreams. I had fun, I had misery, I had anxiety and I had pride. Playing guitar in a band was a way of life for me, natural and automatic like eating or bathing, for almost a decade, until I gave it up around 1996 and moved on.

It’s time to get it all out, on electronic paper.

I want to write about my love for music and the six-string in particular. About the struggle to become competent on an instrument sans formal lessons. About fulfilling the desire to learn everything about it. About harnessing that nebulous, ill-defined thing we call creativity and allowing its maturity. About the monumental efforts to make a barre chord.

The guys I jammed with were all incredible, all phenomenal, even the ones that could barely play or carry a tune. They were all characters. I never laughed harder or enjoyed myself more than the times I spent in their presence; indeed, some of the greatest moments of my life happened with them. They grew with me; and with me we created something that was greater than the sum of parts. Some were good friends from childhood, some became good friends after answering “Musician Wanted” ads. Some were experts on their instrument of choice; some were there only for a shot at the limelight. Some were pure businessmen and parted ways amicably; others were pure friends and parted ways bitterly.

We wrote twenty or so original songs; we covered an eclectic selection. Our names are in the Library of Congress, three times over, along with bad cassette tapes made in echoey basements. We hit the recording studio four times, our sound captured impressively enough to give me goose bumps. We played two dozen live shows one summer, mostly in Newark and Jersey City and down the Jersey shore, but we cracked the New York City club scene twice. We had a bio, we took photos self-consciously, we had a fan list.

Over the next couple of days I want to get it all out. Truly there was some crazy fun times had, and I want a record of it before I forget it as I age. Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures to post or .wav files to attach. I don’t even have a demo tape, though I have a box of twenty or thirty cassettes of rehearsals. But after this series is done, I’ll see if there’s something cool I can put up here to convey the experience in ways my words may fail.