Rejects, rarity, and recognition

A few days after we moved to Austin, elle and I were browsing the Half Price Books store on Guadalupe near 32nd. I was trying to take my mind off of a day of job hunting - I had been offered a tech support job at Unisys but didn't want it, so I stalled them while waiting for a reply from UT. I needed a diversion from worry, so I decided to look though all the 7" records in the store, something I hadn't done since I worked for the flagship Half Price store in Dallas.

But first, some background: There were a lot of DIY punk/new wave records released in Texas during the peak years of 1977-1982 (my band even made one). There is one, however, which is considered the grail - the Back To School EP by The Rejects. Here's why it's so sought after: 1. It's their only recording (If you don't count a live track or two) ; 2. It's surprisingly good; and 3. There were only 100 copies pressed - an impossibly tiny number for punk collectors worldwide to fight over - and that's assuming all of them have survived (I know, for example, that my band's record was thrown away by a few old girlfriends). There's a good article about The Rejects and this record here.

I had been flipping through the 7" records for about thirty minutes when I found the grail. Now, at that time, I didn't really know it was the grail; I knew it was a 1980 record from a San Antonio band; I also knew it must be worth more than the sticker Half Price had on it - 98 cents. I finished looking at the records, grabbed the Rejects and a couple other singles, and went to find elle.

As we were heading for the checkout, a kid in his twenties (who, it turns out, was a huge collector of Texas punk records) saw me carrying The Rejects and asked if I was going to buy it; I said yes. He immediately offered me $20, then $40 for it. I declined as politely as possible, telling him I wanted to buy it because I too had been in a band back then. He then said that I reminded him of someone, and asked where my band was from. I had no sooner said "Mesquite" than he blurted out "The U.S. Mods! I have your record!" It was the first time I've been even halfway recognized for being in the band, some 20-odd years after we split up.

Elle and I talked to him for a bit while in line, and before I reached the register, he made one final offer: 60 dollars for The Rejects. Again I said no thanks, but I did agree to take his e-mail address and contact him if I changed my mind. I did some research later and found out I had been correct to turn down the money - online auction results for The Rejects EP range from about $750 to $1000.

I took this, the first record I bought as an Austin resident, as a sign that things would go very well for us here.

on the hi-fi: The Rejects, Back to School EP
on the reading table: The Austin Chronicle, Jan. 23 issue.

The piccolo seductress

When I started at North Mesquite High School, I was still green 'n' keen enough to arrive early - before 8:00 am. Since first period didn't start until 8:25, I usually stopped by the band hall, where the Varsity band practiced during what was called zero period, beginning at 7:30. I would quietly take a place in the back to read and listen to whatever they were working on. My aim was to go unnoticed, but it didn't work - it led to meeting a girl in the band who I've since dubbed The Piccolo Seductress.

My normal method for finding dates in middle school had been almost completely passive; I often let my sisters do all the work. They usually had friends who were interested, but too shy to approach me directly (tell your brother I like him!). I was so accustomed to this indirect, through-the-sibling approach that I was taken by surprise the morning during my freshman year when a senior girl, who played piccolo in the Varsity band, walked over after rehearsal and introduced herself.

She was surprisingly smart and funny, and I found out during our conversation that I had unintentionally become the talk of the flute/piccolo section. She, the sassiest piccoloist of the bunch, had decided to act. She asked if I would be back the next morning, and we began meeting regularly between zero and first period. She was seventeen, I was fourteen - a huge age difference, or so I thought at the time (there's a picture of me in an earlier post from around the time we got together).

A wild and eventful six-month fling followed, during which we saw a lot of movies - she managed to get me into my first screening of A Clockwork Orange at fourteen (after we discovered we'd both read and loved the book). I was struck by how independent she was - she had a car and an after school job, and seemed to come and go as she pleased.

It was a relationship that couldn't last, though, no matter how great the companionship, conversation, and sex were. The same take-charge personality that led her to seek me out had a dark and abrasive side to it. The independence I admired was driven by a desperation to escape a mother she despised (I was witness to one particularly harrowing screaming match between them). We both soon moved on to the next lucky person that our practice of high-school-serial-monogamy demanded, but I'll always recall The Piccolo Seductress as the first girl in my experience to reverse the roles of hunter/hunted, which wasn't such a bad feeling for a change.

on the dvd player: A Clockwork Orange, deluxe edition.
on the reading table: 2600, Winter 2008-2009.