1999 – Exploration, Separation, and New Path

The memory of New Year’s Eve was awesome, in that haunting, guilty-for-enjoying-my-life kind of way. I had enjoyed private time with Ella, drinking with friends and then goofing around with Jason into the wee hours. I now had to recalibrate and face the reality of daily life once again, only with Nana slowly falling apart in the hospital, my feelings were complicated. How was I supposed to feel about visiting her, barely responsive as she was, in the stagnant-smelling hospital room for a short stay and then leaving her there alone in that massive Manhattan hospital while I returned to the comforts of my teenage life? On January 10^th Nana passed away. While we did feel relieved since her long failing health was weighing on all of us (especially Mom), having experienced the end of Nana’s physical presence marked the end of an era in our lives. In a way, the end of simplicity.

I first heard about the Brooklyn College Study Abroad Trip to London in the previous fall semester. The flyer read, “Imagine spending the summer of 1999 (the last year of the millennium) in London!” I was gripped. The notion of spending the last summer of the millennium in a foreign country, which I’d never been to before, appealed to me. I had long wanted to spend time in another country besides Norway. England was top of my list for a few reasons: castles, foggy London, heavy metal, and the fact they spoke English. After Nana passed away, I inherited some money which I could use to fund the trip.

My relationship with Ella was precious, yet it had evolved to a great degree, and it seemed beyond either of our control in that our life paths were naturally going in different directions. My choice to sign up for the study abroad trip to London for five weeks was a reminder that we were both still young with much to explore on our own. 

On the evening of February 23^rd, I attended a live rock show at St. Anne’s Church of the Arts in downtown, Brooklyn. I saw new local progressive rock band October Thorns[1] which my buddy Dave Z was playing bass in. It was their first live show, and they were very impressive. Seeing rock bands on a stage that once had been a church altar was interesting to the Catholic sensibilities entrained in me. I ran into several friends and acquaintances that night from the local scene including my former guitar teacher Mike Alexandrini. 

My band with Jack and Judd was still going by our former name Beauty and Chaos. This new iteration was a strange return to the core nucleus of Judd, Jack, and me. We had begun playing together as a trio called Impact in fall of 1994 and now, five years and some lineups later, we were playing together again as a trio. This group was a strange musical beast. We were a mish mosh between heavy metal, rock, pop, reggae, hardcore, and who knows what else. Our chemistry wasn’t coalescing like it once did, but we kept getting together and trying to hash something out that we could all agree on. The new Beauty and Chaos rehearsed in two places: Ace of London Studios (East 36^th Street and Quentin Road) and The BASEment. 

By April we had switched the band name to Klockwerk, and for a brief period our friend Lou La Rocco joined our ranks on bass. Around early May, while Lou was on board, Klockwerk played our single live performance at the gritty Park Slope bar, Lauterbachs[2]. While the addition of Lou on bass was helpful in allowing the two-guitar lineup to continue, it was not necessarily helpful in improving our already semi-toxic chemistry. We soon switched to a power trio format with me taking on bass and vocal duties and Judd becoming the sole guitarist. 

College was an exciting place. There were various empowering and exciting feelings. I could pursue musical interests most of the time. I was in a music conservatory and meeting interesting and talented people regularly. I was able to stretch out and develop unknown or under-utilized talents. I participated in several extracurricular activities beyond what was necessary because I was interested in learning more while developing and honing my skills ever deeper. In addition to taking several music classes (and non-music ones) I was taking private classical guitar lessons, playing in the guitar ensemble, and in jazz ensemble.

Despite the many joys and benefits of college life and being in a music conservatory, it could be quite challenging. There was the constant challenge of learning to interact with many diverse people. There were the stumbling blocks of cultural differences and many times when I put my foot in my mouth and learned how colloquial I was. There was the incessant college reading requirements which were never actually possible to complete while having any semblance of a social life. There was the keeping up with deadlines for papers and exams not to mention the endless stream of rehearsals, performances, and general extra work that seemed to need to be done. 

On April 14^th, I experienced the first public performance of one of my guitar ensemble compositions. Among other flavorful contemporary guitar music, the Brooklyn College Guitar Ensemble performed my quartet “Gray Skies, Light Heart”[3]. It was an honor to have many talented guitarists taking my music seriously and bolstered my confidence as a composer.

Usually, I was thick-skinned regarding unpleasantness in the news, however sometimes bad news in the world at large could shake me up. On Tuesday, April 20^th, news was getting round that there had just been a horrendous shooting inside an American high school in Columbine, Colorado by two of its own students. Several students had been shot and killed and at least one teacher. And then the young gunmen turned their guns on themselves and ended their sordid mission with a dual suicide. No clear motive had been found. I could not shake thinking about how this completely unacceptable situation could occur in our schools. Also alarming, was that this was not the first time I heard of such a thing, so it didn’t seem like things were improving in terms of school shootings. How could these events repeatedly happen without our country taking it seriously enough to turn it around?

There were many fucked-up issues that this story touched up. I was perplexed by our priorities as a society. It was truly disgusting, yet I couldn’t hate the murderers. They had no love for themselves any more than they did for anyone else. Their hate was apparently so deeply set that they included themselves and the whole society within it. I could not justify what they did on any level, yet it seemed to me to be a warning sign of much deeper problems rooted in the very fabric of the way we lived. Shortly after I composed a haunting classical guitar duet called “Duet in B Minor (Tribute to the Victims of Columbine)”[4]. This was my way of processing something terrible and doing my best to offer a candle in a dark void. 

Although only 6 weeks younger than me, Ella was a year behind me in school, so in mid-June we attended her high school prom. Unlike our first prom the year prior, in which we went all out in terms of attire and chipping in for a group limousine, this time we saved money and were ok with her father driving us in the upscale car he drove as a livery service driver. We also felt less excited about the event and perhaps each other overall. I think I danced goofy dances with friends just as much or more than I danced with her and I imagine she noticed.

On July 8^th, along with several other Brooklyn College students, we left for a five-week study abroad in London, UK. It was a big deal to leave home and country on my own with a group of people I had never really met before. I was homesick for the first day or two and wrote a song about it, “Away”[5]. I went to a nearby casual eatery and enjoyed my first order of fish and chips even giving the brown sauce a try. I took a stroll in the new surroundings and began to feel a bit uplifted after the tasty meal. I felt a rush of emotion as over the sound system of this small shopping area I heard a new song playing on the radio: Don’t give up, you’ve got the music in you / One chance left, this world is gonna pull through / Don’t give up, you’ve got a reason to live / Can’t forget, you always get what you give[6].

In London, I took two courses: Creative Writing and Shakespeare. We read several of William Shakespeare’s plays and attended various theater performances. We even saw two Shakespeare plays at the Globe Theater in the old-fashioned style that they were performed in during Shakespeare’s day including all-male cast, music, and lots of physicality. My legs tired as I watched one of these long plays standing room only, much like going to a rock show. I did quite a bit of creative free writing. I enjoyed the newly learned technique of writing stream-of-consciousness which I found useful to go beyond judgement and simply observe my cascading thoughts.

Castles were a bit of a fascination for me as I had grown up filling my mind with images of them from folklore, legends, and myths as well as in music, movies, books, comic books, video games, and so on. So, visiting castles was high priority for me as an 18-year-old with free reign in the UK. I visited at least eight castles including some in England, Scotland, and Wales. 

The drinking age in the UK was 18, unlike 21 in the USA. This was great. I kept a list of thirty-plus varieties of alcoholic beverages (mainly beers) that I sampled there. Most days I would have a few towards the evening or night. Occasionally however, especially when hanging out with friends, I drank too much and woke up with a sucky hangover. Not that it put a stop to my regular imbibing though. 

Daytimes always started with coffee which I would drink throughout the day and then suddenly switch to beer in the late afternoon or evening. My energy paid a price in being sped up and slowed down every single day. On top of this, I was eating indulgently. I felt sluggish from this royal lifestyle and was not too happy in general. I felt a general lack of appreciation in my life even though I wished it was otherwise. On a day trip to York one afternoon, as I walked along the city walls feeling crappy, I wrote a long poem of sorts called “What Pisses Me Off”. It was a long and unpleasant laundry list. I was feeling immensely frustrated, stuck, limited, and unhealthy. I returned from Europe and began to pick up Brooklyn life where I had left off. However certain things were no longer clicking. In taking that trip I had unconsciously made a commitment to my own self-growth and development. I had evolved and a new me was screaming to be born. 

For the fall semester I took one core class Shaping the Modern World and several music classes: History and Score Analysis, Guitar Ensemble, Keyboard, Music Composition (private lessons), and Small Jazz Ensemble in which I played bass. The core class, which focused on Israel and the Caribbean, helped to expand my awareness of other countries in detail. It inspired some poetry and a song, “History and the Student”[7] as I grappled with understanding the violence and complexities of human history.

Klockwerk resumed our dysfunctional activities. In September, we went and did a two-track live recording of a rehearsal[8] so we could have an idea of what we sounded like playing together. It wasn’t pretty. We were not gelling, and my voice sounded out of sorts. We had one good photo shoot taken in DUMBO, Brooklyn. Some shots featured the twin towers of the World Trade Center looming in the background. Klockwerk had been working on an official three-song demo for a few months. Finally, by early October it was done, and we made copies of the Klockwerk demo[9]both on cassette tape and CD, which we handed out to friends and family. 

The lyrics of the second song on the demo, “Name”, reflected my feeling of being sick of each other and of our musically “stuck” situation: How come no one knows my name? / How much longer must I play this stupid game? / How much longer must I fight for a little fame? / How come success is preceded by pain?

With the new school year, I was now a sophomore at Brooklyn College and Ella was away at Hofstra University on Long Island starting her freshman year. Seeing each other became more complicated and we did not share many common interests beyond meals, movies, and physical time together. It was hard to feel excited about making plans with her when I could only imagine it would be more of the same old routines made inconvenient now by distance and location. One day in late October I had a phone call with Ella in the laundry room of The BASEment, where I had previously spent countless enjoyable hours hanging out with her on the phone before. This time something was different. I suppose we were trying to make Halloween plans or any plans at all. I was fumbling for words and couldn’t seem to respond to her with enthusiasm nor interest. And I wasn’t aware of how I was behaving. 

Ella suddenly said to me, “John, do you even want to be together with me anymore?”

I was struck by the notion and honestly had no intention to break up with her. However, when confronted by the question, I realized there was not a heartfelt “Yes!” waiting to leap out of my mouth. I sensed that her direct question might be spot on and that she perhaps knew more about how I felt than I did myself. Soon I was sobbing over the phone and continued to do so after hanging up. My brother was in The BASEment and saw how distraught I was after hanging up. In a rare moment between us, he did his best to comfort me. That was it for my romantic relationship with Ella. We continued communication afterwards in a measured way, but it was different, and felt distant. We had been a romantic couple for nearly three years, and she had been a wonderful girlfriend. It sincerely broke my heart that we had to separate. Yet as much as I was attached and reluctant to let go, I knew deep down that this was the best thing for both of our futures.

As if to give credence to the adage “when it rains it pours’, within the span of the same week that I parted with my girlfriend, my band just melted away into shapelessness much like a dropped ice cream cone. I suspect none of us knew what we wanted to do together musically anymore, but until that moment in late October, we hadn’t fully realized our incompatibility and had continued to try to make something out of our old musical chemistry as our lives and interests continued to grow in separate directions. Some bands may have an explosive final argument or something. As for us, we had a sour and sucky rehearsal in The BASEment and things just fizzled out. We naturally took a break from each other and stopped discussing the band.

I was like a butterfly breaking out of its cocoon. I was undeniably entering a new phase of life. To properly break with the past and open a fresh page for my unknown, scary yet exciting future I cut off my long hair and began to sport a short spike haircut. Around this time communication began with James Madison High School band buddies Jeremy Batchelor and Dave Evans. We had previously toyed with the idea of jamming together, but the time had never been quite ripe for such a thing – until now. 

Jeremy, Dave, and I had a jam session at Fast Lanes Studios (Flatbush Avenue between Avenues K and L). And it was fun! With my short new haircut and fresh set of musical skills gained from my time at music conservatory, I was looking for a change in musical direction and an opportunity to explore songwriting outside the heavy metal genre. This appealed to drummer Dave as he wasn’t a fan of heavy metal. Dave was into the Dave Matthews Band and pop-rock music. While bassist Jeremy was a big fan of heavy metal and progressive rock, he was also open-minded and looking to broaden his horizons as a player. The time was perfect to start something new. 

On the day before Thanksgiving, I performed on bass with the Brooklyn College Jazz Ensemble at Levenson Recital Hall. Tunes included “Equinox” by John Coltrane, “Footprints” by Wayne Shorter, and “Maiden Voyage” by Herbie Hancock among other tasty choices. While our band director could be prickly, I enjoyed playing in the small jazz ensemble that term. All the ensemble members seemed invested in making good music and a few of them seemed like people I could potentially work with one day, namely versatile drummer Bob Henson, and energetic tenor sax player Aftab Motoyama.

On December 2^nd I performed with the Brooklyn College Guitar Ensemble including one of my own original guitar ensemble compositions, “Atrophy”. And on December 8^th I participated in the Brooklyn College Conservatory Composer’s Concert with a performance of my first complete 20^th century composition for instruments other than guitar. “Prokrastination” was a piece I wrote in a genre outside of my comfort zone as a challenge given to me by my composition teacher Michael Kinney at the beginning of the term. In the tradition of the conservatory, I asked fellow musicians to rehearse and perform the piece. It was a unique and memorable experience for me to compose the piece, to lead rehearsals of competent musicians playing instruments I had little knowledge of (clarinet, flute, and marimba), and then to hear it performed.

Within a couple of weeks, the new three-piece unit with Jeremy and Dave had several songs that we could enjoyably play through. For lack of a better idea, we called ourselves Modus Tollens[10] after the math logic proof that we had all encountered and remembered from high school math classes. Jason Hills, back from Binghamton University for the end of year holidays came to the studio to check it out and he really dug what we were up to.

There was a buzz in the air as we approached the end of one millennium and the entrance of another. As Prince predicted in 1982, some were busy partying like it was 1999 because it was. Some were worried about Y2K (a.k.a. the year 2000 problem) which referred to potential computer problems related to calendar formatting after the year 2000. And some of us were in anticipation of what life might be like beyond the horizon of the 20^th century. I rung in the new year in the best way that I could think of. On December 31^st, New Year’s Eve of 1999 some friends and I joined thousands of other music lovers at Madison Square Garden to take in Billy Joel’s Millennium Concert[11]. Shortly before midnight, Joel and his band went into the song “2000 Years” which poetically recapped humanity’s journey up to this current point in history. Immediately afterwards the audience counted down the last several seconds of the ball dropping at Times Square which could be seen from the large scoreboard screens. Following shouts of “Happy New Year! Happy New Millennium!” and under a shower of ticker tape Billy Joel’s band seamlessly flowed into the ever appropriate and emotional classic of the new year “Auld Lang Syne”.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot and days of old lang syne?
For auld lang syne, my dear, for auld lang syne
We’ll a take a cup of kindness yet for auld lang syne