Second April Second

(April 02, 2008)

I'm back. Something was left un-finished in the last entry. I'm gonna tell you people the whole story of how I left The Noise after so many years!

So. Okay. T Max got the idea for a song in January 2007. It was an okay little melody, not super lyrically but simple and catchy enough to sing at open mic's and so forth.

Then it escalated. The song became a community project, and T Max being well-connected got everyone and his cousin to sing on the thing, much like a Boston version of "We Are The World."

Then it escalated again. Before you could say "is this material strong enough to be an anthem?" the song had become two, five, eight songs. It became a whole...thing. Gradually throughout 2007 it was becoming more and more clear that T Max could not focus on anything but his peace songs, and to my utter dismay he began melding that side project so completely with The Noise that in mid-2007 the zine itself began to look like a vehicle for him to sell peace guitar picks and T-shirts. It was depressing. And embarrassing, because it LOOKED like it was a charity. Buy a "peace package" of some kind, which gets you a shirt and a button or something? But it wasn't and isn't a charity. Not only that, but T Max had never really talked about the war in Iraq much. I always got the sense that his political values were a sort of hazy sixties "can't we all just get along" thing, not a hardline stance. I know he never, ever, ever reads newspapers -- we discussed that a number of times.

I tried a few times to talk to T Max about his waning interest in the 'zine, but nothing was getting through to him.

I sat it out for awhile, seeing if his "real focus," as he kept putting it, referring to his "war rock opera," would end up being this amazing piece of work.

It, um, wasn't.

I listened to all the tracks many times (someone got hold of the tracks and posted them online) and I can state without apology that I hate it all.

It's godawful.

It's like a child's version of the way the world works. Much like the kids in the Cheezit commercials with their downright Seussical answers for how the cheese gets into the cracker, these songs reduce vast, complex foreign policy concepts to ham-fisted jingles fraught with the lamest kind of righteous fervor.

Put simply, the songs are terrible and the performances are turgid and overblown.

The thing is, T Max is a friend. We've got a lot of history. Lotta of ground covered 'lo these eleven years. I actually HELPED in the beginning of this war project. I sing on the demo (which Joe recorded right here in his home studio, ie, my apartment) and I set up the Myspace page and taught T Max how to use Myspace.

Eventually it was getting hard to even admit I was involved. At the Socials I didn't even want Michelle to tell people I was with The Noise.

But I didn't leave just yet, because, well, it's T Max! I was figuring this obsession of his would just pass and when it was over he'd re-discover his passion for local Boston rock, then be back to normal, or as near to normal as T Max will ever get, and we could put out a spunky crappy zine again.

I did see him through obsessions before, you see. Let's see...for awhile he was totally obsessed with Asian culture, dating only Asian women, cooking stir fry every night and dressing himself and his band (at the time) in a mish-mosh of Korean, Chinese and Japanese garments. Then there was the time he obsessed for about a year over Brian Eno, listening to, talking about, and playing nothing else. One summer, every utterance, dime and free moment was spent on baseball -- go back, you'll find a Noise issue with Bronson Arroyo on the cover. A baseball player. On the cover. Of THE NOISE. Then there was that year he got all island-y and bought an apartment-full of half-coconut cups, giant-leaf plants, Tiki lights and bamboo mats -- that was the summer he went around dressed in a white linen suit with a straw hat, as though he was only briefly stopping in Boston on his way to Fantasy Island.

It's T Max. He gets weird for awhile, then he bounces back.

Recently he thought to ask me "what's up?" because it had been awhile since we chatted.

So I told him.

Typically, he's zen about it. He has always said that he loves that I can just tell him straight up what I think. He also said that it might surprise me to know that he's getting lots of attention for these songs at live shows.

Attention.

He didn't specify.

I didn't ask.