found

The circle is complete and the search is officially over.

My apologies go out to all who've been anxiously awaiting this entry. Read on to the end of this entry and you'll understand why.

I saw Tower Records on Broadway for the first time at around 5:30 or so in the afternoon. As I turned into the parking lot I immediately noticed a tall man carrying a guitar on his back. It was Kenny Lyon. I wandered into the store behind him carrying a coffee, a camera and a guitar of my own.

A large CD display case had been moved to make enough floor space for the band to set up. Mark, Shaun, and Kenny were all busy doing just that. There were a few other people kind of hanging around, but not too many at this point. It was still a little early.

It took Shaun a moment to recognize me. I had had a pretty full head of hair the last time I saw him and am now cleanly shaven. (I never made an entry about it on this page--I don't think--but I got together with Shaun a few months ago. He lives in Sacramento. We had coffee and ended up going to back his house and playing music, watching Mark Curry videos and the like. It was fun. He's a great guy.) The first words out of his mouth were something like, "What happened to your hair?" I've fielded that question so many times at this point in my life that I have no idea what I even said about it. At any rate, I was there, the band there and I wanted to have my say before I got in their way any further.

To Shaun I gave a number of things. We ended up having some common music interests so I had burned a few CDs for him. I also gave him a really cool book called "Powers of Ten". It's kind of a weird science picture book that starts with a picture of what the universe might look like and then shrinks by a factor of ten every page until you end up seeing representations of quarks and strings and things.

I don't know Kenny at all really. While I had the chance to correspond with him once or twice via email back when I was in Providence, I knew very little about him aside from what Shaun may have mentioned. To him I gave a book of Zen Buddhist Stories that I've had for probably ten years. It's a neat book. It smells old.

I wasn't sure if Aaron Abeyeta was going to be there or not. I think his parents were, but he didn't make it. I had even brought a gift for him: the "Principia Discordia," a strange blend of religious text, historical fiction and DIY punk zine. I knew little about "El Hefe" and perhaps even less about NoFX, but the gift seemed appropriate at the time. Too bad he blew it by not showing up!!

And then there was Mark. From that first music video fiftenn years ago to the man in sunglasses, a black bandana and a PBR t-shirt standing in front of me at that moment. My parents gave me my first real acoustic guitar the same summer I heard Mark's music for the first time. I played the hell out of that thing--from summers on my Grandfather's farm to coffeeshops and the Ped Mall in Iowa City to the 7-11 at Cleveland Circle in Boston and the cobblestone streets of the Old Port in Portland, Maine. I would play for hours and hours and hours. Sometimes I made some money. (I nearly got into a fight with somebody who thought I was getting too much. THAT was an experience.) Sometimes I played until my fingers bled. The inside of that guitar was literally covered with my own sweat and blood. And to be honest, I don't think I would've even thought of playing that way had it not been for Mark. So to him I gave my guitar.

And then I kept my distance.

There were a number of people there with kids. It made me wish I had brought mine, but my daughter wasn't feeling that great that day. A few people had "Find A Friend" T-shirts. One woman wearing it let me take her picture after the show. She seemed slightly uncomfortable with it, but let me do it anyway. I'm grateful she did. I was able to use the image for the surprise at the end of this entry. I saw her at the show the next night as well. I think she was pretty close to Mark, either family or perhaps just a really good friend. If any of this makes it back to her, thanks for the image.

The band sounded great. For a slightly odd venue (a record store at 6:00 in the afternoon), they came off really well. I don't know if anyone in the world has listened to more Mark Curry in the past year than I have, and I have to say they played well.

I did think it was a little funny that Mark and Kenny were wearing sunglasses but hey, when you're a rock star, you've got to look the part, right?

I hung around after they were done playing. I got to chat with Shaun about the show as well as meet Gia Ramos. I had noticed her during the show because she was videotaping the whole thing. It was only after Shaun introduced me that I realized she was the famous Gia from the Yahoo! Mark Curry mailing list. (She seems to always know when he's playing somewhere.) I also got to meet Trevor from Hard Soul and a couple of other who come up with him. (I can't remember their names, but their pictures are on the surprise at the end of this entry. The woman was from Portland, OR.)

Everyone ended up going to the Press Club following the show. They invited me along. It was fun. I had a PBR, king of cheap beers. I got to witness first-hand the speed with which Mr. Curry can down a pint of beer. The most extensive conversation I had with him was in the bathroom, of all places. Later on, he gave me my last cigarette. Most of the people that went out ended up going back to Shaun's house to grill steaks. My being a vegetarian coupled with the hour getting late, I decided to head back to Davis.

And that was pretty much Friday.

Next on the agenda was Old Ironsides. The show was not supposed to start until nine. I called earlier on during the day and the person I spoke with said it would probably sell out, so to be sure and get there early. (Do they tell this to everyone? Maybe, but I wasn't taking any chances.)

I showed up to the bar around 7:30 or 8:00. There weren't many people there. I did notice Mark walking around and chatting with the sound guy who ran the open mic that I played at months earlier, but he cut out relatively quickly. (Maybe he saw me and thought, "Christ! Not that guy again!")

I sat at the bar, had a beer, read the Sacramento News & Review about a reporter who went undercover to have dinner with a family of white supremacists at Applebee's. It was one of the funniest articles I have ever read. Without even going into the fact that these people's belief system is based on bigotry and hatred, they say some of the absolute dumbest things ever. If you're interested you can read the article for yourself.

I spent some time handing out postcards for my wife's show. (She has a photography show hanging in a place in Sacramento called the Lavender Library. If you're even more interested in checking out her work you can look at the website. With the exception of this blog, which I don't think qualifies entirely, her webpage is the first I've written. I've really got to get back to the point.) I gave one to Mark, one to Shaun, one to Kenny. I think I handed a few out to random strangers as well. Actually, after I handed one to Mark, I had this funny interaction with the woman sitting next to him at the bar. Basically she was like, "Excuse me? Who is that guy?" It seemed clear that she was distraught with all of the attention he was getting or something. I think I just said he was the band or something to that effect.

I ended up spending quite a bit of time chatting with Gia before the show. We talked a little about both of our motivations in following Mark's career. Her first taste of Mark was "Let the Wretched Come Home;" mine was the first video on MTV. We talked a bit about the alcohol thing and Mark's connection with Lonnie and the Complainers. I even found out a little tidbit about the album "Dozen Lies". At the end of the song "All the Pretty Ones" there is a strange outro to a country song with the lyrics, "Well it's all over now // All except for the pain," with the word 'pain' cut off by a gun shot. It turns out that the song is indeed a real song written by Kenny Lyon. Following the break-up of his marriage to Kim Nye (thanked in the album credits), he wrote and recorded an entire album in four days by himself. The album is called "1 man, 4 days, 5 bucks," and I'm looking forward to hopefully getting a copy of it from him in the mail in the next day or two. ANYWAY.

As soon as the band before Hell's House Band stopped playing, Gia and I went up to the front of the stage--she with her video camera and I with my wife's digital camera. We just stood around waiting for the band to set up and play. And they did.

What can I tell you about the show? It was wonderful. I think the photos I took tell just as good a picture as (if not better than) anything I could tell you. The band was great. Mark was awesome. The crowd was amazing. The pinacle of the show for me happened maybe twenty minutes from the end while they were playing "Drink on the Moon". Not only did they play my favorite Curry song flawlessly, but over half of the audience knew the words. I think I enjoyed watching them even more than watching Mark. I could see that his passion opened something up for them, something that is totally personal that either you get or you don't, and I think that might be why there are still people searching for Mark.

His music is soulful--it touches people in ways nothing else can. And once you go there, you can't deny that you've been there and that a connection has been made. Either you get it or you don't. I don't mean to speak so abstractly about it, but I think it is relevant. It's what makes Mark's music stick with people. It's beyond blues or punk. It's authentic.

They played a couple more songs and then an encore before the bar shut them down and turned up all the lights. I quickly bought a couple of CDs from Trevor and his lot at the Hard Soul table. I already had a copy of the CD, but I wanted to support them and get a memento from the show. I asked Mark to sign one for my friend Chris Beth back in Maine. We used to play a number of Mark Curry songs together (and usually still do whenever we still get together). I had Kenny, Shaun and Mark all three sign the second CD for my kids. I don't know if the blog will still exist once they grow up, so at least they'll have something to talk about my little project. (Shaun drew a little picture of a drumset on it. It's cute.)

I took a couple more pictures, said my goodbyes and called it a night. I drove home satisfied with what I feel is the end of a little journey. I still intend to keep tabs on Mark and HHB, but the search is over. He exists and I found him and he's still making music and it sounds great and now I can let it all go.

Almost.

I mentioned earlier on in this posting that I had made a website for my wife, Sarah. She is a photgrapher, and a large part of her site is dedicated to displaying images of her work in a gallery format. Well, after taking so many photos at my Mark Curry functions, I thought it would be fun to share the images with others. I threw up a site with some basic images the following day on my website. I sent an email to the Yahoo mailing list with the link basically saying that I would put up a nicer gallery in the next day or two.

A day or two grew into over two and a half weeks, but I am done with the initial project. It's not just a gallery. I've been trying to get the folks at Hard Soul to take a look at it, but they seem pretty busy and haven't really discussed it with me yet.

Anyone reading this should know just as well as I do that there is no official Mark Curry webpage. Well, if Mark and Trevor at Hard Soul like it, I intend to give this to them. Please don't link to it from anywhere, as its current location is temporary. I hope you enjoy it for what it's worth. I put quite a bit of time into it. Enjoy the photos and by all means, send me any and all feedback or corrections you deem necessary. Thanks to everyone who has read anything I've posted here and thanks for all of the kind words and feedback.

May this find you well.

Justin