I was fighting off insomnia the other night by listening to my iPod, browsing through some of my favorite stuff, when I came to a horrible realization:
I break up bands.
Not by doing performance art and posing nude with one of the songwriters, but just by becoming a fan! Here’s a list of my past work, the album that had just come out when I really got into a band:
Soul Coughing: El Oso (last album)
Pizzicato Five: Happy End of the World (3rd-to-last American release)
Chickasaw Mudd Puppies (an Athens, GA band): 8 Track Stomp (last album; they announced a “hiatus” less than a week after the first time I saw them in concert)
Emergency Broadcast Network: Telecommunication Breakdown (last album)
Throwing Muses: The Real Ramona (last album with Tanya Donnelly; I think they broke up, right?)
The Pogues: Hell’s Ditch (last album before Shane MacGowan left)
Pixies: Trompe Le Monde (last album)
The Breeders: Last Splash
Donkey (an Atlanta, GA swing band): Ten-Cent Freaks (major line-up and format change within months after the first time I saw them in concert)
Hothouse Flowers: Home (next to last, I think)
The Waterboys: Room to Roam (last, I think)
The B-52’s: Cosmic Thing
The list goes on and on. Does anyone else have a similar power?
And before anyone asks: I don’t do requests. Yes, I have tried becoming a fan of bands like The Backstreet Boys and N*Sync and Matchbox 20, but it just doesn’t work.