The Man-Cub ™ and his best friend Sean are in the car with me just now. They, along with the Fem-Bot ™ and their pal Garrett are planning to form a band. They’re 12 and 11. I wholeheartedly encourage this. It’ll keep them off the streets and out of the opium dens.
They’re debating a name for the band. My son says, ’ Hey we can just be The Band !!! Get it? The Band Band ! ‘. His pal Sean says, ’ Oh Cool. That’ it, we’ll be called The Band’.
I call out from the front, ’ Hey guys, there’s a famous group called The Band already, ok? '.
The Man-Cub ™ mutters loudly, since when?
I’m gonna take my mug of Postum and sit by the fire with an afgan and think about the good old days… when The Last Waltz wasn’t just the dance before your d.j. went home.
How do I tell them about The Band? I think I need to go buy some music. Anyone else run up against this stuff, where their kids spout out something that makes them feel ancient?
How about That Band? Have you seen That Band before? What band? That Band. It would help if I knew what band you were talking about. That Band, you idiot.
I was telling my daughter the Xmas gifts I got for her brother. I said “I got him a $20 gift card at the record store”.
She howled with laughter. “Oh, Mom !!! The RECORD store???”
Plus, I keep seeing this old lady in the mirrors in my house. Who in the hell is THAT ???
Next time you’re at the mall with them, start acting confused and belt out a few lines of “The Night the Drove Old Dixie Down”. They’ll never forget who The Band was again.
I’m going to steal one of my brother’s stories (I do it all the time, since his life is more interesting than mine) to add to this thread. He is a police detective (you know him as Badge).
He was taking a statement (confession, really) from a young person who had stolen a stereo system which included a turntable. To describe this item, he said, holding his hands about a foot apart, “One of those things that plays really big, black CDs. I’m not sure what they’re called.”
Story from my own life: I was helping out at a PBS pledge event. The phone volunteers were all in the 17-19 year-old range, and the show that we were taking pledges for was a Three Dog Night concert. I wasn’t surprised that only a couple of them had heard of the band (“I think my dad has that album, maybe.”). But it took a while to explain what I was meant when I said I used to have that band on 8-track.
So, there really was a band named The Band? Because, reading these boards, I’ve never been too sure about whether there really was a band named The Band or whether it just was a nickname for some other well-known band that I’d get if… I… just… was… older…
I’m going to go away from making you old people feel old now.
My brother-in-law (age=mid-forties) was in a Beatles chatroom, when one of the online squirts asked, “Were the Beatles as popular in the sixties as they are now?”
Most people under 29 years old that I know don’t know anything about the Gulf War except that it was against Iraq. Half the time they’ve never heard of Kuwait, and the other half couldn’t find it on a map.
Oh, and I’m 26, but I HAVE heard of The Band, 8-tracks, albums (a.k.a. LPs) and televisions with no remote control (my family didn’t even own a set until 1988).
Heck, I even remember having a 45-rph record of “Devil Went Down to Georgia” that was my favorite album when I was about 5-6 years old.
