I Am Silverchair

Another one from the myspace archive:

Thursday, June 07, 2007
Their beginnings were earnest, decent Nirvana clones whose lead singer wore a Tool shirt and rocked one of my summer of '95 anthems, "Tomorrow." (In the video, a pigman performs fellatio on a stack of coins and not a pocket full o' shells.) Even then, I kinda felt they would fall into obscurity as the DJ at the new station in Fresno, New Rock 104 said that they won a contest in Australia, beat out like 200 bands to have their song played on the radio—then the teen sensation that was Australian import Silverchair became an American rape job. They looked confused on subsequent videos afterwards.

Then in 1997, in the height of the young master's progress and my sexual inner-rage, the band dropped their sophomore outing, my favorite by them, "Freak Show." This album owned me that spring and summer when I was driving back and forth with sumdumbass to Porterville and spinning pizza in the air to the awe of High School girls who pretended to not like me. My favorite song was "Slave." I would listen to that song at the peak of my indifference to the Wood. Metal was my drug of choice before beer's icy hands gripped my heart and has ceased to loosen since. I'd put on my ball chain and some of my mom's eye make-up, mock-singing to "Learn to Hate" to the mirror's reflection.

"Take the time to learn to hate. And come and join the mass debate."

I would yell that when mom and dad were at work—in my room, wearing out Fisher speakers. Not getting laid. Not getting drunk. Just sneaking cigarettes and Taco Bell, banging my head to a maverick album in the Grunge era.

Silverchair came back to me in one of the most interesting times in my life, when I first hit Sac soil in the early daze of the final year of our lord, 1999. I was let down by the album "Neon Ballroom" and kinda dropped off the bandwagon after that. The only decent song is probably my favorite Chair song, a little number called "Ana's Song (Open Fire)." It was a personal song for singer Daniel Johns, who suffered from Anorexia and looked it.

"And Ana wrecks your like, like an Anorexia life…" Great pun, young modern Johns.

After that, grunge was dead to me. I started falling down the rabbit hole and listening anything that had nothing to do with my young republican counterpart, who ironically died in 2003 when supporting the war was cool. I remember downloading the lead single off their last album, "Diorama" and liking it, but hating that I liked it. The single got lost in a sea of Interpol and Bowie. Lost in a collage of Floyd and the Doors.

Now I'm thirty, and obsessing once more about a band I thought kicked ass when was young, dumb and full of something that rhymes with dumb.

It was serendipity, my brothers and sisters. Drunkenly trolling through Livejournal and finding a random video on the internet in the Buddhist lounge.



And you know how youtube shows other video previews after you have watched one—one of them was of Silverchair's song off their new album. Daniel looks like Timberlake now and rocks like Elton when he was angry. Then it occurred to me, I grew up with Silverchair.

The evolution of Silverchair was the evolution of D.A. They entered my life at five very different periods and they continued to be a band I respected, even if I didn't consider myself a fan.

I found this on some random site, "Naivety on Frogstomp, anger on Freak Show, depression on Neon Ballroom, escapism on Diorama and acceptance on Young Modern."

I am Silverchair. Silverchair is me. In my thirtieth year, I accept what the world is, just a little bit more. Call me Young Modern, Drewsus A. "The Magnum" Von Stutmania esquire, the first. On quest for the girl with far away eyes.

"I'm watching you watch over me and I've got the greatest veiw from here."