Cracker Nostalgia
I was sixteen years old when Cracker’s Kerosene Hat was released.
Low was all over the radio.
And when my friends Mike Voorhees, Charlie Russo and Brian Lescavage and I would drive around in my Mom’s minivan after school listening to mix tapes, someone would always groan when that snare drum hit and the guitar kicked in for that unforgettable opening to the song.
“Gee…who made the radio mix?”
You see, it was sort of taboo to put a bands “radio song” on a mix tape. Mix tapes weren’t supposed to be full of the stuff you could hear on K-Rock or WNEW. They were supposed to be chock-full of the deep cuts. The stuff that only real fans knew. The goodness that came on around track three on side two. No “Feed The Tree” from Belly. No “Cannonball” by The Breeders. And blaspheme the fellow who dared include “Killing in The Name Of” by Rage Against The Machine.
It was supposed to be “Full Moon, Empty Heart” and “Saints” and “Wake Up”.
This past Saturday night- when Cracker launched into Low, I was on the deck having a cigarette with some new and old friends. But I heard that snare hit even through the glass door leading outside. And I immediately extinguished my butt. And went inside…stood in the back of the near-capacity crowd…and reveled in the fact that sixteen years after Charlie, Mike and Brian groaned when I put Cracker’s “radio song” on my mixtape, they were here…playing their hit in my venue and- even knowing that the song had become part of the bands collective muscle-memory some fifteen years prior- it still gave me chills.
“I’ll be with you girl, like being low…hey! hey! hey! like being STONED!”
You see, had I told Charlie, Mike or Brian some sixteen years ago that “some day, Cracker is going to play a small club that I’m going to book when I’m in my thirties” they probably would have laughed at me.
Hell, I would have laughed at me.
But this show that we did last Saturday wasn’t just another band playing another night at The Abbey Bar.
Sure, it was to celebrate the venue/restaurant/brewery’s twelfth anniversary. And it was a party.
But it was sort of a testament…a personal achievement for me.
It took me back. Back to my youth, to a time when all I had to worry about was washing dishes at Samson Catering on The Boulevard in Hasbrouck Heights and then, on Fridays, spending my paycheck at Music Merchant across the street.
I spent part of a paycheck on a Kerosene Hat cassette.
And this past Saturday, Cracker gave me personal redemption for putting their radio song on my mix tape.