I was a teenage groupie. Which isn’t so unusual, really. Music is one of the easiest ways to forge, or at least latch onto, an identity when you’re young. (Or even when you’re not so young). It’s a way to connect to a ready-made tribe. Being a groupie gives you a sense of belonging, and a sense that if you just try a little harder, or make a better impression, you can become part of that group you’re so obsessed with.
By my junior year of college, I had already done New Wave and Industrial. I was maturing out of my ska phase and developing an appreciation for a wider array of microscopic subgenres, but for a while there wasn’t much that hit the spot. I wasn’t angry enough to be all that punk, and the exploding grunge scene just didn’t do it for me. I wasn’t clubbing enough to care about dance music yet, and I was still too self-conscious to accept how much I really liked ’70s music. I was yearning for something to grab me.
One night my best friend Dave and I went to a show at the student union. It was a decidedly unhip venue for a city with a music scene like Boston’s, but it was cheap and we were poor. The band hit the stage, and I saw an 8-piece sideshow of fun. The singer/trumpet player wore Muppet-fur pants. The keyboard player wore a stuffed bear’s head for a hat. The horn section was awesome, and everyone in the band was a natural showman. They were silly, they had the funk, and I was dancing my ass off within seconds.
“These are my people,” I thought.