A few nights ago, C. and I decided we wanted to see some live music. It sounds simple enough, but C.’s manner of appreciating music is wholly different from mine. As a result, compromise is almost always necessary. For me, rock clubs are the default. The band should be loud or not at all. Ideally, there should be at least two guitars. Did I mention loud? I want the volume up as high as it goes, and I want to position myself dead center and as close as I can get to the stage, arms crossed, not dancing around like an idiot, just immersing myself in music so loud it vibrates the cuffs of my pants. Lyrics are disposable; I’ve come for the music—and mere volume is not enough. I want to get carried away by the subtleties in song structure and melodic details. The music should have texture—rich and luxurious, or thin and tenuous and strung out, or jangly and poppy—whatever the particular brand of music, it should have a self-consistent aesthetic that stands up to tough questions.

Since this has long been my favorite way to see live music, my ears are, well, less sensitive than they used to be. C.’s are not, and the noise level of what I’d consider to me a mid-volume band is intolerable and even painful for her. So I usually find other concert-goers when such bands are involved. But on this particular night, we were trying to decide between jazz and bluegrass, and I’m so picky about both that I had to call a few clubs to make sure that we weren’t in for a night of Kenny G. While looking at the jazz club listings in the City Paper (DC’s local arts & entertainment weekly), I happened upon the weekly schedule for the Black Cat, a rock club where the indie and punk bands I most often enjoy tend to play. There, on this very night, was Bella Lea, a band you’ve probably not heard of. They’re new. I wouldn’t have heard of them either, except that I’d recently been googling my old friend and bandmate, Ryan Rapsys, and discovered that his new band goes by this name.

So we hopped into the car and drove down to the Black Cat. Ryan had called to wish me a happy Thanksgiving in 2002, I think, but other than that, I had seen him only once or twice since I left Chicago in 1998, so my mind was all aflutter as we approached the club. I expected that he’d be pretty much the same guy I’d always known, but I have occasionally been surprised upon meeting old friends that sometimes they change quite a bit over the course of not too many years. Parenthood and marriage are the most radical catalysts, or at least one would hope, but there are others. Traveling can do a lot, as can heavy amounts of alcohol applied liberally over a long period of time. The refreshing thing about people who devote real energy and time to making art is that, despite what changes may have come, the front-and-center focus on art anchors a person in ways not much else can. Ryan’s drumming has changed—or at least he drums differently in this band; Bella Lea’s beats are more basic and the drums slide in line behind the guitar and serenely creepy vocalist (formerly of Denali)—but he has not. His drum kit has changed—the marbled blue Gretsch five-piece set has been usurped by something transparent (the better to try to catch the hummingbird-quick movements of his Stewart-Copelandesque hands)—but the lanky six-foot-five guy with the just-consciously coy yet always charming smile was no different.

We always suspected that if any of us would one day be able to quit our day jobs, it would be Ryan. His talent alone put him head and shoulders above many of us. When Euphone first began, it was all him and him alone. On stage, he had his drum kit, a little drum machine, and a cheap Casio; he’d play all three at the same time, one hand on the keyboard, doing more on the drums with his other hand than many can do with with two. (For an example of the drumming virtuosity, I recommend “Press On,” available for free download at the bottom of Euphone’s epitonic.com page.) Sure, the Lonesome Organist outshines him at the whole one-man band thing (and coincidentally plays guitar on “Press On”), but neither is a novelty act. In the studio, Ryan played bass, guitar, piano, drums, pen-on-thigh, glasses full of water, you name it. In fact, barring a couple of sporadic cameos, the first Euphone album (the self-titled one on Hefty Records) features Ryan on every instrument on every track. Watching Ryan approaching an instrument for the first time is always a bit like watching an idiot savant walking toward a piano. You know that within moments you’ll be witness to something amazing.

Of course, that whole ‘quitting your day job’ thing can be a mixed blessing in the indie-rock world. The way to get your indie cred is to strive to be not a rock star, but a musician, and the difference is crucial. The music comes first. If fame or money accidentally follow, it can only be as a result of word of mouth, of a fan-base built up one by one after experiencing life-altering epiphanies or soul-shaking orgasms upon hearing your records. Ryan was the butt of a good many bitter comments back then, not only because he was better at his second and third instruments than many were at their first, but because he could use that grin to network his way into opportunities unavailable to the rest of us, whose overdeveloped sense of integrity made us insist on doing it the hard way. In our early twenties, it was easy to criticize the business acumen of the networkers and schmoozers who sought out internships at record labels in order to inside-track their way to decent distribution for their records. Now that I’m 30 and effectively left that whole thing behind years ago, I must congratulate those who have found a way to make a living from music. If you’d told us ten years ago that Ryan would be making soundtracks for arcade games, scoring music for dance performances, and signing to Capitol Records, we’d have drawn up a list of 900 synonyms for ‘sell-out’. Now, I’ve nothing to say but ‘congratulations’.

That night was the second one recently that I’d been in the audience, neck craned upward trying to catch a glimpse of someone on stage with whom I used to play rock music. A couple of weeks prior, Dischord’s emo heroes Hoover got together for a reunion show at the Black Cat, where Alex Dunham—half of the guitar onslaught in both Hoover and Radio Flyer—used to tend bar when the music scene was in DC and I lived in Chicago. Now Al and the music scene are in Chicago and I live in DC (a day late and a dollar short, as usual). I haven’t touched a musical instrument in about three years, and even then it was in some ways but a feeble mimicry of what was.

While watching those who have kept the making of music front and center for these almost ten years since my last band, noticing all the while that my thoughts of musicianship occur almost exclusively in the past tense makes me a bit ashamed. I can remember emphatically, fist-poundingly-on-the-table decreeing that I refused to be one of those guys who “used to be in a band.” But that’s exactly what I am. And so it is, having been confined to the audience one time too many (and in fact, I couldn't even get close enough to the stage to say hi to Alex at the Hoover show, which really pissed me off) this ex-crafter of what would be, in other hands, sonic lusciousness—but with a you-can-dance-to-it-if-you-bust-out-your-TI-88 feel—has decided soon to acquire a keyboard that will interface with some lovely nearly-free software purveyed by Apple computer intended to make the making of music easier for those who’d make it. That’s me, with an itch buried so deep I think I’d all but forgotten how it could be otherwise, but not for long.

aw, you make me go all warm and happy. i would like it if you would make more music. not least because i like the idea of you fighting against the death of youthful idealism.

what did corinne think of the show, though?

Gofer it dude! I myself look back on my glory days when I could lay down some mean vinyl on my stereo - I don't do much of that anymore, either. Maybe I should hook up the old Denon...