Saturday night the Rev Room in Little Rock was more than a cool bar/restaurant/music venue right in the heart of the rejuvenated River Market district on President Clinton Avenue--it was a time machine that transported me back to one of the happiest eras of my life. I was there with a relatively small but very energetic and appreciative crowd for the triumphant reunion of what I'm going to go ahead and say is one of the greatest bands ever to come out of Arkansas, the power-pop quartet known by the famously unusual moniker Techno-Squid Eats Parliament.
I have to qualify that statement by admitting my bias: Techno-Squid's bass player Mark Pearrow has been my best friend ever since we met as classmates at Cloverdale Junior High School way back in 1984. My 8-year-old son, William Mark Standridge, was named for him, and I am proud to say his adorable toddler Jason Scott Pearrow is also my namesake. I spent a large portion of my formative years listening to Mark play in several bands, and throughout college and into graduate school I made every Techno-Squid show I possibly could. I know all the guys in the band and count them among my friends and some of the most interesting and talented people I know--I spent many happy nights hanging out at the house they shared for a while in an East Markham neighborhood, listening to music and watching movies and drinking beer. My wife and I announced our engagement at a TSEP show at Vino's in 1995. So obviously I'm not a dispassionate observer here.
Still, if you were aware of the Little Rock music scene at all in the early 90s, it would have been impossible for you to miss Techno-Squid. Over several years they built up a devoted and frankly rabid following in what passed for the Little Rock club scene back then, and members of that following will still shake their heads in fond disbelief when the subject comes up, wondering how in the hell it happened that these guys didn't become the Next Big Thing. Even now, listening to a well-spun copy of their one official eponymous release, their lack of star status beggars the imagination. The songs are just so good--lyrically, musically, tonally, energy-wise--I can name a dozen bands with less talent and wit and skill who have become megasuperstars in the years since Techno-Squid played their last show. The songs would still make great radio-fodder today--any alternative-radio programmer who tells you different is a lying funny-faced mug. You can tell him I said so.
The short version of the band's demise goes like this--having cut their album with Memphis-based Ardent Studios in 1994, the guys felt the need to explore bigger musical circuits in the hopes of finally making the leap from local heroes to bona fide rock stars. From their nation-wide touring they had established contacts in the Boston area and felt their sound might be a good fit for that market. So they decided to move up there as a band and make the push. Unfortunately, the stress of such a life-changing move proved to be too much. Getting established in New England and just paying the rent took its toll, as did homesickness for some and a hundred frustrations and minor and major tragedies for others that I won't go into here, with the upshot being that within a few months of the move, the band dissolved. Some members stuck it out it Boston (one temporarily, one--Mark--permanently), others moved back home to Little Rock, and others went West to pursue solo projects. The whole sad story is probably online somewhere (you might try the myspace page the guys set up, if you're interested), but the upshot is that Techno-Squid disbanded, leaving that promise unfulfilled and their fans confused and depressed.
Happily I wasn't the only hardcore Squid fan out there--one of the director's of this weekend's inaugural Little Rock Film Festival, the estimable Mike Poe, was also a friend and fan, and hatched the idea of bringing the guys back into town for a reunion show, some 13 years since their last gig. Calls were made, emails were sent, plane tickets were promised, and hey hey, hey hey, all right--TSEP was coming back together!
So the show happened Saturday night, May 17th, at the Rev Room. Several other LR bands played--607, Ace Spade and the Whores of Babylon, et alia--but I'm sorry to say I missed most of their sets because I was next door with Mark, Aaron Sarlo, Clay Bell, and Shayne Gray, awash in a sea of nostalgia and happiness at seeing them all again in the same room. (Also in attendance, wonderfully, was long-suffering manager, video extra, and official un-official Fifth Squid Ron Shelton, whom it was absolutely wonderful to see again. You rock, Ron!) Mark and I see each other on holidays most years and are in constant electronic contact, but the other guys I hadn't traded words with for more than a decade--this despite the fact that Aaron works at the Rev Room on weekends and does stand-up comedy and ukulele stylings in Little Rock pretty regularly, a fact I was unaware of until he and Mark and I had lunch there Friday. How could I have missed him? Shayne's still in central Arkansas too, though in Bryant, so it would be easier for me not to run into him, I guess.
Thirteen years does a lot to a person, obviously, and everybody was older, wrinklier, in some cases heavier or grayer--although Clay probably still gets carded when he buys booze. (You're ageless man! What's your secret?) Ron and I spent some time talking about how great and talented and deserving of fame and fortune the guys are, but for the most part there was surprisingly little maudlin nostalgia--it was a gathering of friends, the personalities and quirks and wit and silliness all still there, the good feeling and excitement palpable. It's a cliche, I know, but it was really like no time had passed.
When the guys finally took the stage a little after midnight, I can only describe the experience as pure, unfiltered joy. With only two days of practice under their belts they were understandably a bit loose, but the feeling was just like always--child-like enthusiasm, the slightly off-kilter humor, the outright joyful goofiness, and of course the music--it was really like going back in time to those happy, exciting days, revisiting not only the guys but that younger version of myself whose passing I had lamented and whose happiness I had missed, little realizing the introverted bugger was in there all the time. It was rejuvenating, honestly it was.
The crowd at the Rev Room obviously felt the same. I was not the only one wearing a well-preserved TSEP t-shirt, nor was I alone in singing along with just about every song the guys played. "Rhinestones," "I Shot Your Boyfriend," "Rear View Mirror," "Streets of Paradise," "Glamour Doll"--the guys gave it their all, and the fun they were having was infectious. Watching Mark bounce around the stage like he always used to, that trademark sardonic smirk plastered on his face; watching Aaron maul his guitar and strike rock star poses while singing his sensitive, witty, and sometimes profoundly sad lyrics; Clay's goofy banter and still-true voice on his songs; Shayne twirling his sticks and pulling his rock face only half-ironically--I was in something close to heaven. When Clay called the crowd up on stage for the show-closing sing-along favorite "Hit by a Honda," I just wanted to hug everybody in the room, and the guys onstage most of all. Again, judging from the grins on the faces of the other people onstage, I wasn't alone in that. And come to think of it I did hug a few. It was awesome.
So that's how I spent my weekend. I've been singing Squid songs all day, replaying their CD in my car, still unable to wipe that goofy grin off my face. If you missed the show, you missed a real event. But, hopefully (fingers crossed) you'll get another chance. At least I pray we do.
For those interested, Mark has put pretty much everything TSEP ever recorded up for your listening pleasure at http://www.technosquid.net; you can also watch videos of the much-younger guys being as goofy and endearing and wonderful as they ever were and read PDF copies of their great band newsletter The Biscuit Quarterly, put out in the days when a dot-matrix printer was high-tech. I already linked the myspace page above, and Clay (now a professional musician living in San Francisco) has a website where you can hear the great stuff he's been doing as well: http://www.claybell.com. And if more music or TSEP announcements happen, I'll be sure and spread the word.
Thanks again to Mike Poe and the Little Rock Film Festival for making this happen, and most of all to Clay, Aaron, Shayne, and Mark for doing it. You guys still rock. You always will.
Come on, Come on, Got Hit By a Honda!
