Thursday, October 28th, 1993.
Thursday, October 28th, 1993.
In my first year at Ironwood High school, I had heard about KUKQ and while I cannot recall exactly when I first tuned in, sometime between autumn of 1990 and spring of 1991, I believe the first song I heard was "Reap The Wild Wind" by Ultravox. When I tuned in, I felt like I had discovered a magical, hidden cave of treasures that not many people even knew about, and the AM radio sound added to that appeal. I felt like I had come home. I had found myself. I was really getting into bands like New Order, Echo & The Bunnymen, Erasure, and The Smiths. R.E.M.'s album "Out of Time" was released just a few days after my birthday in March 1991, and I bought that album and played it constantly. That was about the time that I began listening to Alternative music exclusively. I identified with the genre and it suited my eccentric personality.
But another album had been released in February '91: The Ocean Blue's "Cerulean." I cannot recall exactly but sometime between March and May I had heard their song "Ballerina Out of Control" and it instantly became my favorite song. It was beautiful, contemplative Dreampop, and I completely fell in love with that song. I was always such a mellow guy, so this blissful, dreamy style of music really appealed to me. The song didn't get a whole lot of airtime on KUKQ, but when I heard it, I was happy. I was waiting to hear more from the band before deciding to buy the album Cerulean. I never did hear the band's followup single "Mercury" on KUKQ.
My all-time favorite song, "Ballerina Out of Control."
I mentioned before that the Foursquare church I went to with my parents was a rather small one. I had a frenemy there named Toby my age who was more often an enemy than a friend. My sister stopped coming to church with us because there was nothing for her there at all. No kids her age to make friends with. Mom and Dad did not consider our feelings when they decided to join that church. Later on in my high school years though, I did make friends there who were older than me. Ry was a metalhead anime fan who introduced me to building Macross plastic models and was fun to spend time with. (I mentioned him in essay #99 when I talked about how I got into plastic modeling). Later a younger married couple named Obadiah and Svetlana attended there, and they were mentors to me. They were the ones who introduced me to Unchurch and encouraged me to chase after that girl Kate, but I was too shy. Later, Obadiah's younger brother John became a friend of mine, too. My senior year of high school, the pastor opened a makeshift coffee house in the basement and called it The Cellar. It became a cool place to hang out on weekends. I went into detail about this in essay #127, my coming of age story as a hopeless nerd.
Anyhow, that came later. In the summer of '92 before my junior year of high school, I was then 16 years old and a man at that church named Curtis hired me to work for his pool cleaning company for a couple of months that summer. That summer of '92 had a pretty strong monsoon season and I was hired as an assistant pool cleaner to work with a man named Barry. When I met Barry, I totally hit it off with him! He was the youth pastor of his small church, and at that time I was feeling a calling to do the same when I'd someday become an adult. I told him, "When I become an adult, I want to work with youth and make a positive impact on their lives." I knew that I wanted to do this, despite being such a shy, introverted boy. My fear though was that since not many people seemed to like me because I was such a nerd, I thought that if I became some sort of youth group leader that kids wouldn't respect me. While I never went into a youth ministry exactly, I became a teacher in Japan, impacting kids' lives in a positive way that I can.
I worked with Barry about 3 days a week on his pool cleaning routes. We were working outside in the hot Phoenix summer sun all day, but it wasn't so bad because we could always take our shoes off and jump in a pool. Sometimes it was necessary too, since I had to get into the water and scrub tiles. It was a great first job, stress-free, and when I came home, I'd take a shower and just cool off. Barry and I worked in Sun City, way out in Tolleson and El Mirage, and even some very fancy, big houses in the Biltmore area. I'm sure El Mirage has grown a lot more since the early '90s, but Barry would joke about how there should be a sign that says, "Welcome to El Mirage: great place to take a pee!"
Barry had a goofy sense of humor like myself, and I found out that he too loved listening to KUKQ. In fact, he had a portable radio cassette player he carried with him for work. We soon learned that we liked a lot of the same bands. He too did not care for the Seattle/grunge sound that was proliferating at that time. Being older than me, he knew so much more about the bands and the whole Alternative/College Radio genre that I had just gotten into about a year before. At the time, my favorite band was Tears For Fears, and I particularly liked their first album, "The Hurting." I asked Barry, "Do you know a band called The Ocean Blue?" It turns out that it was his favorite band! He made me a copy of their two albums on a cassette, and I ended up playing that cassette to death. Eventually I bought these two albums on CD. The band's sound was just amazing. The band members got together with a shared love for bands like R.E.M., The Smiths, and Cocteau Twins. While their eponymous first album was a quintessential College Radio style offering, the second album, "Cerulean," was a blissful, beautiful voyage into Dream Pop, with guitars and synthesizers providing an ocean of beautiful sound. And tying both albums together were the thoughtful, introspective lyrics, full of philosophy and love, with nods to Pilgrim's Progress, the Bible, and Ayn Rand.
Barry had been in a band called The Dependents and he gave me a cassette tape of the songs they had recorded in an 8 track studio. Anyone who loved U2 and The Cure would have loved that tape. Dear God, I wish I still had that tape. I think I threw it out on a whim while rapidly packing up my house when we sold it in 2011 in order to move into an apartment. I had no way of playing audio cassettes and I really wish that I had held onto that tape and found a way to record its contents into a digital format. Crap.
Barry promised me that whenever TOB came to Phoenix, he would take me to their concert. I only worked with Barry that one summer of '92, but he continued to be a friend and mentor to me the rest of my high school years, and into my first year of college. He introduced me to so bands I didn't know much about, like The Mighty Lemon Drops, Riverside, Trash Can Sinatras, Kitchens of Distinction, and Starflyer 59.
Thursday, October 28th, 1993 was The Ocean Blue in concert at The Roxy in Phoenix for their third album, "Beneath the Rhythm and Sound." Their single "Sublime" had broken into the Top 40 chart. I was a senior in high school. Barry took me to that concert. He had wanted to go to a Gin Blossoms concert that night, but I reminded him of his promise to take me to see The Ocean Blue in concert. I think his wife was listening to our phone conversation and she told him to keep his promise. Fortunately, it was an all-ages concert as the Roxy had a sectioned-off place just for alcohol. So we were in line outside before the concert began, just sitting down. There was some long cigarette butt on the ground next to where I sat and Barry pointed to it and exclaimed, "Nice butt!" I remember there were two annoying high school girls wearing Suede T-shirts who kept talking to us. Neither of us really cared for Suede, but these girls kept trying to convince us to buy Suede's album. Yeah, whatever.
Barry's friend Roy was at that concert too, but I did not meet him that night. Roy later became a friend of mine, a couple of years later. After the concert, he got to meet the band members of TOB and hung out with Steve Lau, the keyboardist for the band, in the band's trailer.
So Barry and I got inside and there was a band opening for TOB called His Boy Elroy. That band only had one mildly successful song called "Chains" which was a bit annoying. After they played their first song, Barry shouted out, "OCEAN BLUE!" The singer of the band looked out at the crowd and asked, "Do we have a heckler?" "Barry said, "Get off the stage," but I urged him to not cause problems. The band sucked, but it was still rude to give them a hard time.
When TOB first came on stage, a choir of a Latin hymn played, and they opened with their song "Cathedral Bells." When playing "Ask Me, Jon," in the middle of the song David started singing the theme to The Love Boat. Barry predicted that they'd play "Marigold" next, and got it right. After that, he shouted "Mercury!" ...and the band played it! Then I shouted "Ballerina!" And sure enough, they played "Ballerina Out of Control!" Were they listening to the audience, or did we just have luck in guessing the next songs? The band surprised everyone for their encore song as they played "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out" by The Smiths. The crowd cheered because I would think you'd have a hard time finding any Ocean Blue fan who isn't also a Smiths fan.
I didn't buy a concert shirt that night because it was cheaper to buy one directly through the band via mail order. In those pre-internet days, I was on their mailing list. That was the first big concert I'd ever been to, and it was a fantastic experience. I know Barry had other plans, but he was so kind as to take an annoying teenager who looked up to him and do something special for him.
In my senior year, Barry had formed a band called Altadena, which harnessed that "Arizona-style" sound that, at the time, people were expecting to become the next best thing to replace that "Seattle-style" sound which dominated the Alternative airwaves at the time, in 1993-94. The Gin Blossoms were big then, but I actually didn't care for them like my older sister did. I saw Altadena play couple of times at a small joint called Legends, and I took Jenny there to one of their concerts when we were friends.
Small world---That girl Juliet whom I later dated a few years later when I was 20 used to be the girlfriend of one of Barry's band members. And get this: I remember once as Altadena played at Peter Piper Pizza my senior year of high school, I saw a girl whom I thought was Denise, the girl at school I was smitten with the year before. I could have sworn it was her, but it wasn't. They both had strawberry blonde hair and wore glasses. I realize now it's quite possible that the girl was Juliet. Even weirder is how their voices both sounded the same on the phone.
In '95, Barry introduced me to his friend Roy one night at The Cellar. Roy also had blond hair with a bowl cut, similar to TOB's singer David Schelzel. I remember the first time I met him, I mentioned this and it turns out that TOB is his favorite band, too. Roy played bass guitar for a band called The Blameshares. We hit it off together that night and we gradually became friends.
Barry continued to be a friend and mentor to me, even into my first year of college. Sometimes I would see him at The Cellar and unfortunately, his band Altadena eventually broke up. Eventually, I lost track of him. I am not sure if I will be able to track him down. If I could, I would just thank him for being a friend and mentor to me, for putting up with an immature high school boy who looked up to him and deeply appreciated him. I know at least someday I will see him in the afterlife, and I want to just give him a big hug and thank him for being someone so special to me. I loved him and looked up to him. He was such an inspiration to me, and he's the reason why I tried to learn bass guitar. His wife was beautiful and I knew that I would never be as talented as him. He was a good man. I think every young boy needs an older man like that to look up to, to respect, and admire. Someone kind, passionate, and generous like him. I know I probably sometimes annoyed him with the whole Japan thing, as I did everyone else. I'm sure I was immature and at times I imagine he'd rather be with someone on his own level. But I'm sure that he knew how I admired him, and he made me feel included. Dear God, wherever Barry is today, bless him. I loved him so much.
This is why I made a point to reach out to that girl Lisa's little brother Steve. I know he looked up to me, and I was at least 10 years older than him. Especially since I loved his older sister Lisa and valued her friendship more than she ever knew, I adored that boy greatly. I wanted to spend time with him and make a positive impact on his life. I took him places and did things with him. I imagine he must have thought it was cool that a college student was spending time with him. I wanted to be a man like Barry was to me; to be a mentor to the boy. I hear that I must have made an impression on him, because like me he ended up marrying a girl from Asia.
The second concert
So now I'll take you to the year 1996. I was attending The Vineyard Church of North Phoenix. I was 20 years old, and that year I had fallen for two girls, Juliet and Lisa at that church. Love did not work out with either girl and towards the end of that year, I had no girl to spend time with. But at that church I had gotten to know Roy fairly well since he, Dave and Thom from their band The Blameshares (whom I had seen in concert several times and Kate was their manager) attended that church.
In September, Roy and I were discussing The Ocean Blue's upcoming CD scheduled for release a few weeks later. I mentioned that they were going to soon play a concert. It was in Tucson, so I didn't expect to see them. Roy and Thom were interested in going to the concert though, and Roy gave me his phone number to let him know when and where. So I got the details and they were going to play on Wednesday, September 25th. I called him that night and left a message on his answering machine with the details. He didn't call me back until Wednesday morning, right before I was going to take a shower and get ready for school at Glendale Community College. We decided to go, but we certainly couldn't go in my car as I doubted that it could drive all the way down to Tucson and back. Thom couldn't make it, so it was just Roy and I in his truck. We listened to some of his CD collection on the way there and back. The best was hearing Lush's Split album for the first time that night, as until then I'd only owned Gala and Spooky. Roy was really into a band called The Red House Painters. The music is great at first, but the level of heartsick whining makes Morrissey seem optimistic and cheerful, and that band's songs wear thin rather quickly.
Roy and I got to The Rock (the venue where the concert was at) after the two hour drive down to Tucson and finding the place with the strange directions his Tucson friends had given him. When we got there, one of the bouncers said that they were sold out of tickets. However, Dillards at the mall still had tickets. So, we dove over to the nearest mall and bought the tickets to the show. Afterwards, I saw on the ticket that it was a 21 and over show. Crap. I wouldn't turn 21 until just less than a half year later. Roy had a plan that if he could talk to the guys in the band before the concert started, they could override the bouncers and let me in. After all, he had met them at the last concert. Unfortunately, that did not happen, mainly due to the fact that they went onstage first. We'd been told that they were going on second.
There were two other bands that night: Superdrag and The Refreshments. I wasn't familiar with Superdrag, but The Refreshments was an ASU/Tempe party band that was all about getting drunk and acting rowdy and stupid. Consequently, we Ocean Blue fans were able to spot each other fairly easily. I was there that night wearing my New Order: Republic T-shirt. I had a couple of people come up to me and ask, "Ah, so you are here to see Ocean Blue too, huh?" Instant camaraderie. We all seemed to have a higher IQ than the rest of the concert goers, and we had some great conversations about music.
The concert was about to start, so I told Roy not to feel bad about me and to just go inside and enjoy the show. TOB were onstage only a half hour. I would have kept my ticket stub and pasted it into my journal and scanned it for this webpage essay, but I sold the ticket outside to somebody wanting to get in. I didn't scalp it and instead I was nice to not take advantage of the guy. I broke even, and that's all I cared to do. I ended up talking to a 19 year old guy who wasn't allowed, either. We just listened to them play, standing on the sidewalk outside.
After the band played, Roy and I waited outside by the band's van with a handful of fellow TOB fans. We got to stand around and talk with members of the band, so it more than made up for not being able to see them play inside! It made the whole night worthwhile. I got to ask the band members all sorts of questions I had wanted to ask. First out was the new band member, Oeddie, who had replaced Steve. He was so laid-back, he looked like he was about to fall over. Maybe he was sleepy from all the touring? I can only imagine. He was mellow and cool to talk with. Then David, the lead singer, saw him talking with us and then came over. Earlier, he had just run away when we said "hi" to him. He seemed rather shy. But I got to annoy him with all sorts of questions about his thoughtful lyrics. Later, I felt bad about asking so many persistant questions, but Roy told me that David was probably pleased.
The guys in the band were sorry to hear that I had traveled all the way from Phoenix to see them play, only to have to wait outside. The drummer Rob told me that they would play next in San Diego and that they could work something out. David told me that the headline tour coming up a few months later should be an all ages show.
Roy and I could tell that they were not happy with how the show turned out and who they were touring with. Playing with those other bands was not a good match, to say the least. But it must've been nice for them to be greeted by their true followers. The group of us just found each other; we were able to spot each other from the crowd. I remember once somebody asked us, "Hey, you guys got any ganja?" I replied, "No, we came here to see the other band." In all, it was definitely worth it to wait outside for over a half an hour and nearly catch a cold from not dressing warmly enough for the Tucson night air, which was definitely cooler than Phoenix's in September. I got to meet the guys from the band and some really great fellow fans. Kevin, the band's road manager, said that if I went to the show in San Diego that Saturday, he'd let me in for free. But it wasn't feasible for me to go, as much as I would have wanted to. I never did get to attend the headline tour. Regardless, it was a wonderful evening and I got to talk with Roy for a very long time while we drove to Tucson and back. I think that night he told me that Kate had gotten married. I was happy to hear about that. Roy remains my friend to this day.
I'll end with this video I found on YouTube of TOB appearing on Club MTV of all shows, in 1989. The band's videos got a lot of airtime on MTV's show 120 Minutes, which IIRC was on Sunday night around midnight and I was never able to stay up that late with school the next morning.
UPDATE: I was able to track down Barry after all! Fortunately I had his old phone number from the '90s, because it turns out that Barry is only his middle name. I used Truthfinder.com to find his current phone number. I reached out to him and gave him a link to this essay I wrote. We got to catch up a bit. It's been good.
Next: photos of my old bedroom when I was a college student
Go back to the "Greg's Life" Table of Contents
"Stars above, stars below. And what is man?" ~The Ocean Blue, "The Planetarium Scene"
mail: greg -atsign- stevethefish -dot- net