99 Red Balloons Go By
I generally don’t like to talk about Paige’s father very often – it’s complicated and messy. But just so y’all know, he is a musician and has been in at least 5-6 bands over the last 20 years. I only bring this up because while we were up in Vancouver, CB and I went to see some shows. It made me realize how much I miss going to them and of course, how much of a fool I’ve been for not going to see more.
You see, being a girlfriend of someone in a band could quite possibly kill any pleasure you get out of music – like it did me. Honestly, it was probably the combination of bad relationship (you what? you just bought an amp?!? we just had a baby!) and my low tolerance for repetitive things (like band practice). At the end of our 2ish years together I had had enough of the incessant guitar riffs and bass lines and misplaced priorities and everything else that I broke up with Paige’s father and music all at the same time. Down with love! NO MORE MUSICIANS – EVER! To hell with music!
13 years later, my life is not governed by so many absolutes. Plus, dating a writer right after a musician just about killed me and in hindsight the musician seemed like a cakewalk in comparison.
But I digress.
For shits and giggles, CB and I got tickets to see the Stone Temple Tribute Project and Girls and Roses while we were in Vancouver. A quick word on tribute bands or cover songs, they generally fall under one of the following three categories:
- So awesome, they sound just like [fill in the blank]! Think Arnel Pineda and Steve Perry comparison.
- So talented that they reinterpreted the music and it still sounds good! Maybe even better! Think David Cook from American Idol singing “Always Be My Baby” by Mariah Carey. Pop to Grunge. Not a big fan of either artist but it was the first example that came to mind. Think Chris Cornell singing Billie Jean by MJ.
- Bad. So bad. This is wrong. So wrong.
In this case, Girls and Roses was #3. In fact, we couldn’t even sit through the entire set. We ended up heading back to The Railway to salvage our evening.
While out on the deck we met Siobhan Duvall by happenstance. She is the lead singer of a band called Duvall Star (pictured above) and was completely adorable with her pink Chuck Taylors and pink Debbie Harry t-shirt. She told us a story about how she did a cover of 99 Red Balloons and how it randomly sold around 100,000 copies on iTunes and how it was a nice chunk of change for a while. Being a skeptic, I had to check to see if she was serious and sure enough, there it was in all of it’s iTunes glory.
Tags: duvall star, siobhan duvall, vacation, vancouver
This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 1st, 2009 at 7:56 pm and is filed under Daily. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
7 Responses to “99 Red Balloons Go By”
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Oh Man! I TOTALLY had the idea years ago for an all girl Guns N Roses tribute band, to be called Runs N Hoses. Looks like they beat me to it. There goes my retirement plan.
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Oh man. I was a musician, married a musician, and the end of our relationship has killed all desire to be part of a world where I spent ten years trying to carve my niche. I SO hear you. Maybe some day I will be able to go to concerts again.
When I first moved to the United States as a teen I had some friends who were musicians and did the east village band scene in New York City. I followed along for a bit but it was crazy and I even got tired after just a little bit.
– although some of my friends who have dated different people, doctors, lawyers, writers, bankers types and those who prefer to live at a leisurely pace tell me that it’s really the male population that is hard to live with, he he he
Being with a musician must be very tough
My husband is military and sometimes I get really tired of our lifestyle and being last to Uncle Sam’s needs
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Totally unrelated but is ‘momversations’ going to be on Oprah? I swear I just saw a clip about motherhood as the netxt topic on Oprah and saw a you…
This is and almost always has been my world. Most of my significant relationships – romantic and platonic – have been with musicians even though I’m not one. I’m just the photographer/merch girl/huge music fan. I tried to switch things up by dating programmers for a while but that had its own set of complications (utter lack of social skills for one thing) so back to musicians I went. Though I’ve recently discovered that the combination of musician/law school student is about as bad as it can get (so very self-contained/self-absorbed). Yet I can’t imagine it any other way.
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I’ve been there! I dated a musician for 5 years and the band part was a huge reason why i broke up w/ him. My ex was a drummer so I always had to go to his show and wait for him to pack up all of his drums. I was always known as the “drummer’s girl” – never as an individual. Band practice was annoying and having to go to every show where they play the same 6 songs was mind numbing. Now I date a entrepreneur/accountant and loving life.
it’s called a script. it’s shtick. everyone of them is in on it to get idiots like you talking about it the next day. god this show needs to go away. i stopped watching after glambert lost and don’t regret it one bit