Love Is a Drug
St. Vincent and Roxy Music Merch 2022
The aisle between our row of folding chairs and the soundboard was thick with seniors and felt like we were in the buffet line on a cruise ship. So many canes, sporty blazers, iPhone flashlights and sensible shoes! I couldn’t see St. Vincent’s skinny legs or watch her make a guitar scream. Even worse, I’d have to watch Brian Ferry from the projection above the stage even though the real 77-year-old Rock Troubadour benevolently graced the stage less than 50 yards away.
My Brian gave up his aisle seat so short Sandy had a fighting chance.
Flocks of our peers had ascended Chase Stadium on a Monday night. Roxy Music decided to include San Francisco on their 50th-anniversary tour. “If those old guys could bring the rock, at least we middle-aged scenesters could get off the couch and over the bridge,” my pal Marissa said from the back seat.
In 1982 I worked at Record City on Colonial Drive in Orlando Florida. There I discovered Roxy Music and was enticed by their sexy-yet-classy album covers. I pulled the vinyl out of its sleeve, placed the needle on the record, and fell into Longing Town. How could a saxophone, synthesizer, and guitar sound lush yet feral; both subversive and sexy alongside the crooning of a morning dove? The cabaret-glam-raunch-pomp and bluster gave me marching orders: you will rock, sister. Not hard necessarily, but weirdly for sure.
I met my Brian in1997. Our tastes in music overlapped and the twinning of our adoration for art and artists, their contributions and our own, strengthened our bond. We became rope. And love is a drug. The very first time I played bass in public was with Brian and my pal, Jon Stern. We performed as Austin Mello at a defunct club in the mission on Valentine’s Day 1998.
We performed Love is a Drug.
Eventually, The Bellyachers
Today, as I watched Brian and I fall in love and play music together, I realized our love still is a drug. Handsome Brian, humble, talented, and magnificent on stage. Hopeful me, so gentled down by getting sober. The dew on the blooms of our unburdened hearts was slick.
My wrists burned with carpal tunnel for three long minutes as I held my iPhone in front of the TV monitor display. That old DVD of Austin Mello playing our first gig on Valentine’s Day could not be captured quicker. They burned not from 25 years of bass playing but 25 years of mousing. Yet I was reminded I had taken my marching orders to heart - that Roxy Music inspired me to rock weirdly, but not too hard.
Love is, love is knowing there’ll be a nap after weekend sex.
Love is, love is when Brian picks me up from work, unprompted on a day when I’ve taken the bus so we can get our evening together started sooner.
Love is, love is sitting down at the concert last night after four or five songs in a row by Roxy Music because my knee hurt, then seeing Ajax and Jenn dancing in the empty row of seats above stage left.
Love is, love is standing back up and dancing the last handful of songs, one foot on the metal ramp that covered the soundboard’s electrical cords and the other foot nudged against Brian’s.
