A text from my old pal and bandmate Patrick Weklar brought
me the news. Sarge Blotto was gone. It hit me hard. Despite the hour I poured a scotch and drank
to memories. So many friends and
colleagues have posted their remembrances online. I’ve loved seeing all of them. A prismatic view of a great person. Like when Vito Acconci died I felt strangely
reluctant to say much. As if anything
would seem less than it should be—and that is, of course, true. But like Acconci I realize that we all hold pieces
of a greater whole and part of being a community is sharing those pieces.
In the early 80s, I was a suburban music kid outside Albany
so-- of course-- I knew who Blotto was.
But even more, Mitch Barron and I scoured the local music writing and we
commiserated most over Sarge Blotto’s
Rockin-Roll Call- which provided us little glimpses of the then-burgeoning
Albany music scene. He was a local hero,
Sarge.
In college I worked for Blotto- road crew and then road managing. What a set of humans… welcoming, forgiving, mentoring, uproariously
funny. I was always stage left- on Sarge’s side of the stage - we had the crazy changes to affect-- Goodbye
Mr Bond, Metal Head. And glances to exchange when some keyboard
part… strayed from the familiar.
We drank at QE2-- many nights in the late 80s laughing about
some musical story. Ranging over
topics-- the Cabaret Voltaire, Jandek, performance art, critical theory.
On our first date, Tara and I ran into him at a Bob Mould
show. She couldn’t figure out why I had
so casually approached Sarge Blotto- realizing only later that we actually knew
one another. She had spent her teen
years in NJ belting Lifeguard while,
in fact, a lifeguard.
I didn’t know him best, of course. We didn’t play music together, but Sarge was
a constant over the course of decades-- shows and openings and run-ins. Were any of those run-ins ever less than wonderful? Less than confirmational? Did I ever leave a meeting with Sarge not
smiling?
He was always Sarge
to me. 34 years after meeting him- still
Sarge. It’s difficult to imagine that I won’t
run into him and have a chat and exchange some tale. He laughed when I said I find Close to the Edge “catchy”… he had some tidbit from some show he just saw,
he laughed about some shared memory. Which
was the last run in? Things just end, unexpectedly
and incompletely.
Thanks Sarge. You
were a hero, a mentor, a model. …fabulous, fabulous, fabulous….
^
^
^