I don’t care what you say… I can’t stop listening to Ashlee Simpson’s Autobiography. Much like the Dukes of Hazzard movie, it knows exactly what it is, and doesn’t try to be anything else.

Whiskeytown might be reforming. So what? Whiskeytown was known as much for destroying stages as releasing albums, so why should rumors of a possible reunion register on the musical radar, especially in the wake of the reunions of so many other bands — Mission of Burma, Slint, Dinosaur, Jr.? Somewhere between Jeff Tweedy “inventing country rock” and Ryan Adams’ solo debut “Heartbreaker” sits Whiskeytown — Uncle Tupelo’s flash-in-the-pan snot-nosed little brother. It shouldn’t be that five years and three albums should mean so much to so many people.

But it does…

I don’t remember much of 1999. The previous year had ended very badly for me with the death of a friend. It was one more shock than I could take, so I guess my brain sort of shut off. At the time, I didn’t recognize the forgetfulness — I kept a job, paid rent, played in a band, and had a girlfriend — but it has only been in the subsuquent years, after reading birthday cards, letters, and old emails that I recognize just how much happened that year, and just how much of it I cannot remember. What follows is drawn from those emails and letters, and the reverberations of one amazing event.

One thing I do remember is the time I spent sitting behind a drum set in the back room of my house on Lorimer Road in Davidson, helping my friend Cameron finish his demo. He wanted to move to Austin, the country-rock capital of the universe, and get famous. I needed something to do.

The house on Lorimer Road was an old fraternity house with huge common areas, wrap-around floor-to-ceiling windows and a patio that comfortably sit 25. (If anyone reading this has pictures of the old place, I’d love to see them.) Built into the exterior wall of the kitchen was a huge commercial-sized exhaust fan, designed to suck the air from the room in the event of a grease fire, activated by a tiny switch right above the comically underpowered electric stove. Flipping the switch would cause the fan to roar to life, darken the rest of the house and raise the noise level in the house by several decibals. It sounded like a rocket launching into space and so we christened the house “The Lauchpad”.

In the fall of 1999, I was introduced to Cam over beers at the Davidson Depot through a friend who knew I played drums. I’d seen him around campus, and because Davidson was so small, we had some mutual friends, but we had never been introduced. Cam was looking for a drummer and place to practice, so we convinced a mutual friend Christian to play bass and moved all of the equipment into the back room of the house, set up shop and got ready to record Cam’s demo.

Cam wanted to call our little project AM, after the first Wilco album, and I wanted something a little longer, so chose AM-80. At the time, all of the bands on the radio had numbers in the band name; Seven Mary Three, Matchbox 20, Marvelous 3. We chose 80 because it looked really cool in a font that Cam had picked out (Lucida Typewriter).

I’d not played drums in years, so to shake off the rust and immerse myself properly in the genre, I sat down with Whiskeytown’s Faithless Street album and practiced until I could play the entire album front to back. For an encore, I moved on to Stranger’s Almanac, Son Volt’s Trace, Uncle Tupelo, Old 97’s, The Backsliders, and Six String Drag. By that time, we had worked out the different song parts for the demo, and got ready to set aside some time to record.

And so it went. The week before New Year’s Eve 1999, Cam told me that he’d read in the newspaper that Whiskeytown was playing the the Cat’s Cradle in Chapel Hill, ringing in the New Year by playing their two albums, Stranger’s Almanac before the New Year and Faithless Street right after. Yes, we went.

I don’t remember most of the first set, but towards the end, right before midnight, Ryan Adams introduced the last song of the set, then got ready for the toast. We all drank the drink — Cam and I both kissed the girl standing in front of us — and as Whiskeytown broke into the first track from Stranger’s Almanac the flood gates opened in my head and the entire year’s worth of memories, everything I experienced but not remembered during 1999, rushed into my head. My knees buckled under force of it all and I sat on the floor of the Cat’s Cradle, breathing deeply, ringing in the New Year, listening to Whiskeytown.

In the years since, most of those bands I listened to have disbanded and Ryan Adams went from alt-country poster boy to loud-mouthed debutante.

For my part I’ve tracked down a bootleg of that New Years Eve show so I can remember what I’ve forgotten and made peace with the year I lost.

It looks like Whiskeytown might be re-forming for an album and a tour. Please let it be true.

http://www.indyweek.com/durham/2005-06-15/porch.html

Yesterday was my 29th birthday, traditionally a time of reflection and recollection. Fortunately, I have long since learned that in times of great personal reflection, I tend to reflect on the worst, focusing only on my shortcomings and never on my triumphs; I turn mauldin, melancholy, and some would say become a big pain in the ass. As a result, I have taken to avoiding my birthday entirely, devising every scheme to make it pass as quickly — and with as little fanfare — as possible. And so, yesterday, to the multiplex.

A quick sidenote to my parents and friends who knew was day it was and wished me well and sent presents. The best one was a cooking class from Kym; thanks to Kym I will spent next Saturday at Sur La Table learning all about the fine art of making homemade pizza. Thank you all. You are counted among my triumphs.

Anyway, after a spirited morning of laying about, Kym and I took in the afternoon showing of The Dukes of Hazzard movie. My review — three stars. It was totally unapologetic about being dumb, fast and loud; exactly what I needed to get past the birthday blues. The plot — Bo and Luke have to stop Boss Hog from strip-mining Hazzard and save the Duke farm, all while winning the local road rally and keeping Daisy’s top on. SPOILER ALERT — they succeed at all three.

Many people have criticized the movie for being dirty, foul-mouthed, low-brow, and for appealing to the lowest common denominator. Guilty as charged. But what do you expect from a late summer remake whose two most popular characters are a hotrod and a girl’s ass? I had no problem with the foul mouths and shaking asses, except when it came to Uncle Jesse.

I’m not a moralizer, but I’d always imagined Uncle Jesse as the quiet rock of the family; a reformed moonshiner who had settled down and taken on the huge responsibility of the raising his niece and nephews. Willie Nelson plays Jesse as a dirty-old man. That was a huge disappointment.

In any case , the rest of the day passed without much fanfare. I played some video games, read some of the Baroque Cycle, and before I knew it, it was time for bed. Another birthday successfully avoided.

Next year I will hit the Dirty Thirty. Let’s hope there is an A-Team movie