A lot of medical visits. Cindytalk. The Sundays. T'Pau. if you needed to catch someone up on the Office Space/Superman 3 joke, where would you start? A bonkers kids book about Notch.
Rick, I haven't talked to anyone in DECADES about the time I saw Cindytalk in Minneapolis with you at First Ave in 1996. That show broke my brain! It was part of your "Cindytalk Duz America: A Rick Webb Joint" tour. Actually, the tour was almost certainly named differently, but this just illustrates that none of my memories of the show can be trusted. Case in point: all these years I believed their singer, that man in the dress with the ethereal voice, was named Gordon and I just now searched them on Wikipedia only to discover not a single Gordon has ever graced their lineup.
Here's what I remember: Val telling me you had organized a tour for a band I had never heard of, somehow a plan was hatched to meet at First Ave, and then hop in the band van to get a ride back to campus after the show. So I said "Yolo!", got on Google to research the band and downloaded a few mp3 to hear what Cindytalk sounded like. FALSE! To any millennial or younger readers of this comment: none of those things existed yet! We didn't say Yolo, we had a primitive thing called "Netscape" a browser that was kind of like using the card catalog system at a library, and we listened to music mostly on shiny discs called 'CDs' that made quite a light show when you put them in a microwave. So, I showed up at the club still knowing nothing about Cindytalk, but fully prepared to spend an enjoyable evening catching up and hanging out with Fairbanks Legend Rick Webb and a real live actual rock band.
However, from your first hurried "Hey dude", it was clear you had about 3 gazillion other things on your mind, probably related to being a tour manager. The rest is a blur. The show was intense, noisy, at times beautiful, the singer "Gordon" was incredible, but I had no conceptual box to put it in. Later in the van hanging out with the exact same people that I had seen on stage further strained my operating system. I was having a real "Rock Stars are People Too?!" kind of a moment, coupled with trying to comprehend how it is possible for someone to FIRST know a band on a personal level and THEN just bring them on a tour of your country. My brain broke and I immediately forgot how to talk. Band members tried to engage me. "Gordon" asked me how I liked the show. I forget if words or just sounds came out of my dumb stupid mouth, but whatever it was it was totally inadequate. At best the band thought that taking mute college kids out to shows was just some nice charity work that you liked to engage in from time to time, and at worst they thought that I didn't like the show. It haunts me to this day that it's probably the second.
Or hopefully they saw the situation for what it was: a small-town Alaskan hick was having an experience that was TOO BIG and would take some time to process. Did I manage some words as I got out of the van back on Grand Ave in St. Paul? I don't know but I really hope that I managed to say 'thank you'. Just in case I say to you now Rick: thank you for an amazing experience. The details are blurry, but the felt-sense memories are still vivid to me all these years later. And as a small bonus I got an imaginary friend out of the deal that I can talk to anytime things get to be too much. He's a kind man in a dress with the voice of an angel. His name is Gordon.
Best GMHHAY comment ever! Your memory is very in line with mine! 1) Gordon has transitioned, Gordon is Cindy now, so that is why it's not in the Wikipedia page, 2) God, I WAS overwhelmed and stressed! Really took too much on with that tour turned out it's a lot harder than I imagined, 3) it WAS mind blowing! And you were perfectly civil and polite as always! Hope you are well!
Rick, I haven't talked to anyone in DECADES about the time I saw Cindytalk in Minneapolis with you at First Ave in 1996. That show broke my brain! It was part of your "Cindytalk Duz America: A Rick Webb Joint" tour. Actually, the tour was almost certainly named differently, but this just illustrates that none of my memories of the show can be trusted. Case in point: all these years I believed their singer, that man in the dress with the ethereal voice, was named Gordon and I just now searched them on Wikipedia only to discover not a single Gordon has ever graced their lineup.
Here's what I remember: Val telling me you had organized a tour for a band I had never heard of, somehow a plan was hatched to meet at First Ave, and then hop in the band van to get a ride back to campus after the show. So I said "Yolo!", got on Google to research the band and downloaded a few mp3 to hear what Cindytalk sounded like. FALSE! To any millennial or younger readers of this comment: none of those things existed yet! We didn't say Yolo, we had a primitive thing called "Netscape" a browser that was kind of like using the card catalog system at a library, and we listened to music mostly on shiny discs called 'CDs' that made quite a light show when you put them in a microwave. So, I showed up at the club still knowing nothing about Cindytalk, but fully prepared to spend an enjoyable evening catching up and hanging out with Fairbanks Legend Rick Webb and a real live actual rock band.
However, from your first hurried "Hey dude", it was clear you had about 3 gazillion other things on your mind, probably related to being a tour manager. The rest is a blur. The show was intense, noisy, at times beautiful, the singer "Gordon" was incredible, but I had no conceptual box to put it in. Later in the van hanging out with the exact same people that I had seen on stage further strained my operating system. I was having a real "Rock Stars are People Too?!" kind of a moment, coupled with trying to comprehend how it is possible for someone to FIRST know a band on a personal level and THEN just bring them on a tour of your country. My brain broke and I immediately forgot how to talk. Band members tried to engage me. "Gordon" asked me how I liked the show. I forget if words or just sounds came out of my dumb stupid mouth, but whatever it was it was totally inadequate. At best the band thought that taking mute college kids out to shows was just some nice charity work that you liked to engage in from time to time, and at worst they thought that I didn't like the show. It haunts me to this day that it's probably the second.
Or hopefully they saw the situation for what it was: a small-town Alaskan hick was having an experience that was TOO BIG and would take some time to process. Did I manage some words as I got out of the van back on Grand Ave in St. Paul? I don't know but I really hope that I managed to say 'thank you'. Just in case I say to you now Rick: thank you for an amazing experience. The details are blurry, but the felt-sense memories are still vivid to me all these years later. And as a small bonus I got an imaginary friend out of the deal that I can talk to anytime things get to be too much. He's a kind man in a dress with the voice of an angel. His name is Gordon.
Best GMHHAY comment ever! Your memory is very in line with mine! 1) Gordon has transitioned, Gordon is Cindy now, so that is why it's not in the Wikipedia page, 2) God, I WAS overwhelmed and stressed! Really took too much on with that tour turned out it's a lot harder than I imagined, 3) it WAS mind blowing! And you were perfectly civil and polite as always! Hope you are well!
Shoutout to T’pau and Heart and Soul! Awesome underrated 80s song.