R.I.P. Aaron Baker

I got into music at the same age as any other kid, but I got into playing music because of one guy: Aaron Baker.

Dude use to throw punk/thrash/hardcore shows at a local VFW hall.  This is pre-Nirvana.  This is just a dude doing it in the middle of bumfuck Western Mass.  This was not a typical stop from the pages of a well mapped DIY tour zine.  He would just find awesome bands and convince them to come to the middle of nowhere and play for very little other than a packed room of enthusiastic kids trying to find their way through rebellion.

Metallica, Minor Threat, Primus…this was a time when the reference points were few and far between.  Kids would show up knowing what they liked, but they’d leave having seen something new.  It could send you deeper into music, and for some, deeper into the meaning and power of music.

He had Nation of Ulysses, Shelter, Carry Nation, Cordelia’s Dad…a slew of bands that were so fucking good at what they did.  And this one dude, dressed eternally in black was grandfathering it into our area.  Patient zero for underground music.

He had a friend named Peter Baldwin that went to the same private highschool I did.  Peter was scheduled to play one of these VFW shows and asked if I wanted to sing for his band.  This was like Excalibur coming out of the lake.  I mean just the idea of getting in front of all those people and rocking out was awesome.  We covered Steppenwolf and The Cult.  I think early on in the rehearsal Peter realized I couldn’t sing.  So he encouraged the blue hair, wetsuit, stuffed crotch and polyester blazer look I adopted for the show.  It ended up being stupid and fun.  And I met some people who’d become friends for life, like Soren Mason Temple.

This world was just so cool.  Everyone would go to the Whately Diner afterwards and eat burgers and listen to music until midnight.  It was as close to being in a Guns N’ Roses video that a teenage kid from Vermont could be.

It was heaven.

Aaron decided to form his own band around this time and for some reason he thought it would be a good idea to ask me–a kid who obviously couldn’t sing–to audition.  I remember the first time I got a ride down to Greenfield (I don’t remember if my Dad drove me or if Aaron picked me up in his yellow Saab) there was this huge nervousness.  I mean a real band practice—not in the high school auditorium after dinner, before curfew, but in like the middle of the day?  Jesus.  We practiced in Aaron’s living room at his stepfather’s (?) house.  I can’t remember all the players from that session…maybe Peter Baldwin on drums?  Ray Neads on guitar? Or was it Bill Collins? Rob Keller? Aaron on bass?  That first session is hard to remember.  I think I just aped Eddie Veder the whole time and hoped they wouldn’t notice.

Pretty sure we roughed out the song “Love, American Style”  in that session.

The song was named after some 70′s TV show.  I had never heard of the show, but the words looked great together on the novelization Aaron’s parents had. So we stole it.

Aaron was probably the most culturally savvy person I’d ever met.

If this story took place 15 years later, he most certainly would have run a popular blog.  The dude just recognized interesting things; novels, music, TV shows, bands.  And when he found something he liked, he got into it deep, collecting every single album, every published book or every TV show or movie an actor/actress he was fond of appeared in.  This wasn’t done in a fanboy fashion.  I don’t think he would have been the type of guy to hover around comic-con waiting to collect autographs.  Nor do I think he would have held on to any particular “thing” forever, out of a sense of nostalgia.  His taste was always evolving.

I believe his hunger for the things he liked was driven by a sincere curiosity from trying to understand it.  To emerse himself in it, or to verse himself in it to the point where he could understand why it was so great.  He studied well.

His love of Twin Peaks certainly informed his perception of cool.  He was the Agent Cooper of rock and roll.  A comparison he cultivated.

He had this behemoth rear projection TV set, and I remember after one practice he convinced me to stay and watch that week’s episode of The X-Files that he had taped.  This was the first season. Before it was a phenomenon of course. I think episode 3?  It creeped me the fuck out.  Loved it.  Not sure where I slept that night.  This was in an apartment he had so this memory jumps forward in time a bit.

Aaron would throw these yearly festivals call “The Fest”?  I forget exactly what the name was but he’d make these awesome flyers using this clean, crisp illustrated style…he did one of Sherilyn Fenn from Twin Peaks — which he later painted on his  black leather jacket.

Sherilyn Fenn: Eternal Crush Object

He was just an insanely talented guy.  Talented with impeccable taste.  He was a huge fan of The Flaming Lips in 1997.  Think about that!!!!  Five years before “Do You Realize?” made the band famous.  This is before the internet!  How did he find that picture of Sherilyn before the internet?  Because as soon as he saw it he said to himself “That’s cool.” and saved the picture.  Amazing.

The fest that year was to be my first official show with the band he named “meisterfricht.”  He had wanted to call the band “Master of Fear” in German but this was the closest translation he could get.  We weren’t sure how reliable the translation was, so when people would ask what the name meant we’d make up a new answer every time. Adding the period after the name was my big contribution.

meisterfricht. 1st show. Photo by Peter Field Peck?

Anyway this year’s festival was held in some alley and it was raining. During the previous year more and more kids from Vermont had been making the trek down to Greenfield for the shows Aaron was putting together.  He was now a tri-state enterprise.  There was a gorgeous girl from New Hampshire there.  Hair done like Cruella de Vil and wicked eyes to match.  A fucking heart-stopping thing of beauty.  I’m not sure if Aaron confessed his love that night or not, but it was only a matter of time before I fucked him over.

My highschool sweetheart was crushing on this other girl from Vermont and right when meisterfricht. was setting up to take the stage, I remember these girls and I ended up beneath a train trestle, living out some sort of Jane’s Addiction role-playing fantasy (speaking for myself–the girls were probably having a far more grounded and natural experience, without the delusions).  After 20 blissful minutes we finally we made our way back to the alley/stage.  The feedback had grown steadily louder and when I took the stage, Aaron rang out the first real note of Love, American Style and created a rock moment so fucking pure and raw that we spent the next 5 or so years chasing it.

I feel it is only fair at this point to mention that Aaron Baker was a fucking grammer and punctuation Nazi.  Am fairly sure he’d punch me in the face for the errors found within this eulogy.

So the first show went great.  But people quit the band.  Other people joined.  Fraser Stowe, Ian St. Laurent, Peter Baldwin, Django Hulphers came and went.  Working with Aaron was very difficult.  He could be a prick.  And for those friends of his that had grown up with him, I suspect they quickly realized that life was too short and they went on to focus on their own bands.  That was never an option for me.  I was like that baby hippo orphaned by the tsunami and he was the old tortoise who took me in.

Travis and Aaron: The early years

So Aaron suggested that I learn how to play guitar and we wouldn’t need anyone else. This faith was exhilarating. Like being picked by a Greek god for some incredible heroic quest.  I grew my hair out and dyed it black like his. We became best friends of sorts.  Friends like Maverick and Iceman.  Like Mozart and Salieri.  Except without that level of talent.  Basically two guys who pushed and pulled each other until many years later one pushed the other on stage into a stack of amps and the friendship was over.

But I’m jumping ahead again.

Aaron was an adventure.  Everything you wanted to be, you could be.  You were doing the things that made you feel alive.  Music, painting, photography, sex, travel.  He was a magnet for creative people because he was so creative.  And as a hub, this network of artists developed around him.  This wide range of people with different tastes, backgrounds and styles came into his orbit and became friends.  Friendships that carry on to this day and continue to expand.  Nathan Beauregard (aka Nathan Boulevard), Rebbeca, Soren, Martha Marin, Miranda Brown, Mark Alan Miller, Mark Schwaber, Rob Connelly and on and on. Countless people.

I’ve seen other people say it and I completely agree:  Aaron changed our lives forever.

The erosion of my friendship with him probably started early on. One rivet popping loose in a ship’s hull. It was the last Christmas (or was it birthday?) party he held at his parent’s house.  It was epic.  Great music, and very similar to what every party scene in a movie tries to capture but never does.  You can’t rehearse electricity.  And this party was electric. Like downed powerlines on a rainy night. At some point the heart-stopper with the long black hair and I found our way upstairs and bit, kissed and clawed our way through the best bathroom sex a couple could have.  Only interrupted by the host of the party, for one brief moment, before the door was closed again.

What can you do?  This is fucking life.  And the shit we spent our lives reading, and listening to, and watching and romanticizing was actually happening to us.  It was a wave that we were surfing.  And this time the wave crashed down hard and things were never really the same.

What do you say at that age?  Are you even aware of the consequences of your actions?  Or is this a question only a self-entitled asshole would ask?  All I know is there was no montage leading up to a quiet moment of forgiveness between us.

The following few years were tense.  A cold marriage.  Early on we were blessed to have Ben Karetnick join the band as drummer.  It wasn’t just his phenomenal drumming ability that kept things progressing, but he had this peaceful nature that balanced ADB and I out.  This story would have ended far earlier without him.

meisterfricht. by Peter Field Peck

We would still hang out.  I drove with Aaron down to Philly one night just for cheesesteaks.  He drove us to NY to see bands, he occasionally came to our parties.  There were holidays and spring breaks. Aaron didn’t drink though.  As I started college so did the appetite for destruction.  Aaron shared a book with me and explained “The main character is a cross between you and me. He looks and thinks like me, but drinks, drugs and has sex like you.”  Again it was exhilarating.  We were living a movie.  I’m going to make a miniseries out of that book one day.  Dedicated to Aaron.  One last toast to his taste.  His discovery.  One last novelty that I was lucky enough to be hipped to by him.

So Aaron would come to events, but excuse himself from being a part of it.  There was an awkwardness to our friendship.  I justified it by thinking that the turmoil made for great art…and we were a band of limited technical ability so that sense of danger, of chaos and tension, was a necessary component to our future success.  Without it, what would we have to offer?  A few limited chord progressions, a great image and Ben’s van.   Not enough to sustain the energy captured in the first show.

Ben Karetnick. Photo by Peter Field Peck

Aaron hated people.  But Aaron fell in love like nobody else.  Hard.  Like an asteroid hitting the moon. His love caused a crater.  It could be difficult to deal with. It was uncomfortable.

The advances and rejections and the hope and reality provided musical inspiration,  but made for miserable lives.  As I compulsively picked away at the good things in my life, he was coveting and alienating in his.  Same interstate.  Different directions.  We were getting further apart.

\”Bathtub\” by meisterfricht.

The tone of the band, the dropped tuning, the pace, the weird time signatures…that was all Aaron.  I wanted to make beautiful music but wasn’t capable of it.  He dictated what was allowed and what wasn’t and thankfully sanded much of the earnestness off of my contributions.  His aesthetic probably bought us more fans than any single song.  To this day the songs he wrote are the most challenging and interesting to revisit.

\”Snow\” by meisterfricht.

It was hard to keep track of what was happening in his life.  Once Ben went to college it was three guys in three different states.  I know there was time spent together.  Shows on the road. Lots of driving in winter.  A bomb threat phoned in to a local music festival for not booking us.  Sporadic moments of recording, or fights or hearing about a new love.  Or nodding sympathetically to the same story about an old love.  We ground it out though.  Like the sailors on Das Boot.  To the very end.

The last show I played with Aaron ended as gloriously as it all began.

This time at the Baystate hotel in Northampton, MA.  I forget what the fight was about this time.  But I remember getting drunk.  And I remember the girl that I was in love with. A feeling thicker than concrete. The same girl from the Fest, from the alley, just with a different haircut.  And I remember being shoved into my amps.  At least I believe the shove happened that night. And I remember making the conscious decision that this part of our lives was over.  And during the last song my guitar was shattered into a million pieces, like a photo of your ex, and wood and wire  and drops of blood were flying around the room just like the out of key singing and out of tune notes were doing shortly before.

And that was it.

Travis T Stevens. by Peter Field Peck.

The band was done.

I moved to Los Angeles soon after.

I’m not sure if I’d always wanted to make movies or if this was another ambition that Aaron had awoken.   He was making videos and segments on the local Greenfield Community Television station long before I had a camera.  His stuff was always heavy on repitition.  And paced like a glacier.

A few years into LA and a sense of confidence was growing.   And a sense of opportunity.  Aaron and I had stayed in touch…I’m not sure how…maybe via email although this feels long before email.   He knew I was working for a production company and he sent a script he’d written.  I liked it.  It was clever and actually moved.  It had a beginning, middle and  a good end.  The symbolism was left to the font type.  I liked it.  Suggested he come visit and stay with us as he tried to set it up.

The trip ended poorly.  The opportunities we thought the script would create didn’t materialize.  And pretty quickly he’d opened all the doors the few friends here could provide and didn’t care for what he saw inside.  He was a guy in a strange city sleeping on a couch with no idea what to do next.  So he played videogames until he decided it was time to head home.  And that was the last time I saw him.

Over the years I heard updates.  About his successes and setbacks.  It was exciting to hear when he was doing well.  And sadly familiar when he wasn’t. There was an invitation for the band to play at Nathan and Rebecca’s wedding…an opportunity that I wasn’t equipped financially or mentally to deal with.  But the spark this offer ignited was kept alive, in the very back of my brain.  A dream that one day, the circumstances would be right for all of our paths to cross again.

You put these memories in boxes. And occasionally dig through them.  But with the launch of every new social media site, or friend uploading a scanned photo or transcoded video, these memories become more real.  So even though Aaron and I hadn’t spoken in many many years, his world has felt closer than ever.

And I regret that we’ll never be able to get closer than that.

You are, and always will be, deeply missed Aaron.

\”Gazelle\” by meisterfricht.

Aaron and I in the studio (Slaughter House 1994?) by Peter Field Peck

“You were right Peter, the ending is all wrong…”  -White Hunter, Black Heart