This morning I woke up from a dream involving Royal Crescent Mob, a bunch of old photos that hadn’t stayed in the fixer long enough and were blotchily faded, and a haircut I’ve never had (chin length with bangs).
The haircut was unfortunate and the photos were an entirely typical result of our slapdash approach to the darkroom, but Royal Crescent Mob sent me down a rabbit hole to my 16-year-old self. “An American four-piece punk funk/funk rock band from Columbus, Ohio,” Royal Crescent Mob was a band I adored 30 years ago. I lived in Indiana and was a RHCP superfan (yes, I was Jason Mendoza and I am absolutely going to The Bad Place); there was no chance I was not going to be into RCM. I had a t-shirt that I wore constantly and a signed promo photo given to me somewhat as a joke that I still treasured. (Sidebar: At least once a month now I regret getting rid of my collection of high school t-shirts. Shocking the neighbors with the Mother’s Milk album cover is very much my 2020 mood.)
What else did I learn from Wikipedia? That one of the members of R.C. Mob was a touring manager for the Goo Goo Dolls, possibly at the same time that my oldest friend was their merch guy. That was last fall when my back had enough functionality for one event and that event was a trip to North Carolina for my brother’s wedding, not an overnight trip to Richmond to hang out for a night selling stickers for a 90s alternapop band, as much as I absolutely would have loved that.
Thank you, little brother, for the holiday gift card that you probably thought I’d spend on some antiracist literature or a biography of an obscure feminist artist. I bought a CD of ridiculous songs from my youth!