#maximsoria

[thewordofjono-blog]

About Max

I'm not sure how historically accurate some of the information here is, but, I'll give it a whirl because I'm inspired to write about a friend who's loved ones are sending him off today.

I met Max sometime around 2001 or 2002. I think I was a freshman or sophomore in high school and I was playing with a band called The Unsinkable Mr. Marden. I wasn't the band's first drummer and I wouldn't be their last either, but, for about five years while I was between the ages of 13 and 18 we developed what I would say was a really strong little scene. Our scene revolved around St. Matthews' church and another little church in Secane (which Bob Gordon could tell you the name of, but I don't remember). It was in these “venues” where Bob, Kurt, Matt and I first booked a few bands and started running our own shows in favor of trying to get all the underage kids from E.T. Richardson and Springfield High School into the occasional bar that we were playing in Philadelphia, New Jersey and Delaware. We really loved keeping the shows all-ages. It excited way more people. I remember spending long afternoons setting up the PA in the church basement and running mic cables and sound checking – which was no small feat for our band (at our largest we had 10 members).

I can't remember nearly as many of the bands that came through that place as I probably should, but the short list goes something like this: Us, Fake Bakon, 37 Slurp, Zolof the Rock n' Roll Destroyer (who may have been called something else at that point), Royal Noise Brigade, Capgun Heroes, The Emphasis, The Busdrivers, Attracted to Miss, I Voted for Kodos, Adam's Not Funny, Biocoogana, The Best Kept Secret, Case of the Mondays, Dirty Larry, Tough Guys Take Over (or whatever they were called in those days) and a few random “touring” hardcore bands that occasionally stopped by. Bob's mom would sell sodas and pretzels in the back and when the shows started to get really popular, each band would sell CDs, T-shirts, and buttons. We'd generally have between 100 and 200 kids at a show if I remember correctly. There may have been way more. It always felt like it.

Bob was always really good at finding bands in the area that ruled.  He's got a natural gift for talent management and booking and probably should be working at The Agency Group or something.  When Bob first had me check out The Emphasis, I was impressed by everything about them. They were sort of exactly the opposite of us, which is why I guess we did so many shows together. I loved the combination of Dan and George's voices and their guitar playing. They had a sort of wild, screamy, dissonant quality but annunciated so well and had such poignant lyrics.  Their guitar playing was similar - sort of sounded like two power drills operating at different speeds and timbres (in the best way possible), both responsible for accenting different parts of songs that made up great stories. They were also rhythmically one of the best bands I'd ever seen or heard in person up to that point. My favorite part about their band was Max and Johnny. The two of them locked the hell in and no matter what just sounded amazing together.

After checking out their demo and talking to Bob a lot about them, we got them to come down from Warrington for a few shows, which I don't remember very well – save for one skate punk song that we played that had this ridiculous reggae break that Max really loved and when Dime and Bob played “Outside” with The Emphasis. I do remember Dan's big cherry red Mapex drum kit that Max was playing and finding out that Max had only been playing for about a year or something at that point. I couldn't believe it, and we struck up an immediate friendship based on our love of talking about drums and technique (I remember when I gave him my favorite snare book, “Southern Special”) and our similar senses of humor. In his defense, Max was always much much funnier than I was.

Later on, we did a split with The Emphasis that I think we pressed about 500 copies of total. Johnny labored over the design of the case, and it looked great (if not a bit cliché now.. how many people have taken that photo in New Mexico or wherever that was, right?). After that and after seeing some of the older guys in our band go off to college or get focused in college, I left The Unsinkable Mr. Marden and the little Pennsylvania scene that we'd started to build. I was bummed to have lost contact with a lot of friends, and Max was definitely one of them.

At Temple, Bob remained close or at least on speaking terms with the guys from Capgun Heroes who had recruited Attracted to Miss singer Shane to be in their new project Valencia. I say project because I remember hearing some of the first Valencia tunes when they had a lot of programming based stuff. Maybe like the Postal Service or something. It was either George or Brendan that I'd be talking to on AIM and they would send me some samples of new music that they were writing. They knew that guys in our band had gotten pretty good with recording and I remember having a lot of ideas bounced off us around that time. I'm pretty sure it was Bob in those days who took Max to a Valencia show with Days Away and introduced Max to the band a few months later when whomever replaced Sean Mundy (from Capgun Heroes and later Valencia's merch guy for a bit) ended up not working out. I think I had even brought my girlfriend to a few pre-Max Valencia shows, one of which where they might have shared a drummer with Zolof of something. This is also around the time I started drinking, so my memory is not great.

A year later, following my senior year of high school, Valencia had just finished up “This Could Be A Possibility” and were doing small stuff around the area and maybe had done a tour or two. Marina (the aforementioned girlfriend) and I went to check them out at a local stage at Warped (I don't think it was Ernie Ball, but it could've been). I remember right after they finished Max jumping off the stage, ignoring some other people who by now knew his name that were yelling at him and sort of being awkward, walking right over and giving me a hug and asking how I'd been. Marina snapped a photo, which is somewhere, but I remember that being the type of person Max was. He didn't seem to want a whole lot of spotlight or weird, adoring fan type people. He knew who his friends were (even if they weren't super close ones) and wanted to make sure that he'd acknowledged them. I appreciated that about him.

I heard a lot about Valencia the following year, and even saw some footage of them at the Fuji Rock Festival in Japan – where I stayed for a majority of the summer after Freshman year of College.

The next time I ran into Max was at the Warped Tour after my Junior Year at Hofstra. My friends Bruce and Steve were with me, and the three of us were all really excited to see Motion City Soundtrack, Alkaline Trio and New Found Glory that year. I remember getting there and seeing that Valencia and Monty RI were playing the Ernie Ball Stage by the concessions during right around when we had been planning on eating lunch, so we went over to check them out between some of the other bands that we had wanted to see. Again, right after their set, Max came right over and gave me a big, sweaty hug and asked me all about my life. He was much more tired looking and much tanner than I remembered seeing him last time. This time, he asked me what I was doing and if I wanted to go out on tour with anyone yet. I told him that I was almost finished college and that after, I'd love to do a couple of tours with a band. He said that he felt like for someone like me there'd always be an opportunity, and that if I ever wanted to after school, I probably could – but that I should finish up my degree first. I felt better about what I was doing and how hard I was working knowing that a guy who was pretty much living my dream had said something supportive about what I was doing. I ended up enrolling in graduate school following college, effectively killing any chance of me heading out on the road for another two years, but if I had gotten serious about it, I would have had a resource there. That's the last time I ever saw Max.

You don't spend your life worrying that someone like Max is going to die because Max feels like a person that will live forever when you see him play music or talk to him. Occasionally when working hard behind the drums it appeared as though a thought would cross his mind and suddenly he'd sort of sigh and have this enormous smile across his face. He looked thrilled and concentrated to play music and (especially in my last interaction with him) seemed focused and as though he was really looking forward to something in his life. Maybe he knew at that point that he wasn't going to be with Valencia or music forever and that's why he said what he said about what I was doing with education. Maybe he knew that the traveling eventually wouldn't be for him and he'd want to settle down and try something else out. I'm not sure and I'm sure Shane, Brendan, George, JD and Dan know more about that than I do, but I loved the way he played and the person that he was to me.

One of the saddest parts of Max passing (among literally thousands that flood my mind) is knowing that The Emphasis will never play together again. By far my favorite band to participate in our little scene, I always hoped that some day when I was older and had a bit more money, I could rerelease their old stuff and then pay for them to record again. I was sure that this time around, someone would get it like Bob and I (and Tila Tequila) did so many years ago. I'll miss the dream of playing another great gig with Marden and having The Emphasis there.

I feel awful knowing Max left sooner than he or anyone else planned, but find solace in the music he was responsible for and my interactions with him. I loved running into him, cherished his sense of humor, envied his gifts and (later) found value in mine because of things that he'd communicated to me. I wouldn't change our occasional, happy meetings and hope that he remembered them as fondly as I do.

If there's another side, Max, I hope to see you there.