Edie Brickell and New Bohemians

Edie Brickell and New Bohemians - What I Am

So two years ago or so I happened to find out that Edie was playing at the Fox Theatre in Boulder during the 3 weeks that my restaurant in Aspen was going to be closed. Boulder was about 3.5 hours from my home in Aspen, but it was a very mountainous 3.5 hours through Glenwood Canyon, over Veil Pass, etc. etc. As luck would have it, a bad storm blew through that weekend and I was unable to make the show. And I was bummed, to say the least. As a friend put it, Edie Brickell is an old friend.

Edie Brickell is an old, dear friend. A long time ago, friends and neighbors, a TV station called MTV used to plays these things called music videos. The gist was that groups would make videos of the songs on their new albums. It was all the rage. And back then people would watch this station- MTV- for long periods of time. I myself would watch only MTV, and maybe the occasional You Can't Do That On Television on Nickalodian.

Anywho, I would watch MTV all the time. Back then, that was how people listened to music. Yes, you had your albums and cassette tapes were at their peak. CDs were just making their break, but the CD players were still wicked expensive and car CD players were unheard of. So we watched MTV. Pick your genre, they had you covered. Yo MTV Raps, Head Bangers Ball, 120 Minutes (I think that's what the alternative show was called). And we'd watch and groove and find new bands. And sure enough, that's how I found Edie Brickell. That's how we all found her back then.

I remember my mom and I were going on a trip to Virginia to visit and interview at 3 boarding schools: VES, Woodbury and Episcopal. On the way up we stopped at my favorite record store: School Kids Records on Franklin Street (RIP). I had just heard this amazing song a day or two before and I wanted to get the tape. So there I was in Chapel Hill NC buying Edie Brickell and the New Bohemian's "Shooting Rubberbands At The Stars." My mom and I listened to the tape as we drove through the beautiful rolling hills of western Virginia on our way to Lynchburg and then Orange, Virginia.

To this day, every time I hear the CD (and I still listen to it 20 years later), I think of that trip to visit boarding schools. My mom has the same memories. "Circle" also sticks out in my memory with my friends during our wild middle school days...

Edie Brickell, my dear, old friend..................

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