"Please understand. We don't want no trouble. We just want the right to be different. That's all."

With that line, I fell in love with a band.

It was like hearing something for the first time, each time I'd hear it. The lyrics were laced with such a dark, dry wit. The music seemed to actually make pop music (something that, at the time, I abhorred) seem so cool and so damn interesting. The songs seemed to be about people that I knew, but written in a way and spoken in an accent that seemed so unlike them. It was chaotic, but orderly... it was

I hate to gush, but this band really did turn me on to an entire world of music that I'd never even realized was there. British Music, I always assumed, was just like American Music (I guess that's the arrogance of the USA). It had never occurred to me that there were bands, HUGE across the pond, that we never heard a peep of in the states. These guys would pop up on 120 Minutes or appear on WRFL, but other than that they were a mystery. Of course I knew about bands like Oasis and The Verve, but never realized the amount of success they were having overseas... and I assumed that the masses worldwide ignored The Smiths.

Luckily, David Rogers took notice. It was David that introduced me to the BritPop scene, and thus the band that would capture my imagination and cause me to threaten many a trip to the Glastonbury or Leeds/Reading Festival in England. Pulp was in my head, and endlessly in my stereo.



Of course, it wasn't just me. Everyone seemed to find something to love in this band. When people heard the sounds coming from the speakers they seemed to be completely enraptured by the songs. From music snobs to top forty chicks, it seemed that everyone around me was falling in love with Pulp. You could attend a party at the "Rock & Roll House" in Stanton and hear a chorus of "Common People" belted out by the same drunks that just stumbled through an Alabama or David Allen Coe song. I have listened to Pulp during demolition derbies, vodka drinking contests, and even in the loving arms of a lady or two.

Of course, no mention of Pulp is complete without a mention of the band's enigmatic lead singer, Jarvis Cocker


Jarvis seemed to have a way of turning a phrase in just such a way to make it riotously funny or particularly heartbreaking. He had the stage presence of a 70's rock god with the shy geekiness of that guy that sat behind you in your college calculus class. It was as if he performed for an audience in a vacuum. It was nearly impossible to avert your eyes, and if you did manage to accomplish that feat it was short lived... soon your eyes were right back on him.

For my 21st birthday my cousin gave me a plane ticket. Actually, it was just a card with permission to use her frequent flyer miles to fly anywhere in the country that I chose. It seemed obvious... hold the ticket, wait for Pulp to come to the states and fly to whatever far away destination they played (god knows they weren't coming to Lexington). So, for months I sat, waiting to find out where they'd be and what exotic town I'd get to visit. I imagined bumping into Jarvis after the show and explaining to him that I'd flown from Kentucky to see them, and then I imagined he'd make some snappy comment and I'd have absolutely no response. Unfortunately, Pulp broke up before they could make it back to the USA. Shortly thereafter so did my cousin and her husband. He won the frequent flyer miles in the divorce; I lost my chance to head out west for the first time.

It's this particular band that takes me back to a time in my life that I can genuinely say I truly enjoyed. It reminds me of a time when everyone lived within a ten minute drive of each other, and we all just took it for granted. It makes me think back to friends that I've had and friends I've lost. Since those days some of them have passed away, some moved across the country, some I've just fallen out with (often my own damn fault). But I can always put in "Different Class" or "This is Hardcore" and remember a time when we were all together. I can sit back, listen to "Disco 2000" and remember belting it out in Chad's old, black pickup truck. I can remember singing "Like A Friend" with Aaron on the streets of Nashville after a particularly interesting cab ride. I can think back to a time when Daxon and I serenaded an audience of intoxicated teenage girls with a particularly rousing version of "Common People."

I guess it's not the band that made life so great back then, but the people. Either way, it's nice to have something meaningful that a man can look back on.

Thanks Jarvis.