I started this memorial entry months ago and then paused, as I wasn't ready. Now as I come back, more deaths in the music world have happened since to process, and there will be entries on them, as well.
The first word I always text back when someone lets me know of yet another death is, "Fuck," (I deleted my Facebook account a couple years ago, never looked back, FB is not for me, great for many, but as a result I hear of deaths via text, often days after others already know).
This entry in memory of Vern Rumsey was composed in part from thoughts expressed in speaking at a Zoom memorial. I am forever grateful to friends and family for giving so many of us a place to grieve in this surreal time we are living in, and for the suggestion of a family member of Vern's to take our memories of Vern to a more permanent and public forum. I am fortunate to have this particular forum in which to do so.
After the Zoom memorial, I couldn't help but think of how so many all over the world have said/are saying goodbye to loved ones this way as well; remotely, on a screen, during this time of COVID. It is all we have, and a very different grieving process, but it can still also be beautiful, more than one expects (for a wake, anyway) and, at the very least, a way to release together, which we all need to find as many safe ways to do as possible. We have to be there for each other. [As of this writing, coming back to this previously started entry, though things are slowly getting better, with a president actually interested in governing, 1,000 people are still dying a day; but, I had my first dose of a vaccine a couple weeks ago] - To reverse an Unwound record title; The Light at the End of the Tunnel is [NOT] a Train.
Vern was complex, and a lot of things things to different people, though this certainly isn't to say he wasn't genuine, or that he was trying to put on some false face (unless, of course, he was playing a prank, which he enjoyed) he was just human; As a loved one put it at the wake, "Vern was a great guy...But he was also a jerk." (I want this kind of honesty at my own funeral, thank you). I was just getting to know Vern, after not being in contact for a long span of years, as a result of the normal divergent paths two lives can take over time.
He and I first came to know of each other from traveling in similar circles and having mutual friends for years in the NW music scene in the '90s, and we also knew each other from my connection to the Olympia music scene through a band I was in with roots there, The Halo Benders (a band that was also a connection to Sam Jayne/Love as Laughter, who opened a few shows for us; but this is, sadly, for a later memorial; RIP Sam).
I followed Unwound's path (a band for whom Vern played bass, of course) until they eventually broke up. I crossed paths with Justin Trosper (songwriting/vocals/guitar) and Sara Lund (drums) more than Vern during the period between the band's breakup and Vern's passing. Around 10 years after Unwound broke up, I returned to the NW after 5 years living in Boston, to Portland, Oregon, in 2008, a city Sara had also relocated to years before, where she started a family, and, cool bands like Hungry Ghost, and with Justin Trosper, like Nocturnal Habits (Justin also started a great, short-lived punk band called Survival Knife later, whom I had the pleasure of seeing). Vern was doing a project then he had done for a while called Long Hind Legs, which managed to land a song on the hit vampire TV show called Twilight.
Back in the early '90s, I was living in Seattle after moving there in 1989 with a band from Boise, Idaho called Treepeople. In 1991, I quit Treepeople due to personal differences I had within the band (for more on that, check out the Treepeople entries) and by the next year, I was playing bass in a trippy goth/folk/punk band in Seattle called Violent Green (eventually so named, after 6 months under the name Dirty Hand Dance).
Seattle producer Steve Fisk, who had produced Treepeople and a Violent Green 7 inch and album (plus later records, and, played in The Halo Benders) told me about a band he had been recording from Tumwater, Washington (near Olympia) called Unwound. At the time, I believe Steve had just finished work on the Unwound record 'Fake Train' and he gave me a copy when it came out; I was floored. I will write more of Unwound in the regular course of this blog, but suffice it to say that I had played punk rock music for a decade by the time I heard Unwound, and I had never heard anything quite like them, it was influenced by the same punk stuff I grew up listening to, but on Fake Train, you could hear hints of something...different. There was even some New Wave and a dash of Beatles in the calm parts, throw in Can, Glenn Branca, Black Flag, Sonic Youth, and a whole list of other influences, post New Plastic Ideas (1994) there are even hints of bands like early Siouxsie and the Banshees, and others, that then unfolded over the course of the band as the music matured and stretched out, but they shaped it all into something new and completely their own, using influences gracefully (in full disclosure, some listed are influences band members have told me of, some are from my own ear hearing things) but they were never imitating.
Through all the great songwriting, singing, guitar-work and stellar drumming, Vern's bass cuts through like a groaning, driving machine, deep in the earth, rising to the surface, then churning into the soil like a colossal Sandworm from the Dune books - sometimes it doesn't even sound like a bass, but more like a distorted keyboard, or some agonized beast, or just a giant texture for singer/songwriter/guitarist Justin Trosper to lay over with whatever he wanted to (at the wake, Fisk relayed a tale of the birth of this sound; during a mix, Vern leaned over the soundboard and cranked up levels until it was this particular grinding sound). And by the time Sara Lund was on drums, the legendary lineup was locked in. Quite frankly, to me, this was one of the finest rhythm sections to ever grace a set of drums and bass and rig. If you know me, you know I do not say such things lightly (and yes; Fanboy Alert).
Fast forward to the late '90s, 1997 to be exact, when I was playing bass, as mentioned, in Violent Green, plus a couple other bands on bass and drums; The also aforementioned Halo Benders (bass/drums) and a band called Faintly Macabre (drums), bands that are/will be covered here in this blog. Violent Green embarked on our first and only coast to coast tour (having previously only done scant West Coast/Northwest touring, and, incidentally, the only ever tour I was part of that made it to the East Coast) which had been booked by a rookie booker, her first ever tour, which was pretty terrible in terms of shows/attendance, as could be expected (to be fair, a show booker is one of the hardest professions out there, and especially back then, when the Internet was very new to the masses and most everything was still done old school, and only rich folks owned mobile phones, and, she was booking an obscure, hard to understand band that nobody had heard of - no easy task).
On this tour, we scored a West Coast leg with Unwound (it must have been arranged through Chris Takino, owner/founder of Seattle's Up Records, a label which started by putting out a 7 inch for Violent Green and was still at this point our label - Takino ~RIP~ was also an Unwound fan, as I remember it). I was to the moon about the tour, of course. By then I was on a steady diet of listening to anything Unwound released, New Plastic Ideas being my favorite (still on the short list of fav albums). At one point I was on a steady, almost binary musical diet of Unwound and The Thinking Fellers Union 282 (also known as 'The Thinking Fellers Union' and 'The Thinking Fellers').
By 1997, Unwound had worked their collective asses off, recording, touring and playing amazing shows that spread the word like wildfire. Unplanned by the band, as is often the way, they became kind of a 'buzzword' band; A band to watch, a band like no other, and all the hype was true. I was privileged to watch them kill it, every night on this West Coast leg, at a time when they were in their peak form. Every show, they would do their trademark huddle; Locking arms at the shoulders and touching foreheads in a moment of silence, like a rock n roll prayer, endearing and fierce at the same time, lending a ritualistic, spiritual vibe to the whole set (Vern had to stoop over, his bony back showing from under the usual thin punk T-shirt that was his uniform).
A few years ago, when Vern and I reconnected on Facebook, he revealed to me his new addiction that was out of control; Legos! Vern and I had plans to connect in person, but he got sick. Then some mutual friends, just before I did see him, told me he looked quite a bit different than when I had last seen him, which was some years before, as a strapping, cocky young Bass God, a cigarette burning in his mouth (I always marveled at how the smoke never affected his vision, or his impressive playing).
Vern around when I met him in the '90s - (image retrieved from Unwound's memorial Twitter feed)
Vern around when we reconnected in 2018 (image retrieved from Unwound's memorial Twitter feed)
Random photo from an image search of 'Legos bass' which Vern would've appreciated
And he did look different; he was even thinner than he was already (famously so), his naturally dense hair grown long, his face hidden in a thick beard, but he still had the signature mischievous smile I remembered well cutting through it, and the wing-like, upper body enfolding hugs of his arms and long upper torso were still a part of experiencing Vern. For all his complexities and troubles, whatever else he was, Vern was often pretty loving and generous (I cried describing these wing hugs on the Zoom wake call, because it was when everything hit me at once, just as the call was about to end...You don't hug like that if you don't mean it; The King of Hugs).
Vern's mischievous smile. It is missed.
In 2018, I would go, with a friend, and catch shows of Vern's solo project when it came to Portland, Oregon (sometimes accompanied by a band) called Red Rumsey (songwriting/singing/guitar). Vern and I would catch up in that odd way people do with decades spanning between the beings they were when they met and the beings they had become; The young, beautiful musicians at the top of their game, and the now middle aged men with afflictions and health issues (and for me, my own well known thinness had eh, changed) and who were still riding the music train, for fun, if for anything.
And Vern was having fun, touring in a very Spartan way, even when joined by a band, as he was when I invited him to open the Portland and Seattle shows on the Treepeople reunion tour in 2019. Red Rumsey (in which Vern was joined by Aaron Finkle on drums and Gretchen Guydish on bass, also of the band Mr. Finkles Tragedy, a band Vern loved) toured in a giant old classic car, crammed in with some equipment on laps. I admired that. Backstage in Portland Vern was ecstatic to play with us and we had a moment, this being the first time where we actually had time to catch up in that weird way mentioned above. Vern was praising me for the music I had played in my life, and I stopped him and said, "You don't understand how big a deal you are to me as a musician, and how big a deal Unwound is to me!" And so we effectively humbled each other. It was sweet, a moment I am glad we had, I am grateful that before he left this plane, I got to tell him that.
Red Rumsey playing at Doug Fir in Porrland, Oregon at a Treepeople reunion show, August 8th, 2019. Photo provided by Aaron Finkle.
At the Seattle show, Red Rumsey, killed it. Vern's songwriting was ambling and slightly dirty, like Southern rock a bit but overlayed with his underground sensibilities, similar to me in feel to say Royal Trux. It was cool to see him up there, having fun, after he had been so sick. The shows were both great (also opened by the amazing Boise punk band Itchy Kitty). At that same show, I was asked if I could take Vern's guitar amp and cabinet back to Portland with me, and he would pick it up later. Sure. But after Red Rumsey left, all we had was the amp, and we searched like mad everywhere at The Crocodile club in Seattle for the speaker cabinet, to no avail (I annoyed the hell out of the poor staff there for weeks after, calling to see if they found it). I felt awful! I had lost Vern's cab! But, as it turned out, Red Rumsey found it sitting out and grabbed it, which I found out weeks later via an email response from Vern. We reconnected later and he got his amp back from me, which lived in my kitchen for months.
Thank you, Vern, for all the beautiful, fierce bass playing and unique song-crafting and for being a crucial part of one of the best bands ever. You will be missed. I hope there are lots of Legos (and maybe a Lego bass) where you are, Brother, and that you are having a blast pranking the angels.
Unwound: New Plastic Ideas
Wayne R. Flower, 4/21/21 I y
Hi, I'm music lover who heard many of these bands you mention here. Thank you for this blog. Great reading, great stories and all these bands from the eighties and nineteens...i would like to ask you about a scene in the Hype! movie, when Steve Fisk lists some great bands from Seattle or that area and he mentions QUACK QUACK QUACK. Was that really a band or a way of speaking by Steve Fisk?
ReplyDeleteThank you, love doing it. I am not sure, I had forgotten about that, probably messing with the interviewer, that was a common thing when Seattle started attracting major press, to make shit up.
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