The Smudge

I want to start a band called The Smudge. It makes a good movie title too, but I don't like art house flicks as much as some people. I think The Smudge has a good ring to it. I can see it now - it's a foursome of mixups who just barely get along. One has spiky hair, one has a minor facial tic, they would all be pretty pretty if they'd just smile more. Their armory includes a 7-string bass, assorted horns, jazz drums, theremin, lots of kazoos. They play a mix between klezmer-punk and downbeat post-club (heavy on the bass effects there), with the occasional third-wave ska break throne in for shiggles. They're so different, an early critic writes:

It isn't the manic energy that makes The Smudge stand out; not the way they tip closer and closer to disaster and then pull back with a grin; it isn't the moment they switch out of a long, banging, bowel-shaking paean to some ancient devil and into a rapid-fire celebratory horn solo that makes you wonder where you've been all this time, although that's closer - it's that they're just having too much fun, and they know that you know that we're all right there with them.

I'm ready to get this show on the road. In my fantasies The Smudge starts in the basement of the doxy lounge, practicing once or twice a month. It starts to take off when friends of the smudgelings keep coming to practice uninvited. leli p monster quits his day job and ditches his farming plans in favor of equipment, publicity, a van. These semi-humble beginning become part of the The Smudge's origin myth, later to become a rock-group biopic (think Stone). Reviews on the movie are mixed.

Eventually the group breaks up, moves on. They never sign a major record deal - they don't need to. Rather than rely on 10% of the profits off of millions of people, they run everything themselves, living off of shows and handmade merch and cds sold to thousands of trufans across the country. Later they sign with two different indie labels and tour Europe, but the ethic remains. About their strange brand of success one critic writes:

They were never a household name. Then again, the naughts and tens were the end of the era of household names. Sure, they had their adoring masses, but I'd say the best way to measure the success of The Smudge is in their influence. One out of every three people who saw The Smudge in those early days ended up a free thinker and a fool, in the best sense of the word.

I've been thinking about fools a lot, ever since a great conversation with teemz in the doxy kitchen. I hope that when I get invited to speak at some (hopefully worthwhile) event because of Smudge-related fame, I stand up and talk about what it means to be a fool in the modern age. Tmo said: "The fool stares into the void and laughs".