(Perhaps unsurprisingly,) I was at Clem’s with Fluff and Gravy‘s John Shepski, his pal Kip, another dear friend and my mom. During a bathroom-related break in conservation, Mom had looked at her phone and with a shocked look on her face said, “Oh my god! Look!”
I looked at her phone, and it was an Apple News update that read “Foo Fighters‘ Taylor Hawkins dead at 50.” My response upon reading that was a similarly shocked “Oh my god! 50?”
Three different but maybe related thoughts about this:
I saw the Foo Fighters back in 2011 at the Prudential Center with an ex-girlfriend, who as it turned out, I was about to break up with a few weeks later; her girlfriend Jen; my best friend Abdul, a girl he was seeing at the time; and our mutual friend Natalie. The Foos played a three hour show — and that shows was one of the best who’s I’ve ever seen. I’ve been to thousands of shows in my life, so I ain’t bullshitting y’all on that.
Hands down, they’re one of the best bands in the entire world.
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I turn 43 on Monday. As you get older, working in music can often feel — and be — very weird. Your peers get old and boring really early. They get married. They have kids. They get legitimate jobs. Nightlife just ages you out. So you wind up seeing your peers less and less and less. You get older. Everyone else gets younger.
Thankfully, I know quite a few folks who are doing awesome things in music in their 50s and 60s. And in those people, I see the possibilities of where I could be in a decade or so.
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Lastly, we lost Mark Lanegan a few weeks ago. The anniversary of Kurt Cobain’s death is in a few days. For Dave Grohl and Pat Smear, the rest of the band, this has to be among the most difficult times of their entire lives. My heart breaks for the band, their crew — and most importantly, Hawkins family.
Long live, the great Taylor Hawkins! Long live the Foos!