A few weeks ago, Adam sent us a bunch of pictures that he had found from the _Flying Suit_ recording sessions. We also had a few lying around, from the opening night of the _Flying Suit_ tour in Berkeley, CA.
That night, a chilly Bay Area evening in September of 1994, I met up with Sam Koritz of the San Francisco band The Sarnos. He took me into Aquarius Records for a quick introduction, and then we hopped into my nondescript rental car and drove into Berkeley.
The three things from that night that I remember most vividly:
1) Anchor Steam Beer. It was, at that point, my third or fourth trip to San Francisco but my first experience with Anchor Steam. I enjoyed several. I eventually would have discovered this beer as its distribution broadened, but it was nice to be introduced to it in its native habitat. Thanks, Sam.
2) An old-school hippie, seemingly straight from 1969, was dancing wildly in the middle of the floor while the band was playing. In the middle of the instrumental break in “Broken and Glazed,” Michael Holt came down from the stage and began dancing with the man. At first, I thought Michael was making fun of the hippie, but a few measures into their dance I realized that Michael was _also_ dancing, the two of them just lost in the music and enjoying the performance.
3) The band were utterly _fantastic_, simultaneously incredible musicians and tasteful players, with articulate lyrics and an amazing ability to play as a unit yet maintain their individuality as musicians. This was, I thought, a whole new kind of indie rock. Fifteen years later, with bands like Death Cab for Cutie, Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin and John Vanderslice carrying the torch the band lit so many years ago, I think back to that night and know I was right.
Just a few days from now, _Flying Suit_ will be available once again for the first time since the late 1990s. Remastered beautifully by Fred Kevorkian (White Stripes, Phish, Stuyvesant) and featuring three tracks that did not appear on the original CD, _Flying Suit_ will, hopefully, help revive those same emotions that indie rock stirred in us in the 90s – and introduce a whole new crop of people to the greatness of The Mommyheads.