»
S
I
D
E
B
A
R
«
BEFORE THE WEEK…
March 3rd, 2005 by Clark Humphrey

…gets any older than it already is, I’ve gotta run down the Kim Warnick retierment roast last Sunday night at Neumo’s.

The 22-year Fastbacks singer-bassist, and more recent Visqueen sidewoman, announced she’s giving up the music-biz grind. Some longtime pals, particularly promoter (and Warnick’s fellow ex-Sub Pop office drone) Kerri Harrop, staged the big shindig to mark Warnick’s long service to the local and global music community.

The event was emceed by former local TV phenom John Keister. He’s apparently spent at least part of the past four years in low-rent exile in Ellensburg. He also looked as if he’d been eating very well lately. He opened with a short monologue about the Seattle music scene, or what passed for it, at the time Warnick began playing—one or two midweek club nights at bars that normally catered to the leather crowd.

Warnick’s father showed up, told his own Dean Martin-style roast jokes, including one in which he referred to the Fastbacks’ most famous touring partners as “Strawberry Jam.” He then narrated a slide show of Kim’s peaceful childhood years in north Seattle.

A succession of other ol’ pals (including Joe Meece from the Meeces, Dave Rosencranz from Sub Pop, and Visqueen leader Rachel Flotard) then took turns on the podium with anecdotes about wacky experiences on tour, in practice, and at day jobs with Warnick, and about her philosophy of life (“ALWAYS make your bed in the morning”).

Warnick’s longtime stage fraternal twin, Fastbacks songwriter-guitarist Kurt Bloch, attended the event but didn’t speak live. Instead, he and the band’s third permanent member, Lulu Gargiulo, appeared in a pre-made video projection, singing Fastbacks songs without Warnick’s vocals and starting but never finishing funny tour stories. (Gargiulo must have a Dorian Gray-esque painting of herself at home, ‘cuz she’s hardly aged a day in the past quarter century.)

That was one of several video segments interspersed through the night, including two vintage Fastbacks music videos from the early ’90s. (One day, we’re going to have to tell our perplexed grandchildren what “music videos” were. They’re fast becoming a scarce commodity, even on the TV channels created to show them.)

All in all, it was a quite pleasant and entertaining evening. Those of us who’d listened to Warnick’s music-making since the bitter start had a wunnerful, wunnerful time reminiscing about the (not necessarily “good,” but fun) old days.


Leave a Reply

XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

»  Substance:WordPress   »  Style:Ahren Ahimsa
© Copyright 1986-2022 Clark Humphrey (clark (at) miscmedia (dotcom)).