Last night at 8:00 pm I met Mike Wreck at the park & ride on La Costa Avenue. He hopped in my car, we fixed the music, and we took off. Our destination: a suburban home somewhere in L.A. County. Our Purpose: to be closer to Pasadena to save time driving in the morning. We had very important business to attend to bright and early on Thursday morning. We were invited to be in a Mountain Goats music video.

            We arrived on time. The whole trip went off without a hitch. That is until the moment we parked. You see, as I drove along the curb trying to securely park my car I somehow ended up on the curb, god only knows how. I’m obviously a terrific driver. So to make a long story short we ended up getting a flat tire the moment we arrived. After fifteen minutes of reflection on how the American Automobile Association and Against All Authority share the same acronym a sweaty AAA employee came to fix my tire. After the tire issue was resolved we made our way across the narrow suburban street to our destination. We would later find out that the house where the video was filmed belonged to the drummer of Reel Big Fish. Wreck and I used this information shamelessly to our advantage by making constant RBF puns and heckles. After eyeing the breakfast table for vegan options, there were none, we found the producer so we could check in.

            The story of the video goes something like this: A group of about nine teenage hooligans capture the Mountain Goats, on this occasion the band consisted of Peter Hughes and John Darnielle, rough them up until they are blood, and force them to play a song. You guessed right: the song was “This Year”. We all saw it coming. As predictable as the choice was I have no complaints. I still think the song is amazing even after hearing it twenty-some times in a row.

            Mike, Red, Sean, and I were part of this band of ruffians. After the sadistic wardrobe team dressed us in multiple layers of winter clothing in the Los Angeles heat we were ready to start the filming. Wreck was armed with a machete and I with Peter Hughes tied up with rope on my shoulder. The video itself was pretty fun despite the stifling heat. However, the real fun came between shots. Being the die hard fans we are the four of us never left the set while John was playing. When the close up scene of him playing guitar was being filmed there was a lot of downtime. He took this time to play any songs we requested. Allow me a second to stress this: John Darnielle performed a private set for my friend and I. My three friends and I. In a fucking living room! My god. I could not stop smiling. I mean, this is my favorite band. I saw them play a few weeks ago and I was ecstatic to be one of 400 people in the audience. I considered myself lucky because I was only about 10 feet from the stage. Now imagine me sitting cross-legged on the floor of a suburban home with my favorite song writer of all time sitting not two feet from me playing the songs of my choice. Fuck! The highlight was definitely Alpha Rats Nest.

            During the first break we ended up talking to Peter for a little while. What a guy… We talked about the Troubadour show, touring in Europe, the perils of being a substitute teacher, the founding of Rome, and graphic designing among many other things. So here we were, four kids, not one of us over 19 and here comes this thirty-something brilliant musician who sits down to have a conversation with us and treats us completely like his equal. On top of all that I got to tie him up with rope and push him around. What a great situation to meet your heroes in.

            Later on in the afternoon we met John Darnielle. I was thrilled to find out that the stories about him being down to earth, genuine, and friendly were true. We ended up sitting across from him at lunch. He struck up a conversation with us right away and we ended up talking for the entire lunch break. The best thing I found out was that the original idea for the movie was to have black metal kids capture the band and force them to play in the forest. My enthusiasm for that scenario quickly led to an excited conversation about metal. He told me about how brutal Krisiun is live and I told him about my experiences with corpse paint. We talked to him again and he made sure he remembered all of our names. We also traded email addresses and he told all of us that we would “never have to be pay for another Mountain Goats show again”. We also get free copies of the new album sent to us for free. What a dude! Before we left we all got really big hugs and a genuine “thanks” for being there. Oh yeah, we also met Rachel!!!

            So in short this was one of the best days of my life. I spent twelve straight hours hanging out with my favorite band of all time in the house of my favorite band circa 6^th grade. It’s not everyday you meet your hero. It’s even less common for your hero to be the nicest person you’ve ever met.

Pictures will be posted soon. The video might take a while.