By Brian Pace
Nov. 21, 2001
Sometime in the first few weeks of my freshman year of college, the folks down the hall from me asked if I wanted to go see a concert for eight bucks. I said sure, what the heck - even if I can't stand them I'm only out $8 and, as most of us who have been through that time period know, all I really wanted to do was meet people. I'd never even heard of the band, and didn't ask until the day of the show.
That band was Dave Matthews Band, and the concert was the CD release party of Under the Table and Dreaming, dated 9/28/94. Far from the canned album music and cheese pop I'd grown up with, that evening these guys showed me what magic can arise given the right talents combined with the right atmosphere at exactly the right time. I was hooked.
Shortly after that, Dave Matthews Band became The Biggest Band In America. What started out at the Flood Zone evolved into the Carpenter Center, then the Classic Amphitheatre and Patriot Center, and then Nissan Pavilion and RFK Stadium. I vowed that the next time something as significant as this came along, I'd be ready.
About that time, I started hearing stories through the school radio station where I DJed, WDCE, about a local band of renown that I simply had to see. I never was able to find out what they sounded like - just that they were something else, and I'd better just go see them. The problem was, I had a Wednesday night show that spring semester of 1996, and that was specifically when this band were making their weekly rounds at Alley Katz. Frustrated, I went down to the Borders near campus and tried to buy their CD, but all they had was a cassette that would be a pain in the butt to play on the air.
Finally, in what is only hazily remembered as being in very early spring 1996, my friends Christian Dawson and Kevin Fox dragged me on a Tuesday night to Charlottesville to see them play Trax. I'd still never heard them, but they were driving and really gave me no choice. Besides, what's an hour drive each way, round-trip in the middle of the night with class the next morning? I shudder at the thought now, but that's why I'm no longer in college.
That band was Agents of Good Roots, playing a nondescript Tuesday night gig at Trax - just as Dave Matthews Band had done in year's past. They did two sets that night, and I remember being dragged out by the same alleged friends, during the last few songs. I even remember that I was dragged out during a song called Eric, and that I got to talk to the bassist that evening and request a song I'd been told they covered. I don't remember if they played it, but it's unimportant. These guys cooked, and in spring of 1996 had the raw ability and unbridled enthusiasm that most of the members of DMB can only dream about. I found myself babbling like a little kid to that bassist, in a way that I've seen countless others do since and been guilty of myself.
That summer of 1996, I worked two jobs - one at Sam's Club, and one at the movie theatre at the local mall. I and the folks had both moved down from Pittsburgh and I'd then immediately started school, which meant I never really had an opportunity to make local friends - just school friends, most of whom lived in the Northeast. Therefore, as long as I'm going to have no life for a couple months in the summertime - might as well make some money! I averaged 70 hours a week working that summer, and sometimes got well over 80. My only respite during that time was the Pace-mandated Wednesday nights off from both jobs, where I'd travel down to Alley Katz by myself and get educated. Those evenings represent some of the most captivating and buoyant times in my life, and undoubtedly the lives of the band and those around them. They had the same gigs as the Dave Matthews Band had. They cooked and were only getting better, sometimes playing three and four hours at a time. Within the first few weeks of their summer shows, it was announced that they had signed on to Red Light Management, the same company that had led DMB to fame and fortune. Dave Matthews himself showed up to area shows to catch the buzz, and Chris Tetzeli of Red Light was a frequent attendee. There was talk of moving the Wednesday night gigs to the Flood Zone, and even well founded rumors of a major label recording deal. The sky was the limit, musically, emotionally, and professionally - the talk was of "when," not "if."
And oh, those shows. There was this William and Mary professor named Lee Kirkpatrick who would come down, and - bless his heart - tape the shows onto analog Maxell XLII's. Brian Alderfer, Ron Broman, John Viega and countless others also took their turn trying to handle the difficult and outdated Alley Katz soundboard. So many memories. The finest, as it always seems to turn out, went unrecorded. That year, July 3 fell on a Wednesday which made it a pseudo-weekend as everyone had off the next day. The first set went fairly uneventful, but between breaks the Allman Brothers Band concert ended at the Classic Amphitheatre, and people streamed in. It was midnight; one of the hottest days and nights of the year, and the place was packed beyond capacity. Alley Katz had brought in a huge industrial fan that they had turned on, and they would throw water into the fan to cool off the fans on the first floor. All through this, the band played on and on, blowing their way through a set list and performance uncompared. "Jakob," "John," "Eric," "Shortchange," "Step to the Street," "Exodus of Left..." I don't remember the listing or the order, and that moment in time is lost except within my mind and the minds of those who were there.
A good deal of you know the rest. Agents of Good Roots went on to sign a two record, major label deal with RCA, with Red Light as their management organization. Depending on what and who you believe and to what extent, their release One By One was doomed by bad management, loose pockets, bad producing, uninspired "hit" songwriting, unrealistic expectations, bad intentions, and misguided promotion and positioning. One By One proved to be a commercial failure, after which RCA half-heartedly released Needle and Thread after much wrangling. Had the two albums been released in opposite order, or had all the weight been put behind the substantially stronger single from One By One, things might well have been drastically different - but who's to say. What wound up happening was the breaking of trust, the waning of motivation and creative drive, and the eventual destruction of Agents of Good Roots.
A good many readers who either are into the music of Agents of Good Roots or have been into them in the past will have inevitably come along at a later time than I did. You saw the performances and heard the music, and like me you were hooked. Folks this talented that mesh so well as a band as these four individuals do are very uncommon indeed. However, the atmosphere has never been the same since those boundless summer nights of 1996, when anything seemed possible and success seemed downright inevitable. It's important, personally, to remember when in life these things were self-evident.
Agents of Good Roots, barring the unforeseen, will cease to exist at the end of the calendar year 2001. I feel forever privileged and lucky to have found myself in the right moment and the right time to witness magic, and I will miss what I'd for so long taken for granted.
nancies.org | November 21, 2001