RIP, Greg Brown

Been thinking a lot about Greg Brown, the founding Cake guitarist, who died recently, age 56, way too young, even by rock’n’roll standards. We weren’t close friends or anything but he lived nearby when I was living in Sacramento, working for Tower Records, and we’d yap as he’d pass by, usually on the way to/from a rehearsal/gig. I can still easily picture him, slightly slouched, jacket a little larger than it needs to be, ratty case in hand. Such a sweet, thoughtful guy, and his playing in those early years of Cake was sublime: taut, economical, driving, restrained, bristling — whatever a song called for, it was exactly that. Seeing the band countless times as they came into being was a wonderful experience, central to my 20s. It’s one thing to go to concerts occasionally, to catch a touring band, maybe get to the venue in time for the end of the opening act. It’s another to be part of a community where bands are constantly playing, and you’re observing as they form, emerge, and yes often decline, and how the ones that persevere proceed to mesh, mature, evolve, and yes often splinter. There are a lot of ways to spend your 20s, and going out to see live local music all the time is about as good as it gets. I find it fascinating how certain periods of your life don’t sit with you in full, but get encapsulated in a fragment of a conversation, in a bit of afternoon sun, and, of course, in a riff. Brown contributed many such riffs. RIP, sir.