Styx vs. Monkees: A never ending conflict

Ok, I did watch the fan produced ending for How I Met Your Mother today and if you had shown that to me yesterday and told me that it was the real ending I would have thought, “Aw, what a sweet ending.” It would have been a happy ending for everyone, or at least Ted. You still have to figure out Barney and Robin and Marshall and Lilly but you could make them all happy in the end. In a sense I like the fact that they did not make it nice and neat because life is certainly not and neither has been Ted’s life. But that said, the more I watch the original ending the more it seems totally off. That is what happens when you are writing to scenes filmed by child actors seven years ago. At some point you can accept that you should change plans.

Anyway, I wanted to tell the story tonight of how I am a hypocrite in general and especially when it comes to music. If I am nice this is just an example of how I can be a bit of an arrogant snob but at worse it shows some of the lesser side of my personality. Either way it is a pretty fun story.

So a few weeks ago someone asked me if I wanted to go see Styx in concert and my response was a) laughter and b) “why would you want to see a band without their lead singer and where half of the band is dead.” Now let me start by saying that I really like Styx. I actually owned Kilroy was Here on cassette. They are a Chicago band and two of the band members lived in the suburbs in the same neighborhood as kids from my high school. Hell, when my sister was in high school the school won a radio concert which gave the students free tickets to see Styx. I can’t say that they are my favorite band of all time but I did grow up on their music.

But with all that I have no desire to see them in their present form. Dennis DeYoung is no longer the lead singer because the rest of the band hates him and it is hard to think of Styx without him. Tommy Shaw is still a good guitarist and probably worth seeing but it isn’t Styx. It’s Tommy Shaw, one or two of the other original members, and a bunch of other guys filling in roles. I didn’t want to spend money to see the show. I didn’t care that it would be silly fun. I pretty much shot it down as the dumbest idea I had ever heard and that was before I found out it was a double bill with Foreigner.

Fast forward a few days and I check my email to see that Ticketmaster has let me know about the latest shows scheduled for Kansas City (most likely on the hope that I would start buying tickets again as I believe that my moving resulted in a significant hit to their profit margin). In the email I found out that the Monkees are playing at the Uptown Theater. Not only was I getting ready to buy concert tickets I was ready to buy plane tickets, get a hotel room, and then camp outside the front door of the Uptown for a week ahead of the show so I could be in front of the stage. Oh, and while I was camped out there I would be getting signatures for my petition for the Monkees to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Of course this makes absolutely no sense. Davy Jones died a few years back so it is clearly not the Monkees of old. Even with Mike Nesmith there we are missing the heart of the band and everyone is older and let’s face it, they never played their own instruments to begin with so it is not like they have gotten any better. But it’s the Monkees! I grew up on their music. It would be a lot of silly fun.

So I’m a hypocrite. One band from the seventies reunites and I consider it a personal affront that it would even be suggested that I see them in concert. Another band from the sixties, one that was created solely for a television show, reunites and I am willing to travel across the country to see them play at a venue that is conveniently located across the street from a place where you can sell your blood plasma. If I was internally consistent I would probably be a lot easier to live with.

Wednesday Night Music Club: Nothing makes life better than a new Drive By Truckers album.