Circa: Now! by Rocket From The Crypt
by Lana Fleischli
With the news that venues would be opening up soon, I began to reminisce about shows that I’ve been to. While all shows are fun, there are definitely the ones that stand out among the rest. There are some bands that have a true skill for live performance. I asked my mom about some talented live bands, and she said that her all-time favorite band to see live is Rocket From The Crypt because they sure do put on a show.
Funny thing, my dad’s cousin is in Rocket From The Crypt. It is also one of his favorite bands, even before he knew his cousin was in it. Everyone in the band has aliases, so how was my dad supposed to know that Apollo 9 was actually Paul O'Beirne, his cousin?
Three weeks ago, I spoke with Paul for this article. I asked him about aliases, and he explained, “I think we were just throwing anything into the pot as far as like, making it as fun as possible… The aliases came as just like, well you’re in a rock band! How much fun can you have with this? It just gets kinda silly. Pretty soon you’re wearing sequined shirts on the 'Warped’ tour!”
Since I am focusing on the album Circa: Now!, which was his first album with Rocket From The Crypt, I asked him about his role in it. I specifically asked him about his use of the saxophone on the album. It was especially prominent in the song “Little Arm”. I wondered how he made an instrument that doesn’t generally fit into rock music work so well. He responded with:
“The saxophone really is the first rock solo instrument in a lot of people’s minds. It does get shifted around in the history of rock and roll, and the guitar obviously takes a much bigger role in it at some point. But the sax is really really important in the history of rock and roll. But honestly, especially in Circa: Now!, I didn’t know what to do in that band with a horn! Even when John-- ‘Speedo’, if you will. Like I heard the first record with him, and he was playing with me when he got the first pressings back from it. We were listening to it and I thought, ‘This is fantastic! I love this record so much!’ And John said, ‘Do you wanna join the band? I want a sax in the band!’ and I said, ‘I don’t even know how a sax is gonna fit the band! Like there’s so many guitars going on and it’s such a wall of sound!’ and he said, ‘No no no we’ll think of something!’ What I remember on that record was just putting a sax with these walls of sound.”
I had never thought of it that way. It’s true that music changes over time. Before rock, there was jazz and blues. Music builds off of each other to create new kinds of music, so of course saxophone is the original rock instrument!
Then I started thinking about the idea of time, and how music changes. I asked Paul why Circa: Now! made sense for the time period it came out in. He said,
“It was a time I think where a lot of kids were like, ‘I don’t really wanna go to college. I’m out of highschool now. And I don’t really know what else to do!’ A lot of us were really into music, and like I said, there were enough clubs to go see enough music. I’d say number one, the community was ready for it and right for it. The kids wanted to go out and see bands. They didn’t wanna see hair metal bands anymore. They wanted to see bands that looked like people that they knew and grew up with.”
His response was really interesting to me, and makes a lot of sense. Circa: Now! came out at the perfect time because people at that age were ready for it. I kind of relate to the feeling of just wanting to have fun being the age that I am. As new generations grow up and begin to influence the world, tastes change, but as Paul says, “the feelings don’t.”
I feel like talking to Paul about Circa: Now! gave me a better understanding of it, and really made me think about music as a whole. Music evolves and changes because people’s tastes evolve and change, but the truth remains Circa: Now! continues to be a great album.