I would say I have had 6 'best friends' in my life, guys who I could share anything with, shared many, many years of friendship and adventures with, guys I consider to be brothers.
V- My first great best friend, met him at secondary school, helped get me into music, and playing a musical instrument, writing songs, and booze, lol. He was a truly hilarious guy, very smart, extremely decent. He mived out of the city years and years ago, and now is married with a family, i last saw him when i really needed some help with something, and he was there for me despite all the family commitments.
S - My second great best friend, he I and V used to hang out all the time, it was a bit like 'Superbad', S was Michel Cera, V was the fat guy, and I was Vogel. S was quite the intellectual, and he helped me widen my range when ir came to watching films, which in turn got me interested in making my own video films, which i did for a few years until my camera's tapeheads burnt out. We had many discussions on the nature of reality, trippers trying to figure things out together. He eventually joined the band i was putting together, although very reluctantly, as he saw how many friendships were strained in our pal's other bands, but in the end he felt he made the right desicion as we had some very cool, exciting years playing and recording music. He moved away out the city recently.
G - My best friend i met at college, again, like V and S, we had a lot in common attitude wise, with V it was the music mainly, with S it was the ideas, with G it was the art, although we all had things in common with each other in all fields of art and ideas. He was a very wise man, and like my other b f's taught me a lot, and i them, i think anyway, lol. The one thing these guys all had in common was intelligence and great senses of humour, we used to crack each other up all the time. they were real good comedians, and i needed that, I did not want to be the only court jester in the room, I wanted to laugh my ass off at other people's stuff, and these guys always delivered. He moved away from the city a few years ago.
J - A friend I met at a flat i used to live at, the most sensible of my best friends, he was never a big drinker like my other bf's. I played in a pretty awful electro band with him for a couple of years, and we got to know each other v well through all that time spent together, we had some good crazy nights of gigs though, one gig that basically turned into a mini-riot at a very well to do arts center, i will never forget that night. I still see him now and again, still a v good friend.
A - Probably my craziest friend, he had some real nutso years, and i tried to ditch him a few times cause he seemed to be a little too crazy, but he kept chasing after me to be friends, and I am v glad he did now. He turned out to be a friend who I could rely on for anything, and has sorted himself out now, not crazy anymore. He had a hard life and had a lot of demons needed sorting out, and he did so in a way that i am very proud of him, I can learn from his example. I still see him now and again.
K - The most eccentirc of my best friends. His twin sister once told me that I was the first friend he had ever really 'brought home', perhaps because he did not trust anyone o be a good friend, perhaps because his twin sister was very good looking, lol, and he was paranoid folk would want to come round just to see her more than him(which i think happened). He had a lot of trust issues in a lot of ways. i first met him when he played in the 'school band' with my bf 'V', I used to hang out at their rehersals, and thought he was a very curious fellow. even when he played the school gigs before my friend joined the band, I recall my attention being drawn to him onstage, even though he was the only one onstage not showing off, just hanging back and playing, he had some unique quality to him.
I recall one time at their band's rehersal that he phoned up saying his mum was sick and he couldn't attend rehersal, the band were begging him to come over and reherse, and then he heard someone in the background playing his bass guitar, so what he did was get his 'sick mum' to drive him over to the rehersal, walked into the rehersal, picked up his bass , and walked straight back out, lol. It was hilarious, that was the first time i saw him do anything out of the ordinary. The guys in that band were all pains in the arses, apart from my friend 'V', so i could see why he did not want to attend rehersals.
Anyway, i met him a year or two later at a college i attended for a year to do art classes mainly, i switched art classes to be in the same one with him.
We ended up putting the band together, trying out guys from ads, until we managed to persuade 'S' to join. K was a great musician, he played drums in the nad, but was infinitely better than me at the guitar, he was very gifted, but had no ego about that. He was not one of those snobby technical musicians, even though he could play very well technically, he alwsy complimented me when i managed to pull off a good song, or play something interesting on guitar, I mean, some of the things he said to me kept my confidence up no end, cause i basically started paying gigs regularly only after about a year or so of playing the guitar.
He was so shy and eccentric though, it was a very good day if you managed to get this guy on the phone, although he always ansered on rehersal days, or gig days, unlike with the pain in the arse band.
A great songwriter too, he would never let anyone hear his songs though, but one night, after we had hung out for hours drinking beer and listening to records, i walked him over to the bus stop, adn just when he got on the bus he handed me a tape of all of his home recorded songs. they were great, he ended up re-recording a couple on my home studio, and then we got two of them onto CD and record when we eventually got to make a couple.
He was probably the most interesting person i ever met in my life. I think we both came into each other;s lifes just when we needed a real good friend, and comrade. Years and years later his twin sister came up to me in a club and told me that I was the best friend he ever had.
i think he was so eccentric that he could have ended up just sitting in the house by himself for years and years if he had not enbcounteres me, and by the same kind of token, i think i would have spent a lot of time indoors, cause i would have had trouble finding someone who believed in me as a musical performer, who also shared the same kind of artistic vision. I needed an eccentric, no doubt, lol.
I last saw a few months ago, and he was v pleased to see me, what i had to do to see him was sit outside his door for an hour or two until he left for work in the morning, still not answering the door or the phone, a real JD Salinger, lol.
