Buffalo Tom Turns 25 Part 2 of 3: Late at Night

Two summers ago the four of us minimally packed up the Mini with clothes, sheets, ipods, books, assorted library materials, and drove down to Rehobeth Beach, Delaware for a family reunion. Me and my extended family are transplanted New Yorkers now living up and down the East Coast, and a few westward, so this particular year Delaware was the neutral location decided on by the more geographically convenienced of the family. As usual, us Bostonians had the longest trek, but despite the unavoidable hell-ride through New York, our week in the smallest state proved bountiful. We had the beach, the boardwalk, the amusement park (where we saw Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters putting his kid in a rocket ship and my wife was star-struck), frozen custard, Dogfish Head brewery pub, crab hammering…plenty enough to keep kids and adults happy for the week. At the rental homestead, where ten of us were adequately dispersed, we all managed quite well. There was both public and private time to be had. Sometimes, with my then four-year-old clamped to my ankle, I would wonder where my wife and oldest daughter had drifted off to. And where my laptop disappeared to. And the Red Sox tote bag filled with library materials. I sensed a connection.

I found them, like two squint-eyed shut-ins, shouldered together in a dark room between two beds, faces lit up by my laptop screen, watching episode after episode of the 1994-95 teen-angst television hit “My So-Called Life.” The hit that was cancelled after one year. My wife had taken out the series before we left. All nineteen episodes. It was their bonding thing, my wife and her step-daughter. Their inbetween time activity. Back from the beach, they’d brush off sand and pop in episode three. While the men shelled crabs, they holed up like addicts for episodes six through ten. Dinner reservations were strategically placed by my wife, whose calculations allowed for both pre-dinner primping and so-called watching time. That’s how it went for a week. At dinner, on the boardwalk, in and out of seaside shops, the talk between them was always Claire Danes this and Claire Danes that. Penalized by my gender, I guess, I was excluded from this so-called sorority.

Then, one day, they let me watch. Episode twelve. Special dispensation. It was called “Self-Esteem.” Of course, I had seen this episode before, and my friendship with the special guests won me a berth for the carpeted viewing.

Kristen Hughes and Bob Hamilton at Record Release Party of Buffalo Tom's Big Red Letter Day. Boston, MA. 1993.

Thirteen years before there had been a chain of phone calls (pre-email) made between our circle of friends – all nosing thirty - alerting each other to the coming “My So-Called Life” episode. It was November 17, 1994. I was teaching, coaching, and houseparenting at an all-girls boarding school during the mid-nineties. Not surprisingly, the girls on my corridor loved “My So-Called Life.” It was made for them. An assortment of cute, alternative, misunderstood, unrequited high school boys. An equal assortment of catty, aloof, aggressive, lippy girls. Goofy English teachers. Addled yet sensitive parents. And kissing, lots of kissing. Especially in that “Self-Esteem” episode, in which Angela and Jordan meet in the boiler room for a series of publicly forbidden make-out sessions. A good-looking but reticent nineties grunger, Jordan’s romantic urge – evidenced by his identification with a Shakespeare poem about un-fantasized love – remains unspoken, or “in a jar,” as the emotional weight of the episode culminates at the much-anticipated Buffalo Tom show. Angela, who risks failing a Geometry midterm, attends, believing that Jordan will risk his social standing amongst his fellow grungers, and acknowledge their bond at the show.

Buffalo Tom at Paradise Rock Club. Boston, MA. 1993.

But alas, he cannot. He would if he could, and hopes she knows he would, but cannot. The song “Late at Night” from the album Big Red Letter Day is played during the club scene and echoes throughout the episode seemingly as a theme for felt but unarticulated love. We want so badly for this night to be a public reckoning for Angela and Jordan. For god’s sake, have some sack Jordan and put the pool stick down, profess your love in whatever simian gesture you can muster, and let your friends go eat chips somewhere else. She is your unspectacularly spectacular babe, so go claim her, dude. But of course he can’t. Not there. Not until the end of the episode, with “Late at Night” again playing overhead, does Jordan cross the social divide in the riskiest of places, not the boiler room but the locker-lined corridor. The jar for Jordan is now open and despite the crowd of onlookers, he crosses over to Angela’s locker, takes her by the hand, finally claiming her in public, and the two walk down the corridor, fingers linked, in what is arguably the most romantic scene in the history of high school dramatic television. I know, because some of the girls on my corridor who watched that episode that night of November 17th, 1994 left our living room sodden in tears.

Tom Maginnis on skins at Paradise Rock Club. Boston, MA. 1993.

The fact that I was friends with Buffalo Tom gave me some cred with the boarding school girls back then, even though they weren’t Nirvana. The anticipation of the Buffalo Tom show in that “Self-Esteem” episode is borderline silly – a veritable chorus of “Are you going to the Buffalo Tom show?...I’m going to the Buffalo Tom show…You’re going to the Buffalo Tom show?...I can’t wait for the Buffalo Tom show…” That’s how I remember it, anyway. And I guess it wasn’t so different from our chain of phone calls asking each other if we were going to watch that particular episode.

I thought again of that episode this past Friday night when Buffalo Tom played “Late at Night” during the first of a sold-out three night set at Brighton Music Hall. Before and after the show, the band was flanked backstage by friends and local celebs. If still alive, Joe would have been there, too, chatting briefly, but all the while readjusting his tripod, switching lenses, and flashing shots, just as he did at the Record Release Party for Big Red Letter Day back in 1993. That was when Buffalo Tom was hitting its stride, pumping out an album about every two years during that decade, traveling the globe and gaining international recognition.

Kristine and Paul (forground), Eric (middleground right), Rosie and Maureen (background left) at Buffalo Tom's Record Release Party of Big Red Letter Day. Boston, MA. 1993.

Much of Buffalo Tom’s work over the past quarter-century has to do with time passing, good things lost, readjusted dreams, exhaustion and renewal. Maybe that’s why they speak to so many of us, why for years committed dudes in the front row would shout out lyrics as if part of the band themselves. As a friend and follower of this band for those many years, I can look at this batch of Joey’s photos, his documentation of Buffalo Tom, and see again the energy they radiated. Still do. Joey would have taken a hundred pictures alone of their encore late Friday night, an awesome rendition of Neil Young’s “Cortez the Killer,” with legendary guitarist J. Mascis leading them through.

The late Billy Ruane, Legendary Boston Rock Promoter, at Buffalo Tom's Big Red Letter Day Record Release Party. Boston, MA. 1993.

Packing up for a trip is often a process of deciding what parts of the past to bring into the future. When we return, we are changed by that merger.