Well...this went from being a Buffalo Tom post to more of a Bill Janovitz, Ordained Minister of Rock AND Roll "blog-up."
Admittedly, he's my only big brother. He was the guy who brought The White Album into a house where you really only heard three things regularly. One was The King. Both folks could agree on that one (they did at least for the sake of appearances). For dear old dad, it was (and I think, still is) Johnny Mathis (I still put Johnny's Christmas record in my top three along side Vince Giraldi/Charlie Brown and Doris Day). For mom, it was The Carpenters.
So a great deal of the impressions made on me and, sometimes (like in the case of Nina Hagen) forced on me, were made by Bill. We did (and bought, I might add) the whole thing with "Abbey Road/Paul without shoes/Dead/his apparition picked up hitch hiking in the English country side" thing ...hook, line and sinker. We would sit in his room and spin Revolution 9 backwards to hear Ringo say "I killed Paul" with "Paul" being all drawn out and slow like. Those were the days.
But as a photographer, and being only as objective as any brother can be, Bill is the obvious subject. He is the heart and soul of that band like it or not.
The most profound thing about these shots to me is the way he still hurls himself around the stage with an almost unconscionable abandon. Now that he has gracefully looked "the hill" square at the top and said "Fuck You!" it is starting to become too unsettling to watch anymore. So I guess this is also kind of a Swan Song for me.
By the way, I used up two 8 GB cards at this show last June. That's a lot of fucking pictures, in the dummied down way!! There is so much more to chose from. Obviously both Tom and Chris are absent. But don't worry...I'll get to them in a Buffalo Tom post soon.
It truly is something to look your dream right in the face and really question it for the first time. I can only imagine what that must have been like for my brother (or any one of us) to become the "Part Time Man of Rock" (which is bullshit, by the way. He seems more busy these days and maybe even happier playing the way he is now). But he remains the same. In these pictures I see the same dude who, when he got his first Yamaha acoustic (which he still has. I wrote a few songs on that little guitar that made me the wealthy author who writes this for you now), lit up brighter then anything on the tree. That was it. He was through. From that moment on, he had to do one thing. And, in a way, it is a very singular thing. Everything else becomes second or third fiddle...if that.
Then a a great, tremendous, beautiful, caring, loving, adoring, patient (blah, blah, blah) wife. Then later on a daughter. ***NOTE: those of you who know me are aware of my affinity for my niece. Some of you don't yet, but you will soon enough. But for the sake of leaving the "dead horse" alone right now, I'm only going to say this once. She is easily the greatest human being who's ever graced this planet or, perhaps, universe. She also kind of saved my life. I long to see her if for only one reason. She restores my faith in the ability of another human being to love unconditionally.*** Buf Tom/Bill fans have heard a thing or two, both musically and otherwise, about this special person. And then Will...wow. For me it is in some ways like looking at myself. But he is no doubt his father's son. And is tremendous as well, as if the others were not enough. I love going there to visit. You walk into a home filled with love. My niece and nephew make a "b" line for my legs and hug away. Sometimes to the point of happily losing the circulation momentarily. "Life Vicariously" is what I call it.
But I can't sit through even a single song if I don't feel like the person delivering the message is not the real deal. That it's not real. It's not honest. Or...if it is honest, it totally sucks anyway. But for all of his faults, and we ALL have a great many of them, he is all consumed with it. Bill and I survived the experience of being in the same bands for a while. But even then, after rehearsals (and certainly shows) he was spent. He gives you everything he's got and a lot of folks don't appreciate the toll that takes on your soul after 30 years. And Bob Dylan said (and I'm paraphrasing) "...never to give people 100 % because they will always want more."
About three years ago, Buf Tom were playing this very same club. The Figgs, with one of my younger brothers Scott as a new member on keys, were opening the night. Scott and his band The Great Bandini were in the finals that night right down the street so he had to run after the set which was surprisingly short for a Figgs show. Scott's group lost the WBCN (RIP) Rumble (really???) that night and that's a story for another time. There were a lot of friends there that night. BT opened with Treehouse and it was as if they just came from the studio in LA with The Water Sisters in tow. Big Red Letter Day came out in 1993 folks. You do the "Age Math." I was blown away. I couldn't believe that they could still summon that spirit so many years later. Fucking, Bravo!! How to make me proud and maybe greener, Billy Boy.
So, to perhaps sum up and put into more perspective, I will leave you with this. On the night I just mentioned, Billy saw two old timers getting into it right there in front of him. He said (and I'm paraphrasing again) "Hey man...there's nothing I find more depressing then two middle age guys fighting at a rock club..."
