2010-11-04

For Billy

Last week, the seemingly impossible happened: Billy Ruane died.

If you're not from around here, or if you weren't firmly attached to the sticky floors of clubs around Boston and Cambridge over the last couple of decades, this may not mean much. Which is a shame, because you missed out on a hell of a show.

I don't have much more to add to the chorus of those for whom the loss of Billy is profoundly huge. Even those whose interactions with Billy amounted to little more than a nod across the room know how indebted they are to him. If you went to shows around here, you were a beneficiary of Billy's influence and generosity.

Generosity. Oh, for goddamn sure. The scene is FULL of people who will tell you how Billy paid their rent, picked up the tab at dinner, or slipped them money for groceries. Because he could. Because he wanted to.

I can't tell you that Billy loaned me money. I can't tell you I was the recipient of one of his big sweaty sloppy kisses at the end of a night. I can't even tell you that Billy bought me a beer. But when Billy died I cried like a baby.

In the spring of 1988 I was a senior in high school. I was poised to barely graduate in the bottom third of my class, because my grades were miserable, and I was miserable, for a number of reasons I won't go into. I'd figured out how to get myself into the city most weekends, away from the little South Shore town where I kept my stuff and where I was - at best - treated with the bemused attitude with which one encounters a poodle in a sweater, mostly because I put on a good show of being a clown.

And so I found myself in the smallish back room of a restaurant called The Middle East on a Saturday afternoon, at a show organized by a Billy Ruane. I was standing in front of the tiny stage, staring at my boots and waiting for the first band to go on, when I felt something lightly smack me in the head. A little bag of Fun Fruits.

I looked up, and saw a jauntily-dressed guy with a mane of impossibly floppy hair bounding towards me like a happy puppy. "Do you like MUSIC?" he asked, and threw another bag of Fun Fruits at me.

"Um, sure."

"Great! My name's Billy. I put this show together. There's another one next weekend. Here." He handed me a flier on which was stapled yet another bag of Fun Fruits. "Do you know this band?" he asked, pointing at the gear set up onstage.

"Um, no."

"Oh, they're great! I think you'll really like them!" And suddenly he was on the other side of the room, distributing fliers and Fun Fruits like loaves and fishes.

I was simultaneously charmed and horrified.

That afternoon, I saw Galaxie 500 for the first time. And I fell in love. Not just with the band, and with the band that followed (Beat Happening). I fell in love with the Middle East, with the giant speakers on either side of the stage, with the wobbly cafe tables peppered all over the floor. I fell in love with colored vinyl seven inches and mixtapes and fanzines. In short, I fell in love with local music. And all afternoon, I would catch Billy Ruane's eye and he would beam at me. This was a floppy haired, tie-wearing Charon, charged with carrying me from my old life to this new one, all for the price of a bag of Fun Fruits.

In the years to follow, I would be in this back room many a night, hollering over the din, scanning the room for people I knew, waiting in the snaking line for beer and earplugs. I would find myself on that very stage, first with Boston Rock Opera, then by myself armed only with my crappy guitar and stupid songs about stupid boys, and then with my own band. I saw countless bands, met my best friend, met my husband, laughed my ass off, all within a couple of blocks of this room.

If we are lucky, we meet people who remind us that the destination is not so important as the journey, which for some will be longer than for others. But you should always have music, and snacks, along the way.

Thank you, Billy. Thank you, thank you.

lisamcc at 11:36 a.m.

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