Seven years ago today, we lost a legend.
(This post is heavily paraphrased from one I wrote a year ago, so if we've been following each other a while, you might recognize the story - this is mostly for the newbies!)
So, here's a bit of a long post/story.
Despite all the weird music I like/listen to, my favorite band will always will be The Smithereens. They play killer British Invasion (and Sabbath/Beach Boys)-inspired rock. Pat DiNizio had the BEST voice and was an INCREDIBLE songwriter, and he passed away today (December 12) in 2017. It still hurts. I was crushed then, and he is still so missed. The Smithereens still tour with other musicians filling in on vocals, just for fun and always in Pat's honor, as he wrote a vast majority of their songs.
So here's the long (but kinda cool/funny) story about Pat, The Smithereens, and one of their biggest hits, "A Girl Like You" (video at the end of this long post!)
I actually got to meet Pat once. He was doing solo acoustic shows across the U.S. and he came to Miami to play Tobacco Road. After his AWESOME solo set (seriously, the guy could play AND sing) I went up to talk to him, my idol, my favorite songwriter ever.
You know how they say never meet your heroes? Pat was a different breed. His songs are all pretty much beautiful or badass love songs, very tight and tidy, great for radio, but the guy goes 'yeah, let's talk, but I gotta take a piss. Come in the bathroom real quick. He's standing there, pissing, and he has the foulest mouth, it's hilarious. He's like fuckin this and that, just the nicest, coolest, funniest down to Earth guy. I was blown away.
Maybe a year later or something, I went to go see The Smithereens live at a festival with my sister. They did a lot of those. (I saw them a total of like, 4 or 5 times I think.)
My sister and I are down in the crowd, and I tell her 'I'm gonna wave at him, I met him recently, maybe he'll recognize me'. And she goes, 'maybe, but I doubt it'. I wave, Pat INSTANTLY recognizes me from stage, and points down at me, and smiles. The man was a LEGEND.
So here's maybe one of their biggest hit songs, "A Girl Like You" (another big one of theirs is "Blood and Roses"). You might recognize one, or both.
The story with "A Girl Like You" is that it was written for the soundtrack to the movie Say Anything (with John Cusack, one of my favorite movies) - but the people doing the movie thought it gave away too much of the plot, so it wasn't included.
Joke was on them though, it became one of the Smithereens' biggest songs.
I'm such a huge fan. I have vinyls, press kits, I adore this band. If you've read this far, you're amazing.
And if you've never heard them, you're in for a treat:
"Fight, fight, fight!
The Itchy & Scratchy Show!!"
) and I found this GREAT fan-made video for it that really sums up the whole thing.