Published at 2:54 PM on October 10, 2007

By Austin L. Ray

Josh Ritter - 10/9/07 - Backstage Graffiti Vol. I - Pearl Street

Dear Diary

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A Scrawled Note on Graffiti

I’m sitting backstage at Pearl Street in Northampton, Massachusetts and thinking that along with my normal entries I’d like to send in some of my favorite pieces of backstage graffiti from the places we visit on this tour.  Pearl Street, which no one could accuse of being anything other than a rock room, has a great collection and while not the Sistine Chapel of backstage graffiti, it probably comes close to an Uffizi. 

Now, we live in a multimedia, terabyte, full throttle digital world, where the real and the concrete don’t always mean the same thing, so it’s not surprising that a rock band would want to leave its mark on the world in some way just to prove they were here and they RAWKED.  Occasionally these bands and performers manage to make their mark on society and culture through music.  Sitting backstage at Pearl Street however, it’s plain that far more often, we use sharpies.

I’ve never been one to leave stickers or names or anything like that on the walls but like almost everyone I’m still a big fan of this type of literature.  The backstage of a place like this is the modern equivalent of a cave wall, and in general these cave walls belie the fact that despite the many achievements of Homo Erectus, the development of a written language being a particularly big feather in our large headed hats, we are still our father’s sons in the evolutionary sense. 

My classification are subject to change as the tour goes on, but in general the stuff falls into six categories:

1.Band Self Reference/Extollation (“The Suburban Legends are Dance Machines!”, “Cobra: Bites Once, Strikes Twice!”)
2.Band to Band Messages (“X and the Y’s LOOOOVES/HAAAAATES A and the B’s”)
3.Anatomically Fantastical Pictorial Scenarios.  These are often pretty basic, but occasionally can be raised to the realm of actual art by the cleverness of the artist. When I find one, we can test Paste’s legal department.
4.Stickers/Posters (“In Dreams We Die”: Appearing Live!)
5.Actual Artwork (Occasionally you do see something really beautiful on the walls)
6.Pithy Sayings (“I Heart Jeethuth”, “Cargo pants are not pants”, and the old war horse, “I’m Here Because I did Drugs in High School”)

So, over the course of this trip I’ll be sending in some photos of my favorite backstage wall art.  My thanks to the artists, Cro Magnon or otherwise…







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