1 Be Your Own Pet stays on budget at Nashville's Great Escape.
Photo by Rebecca Gillespie
Record Shopping With Be Your Own Pet
Issue #32
The kids really are all right
By Steve Haruch
Published: June 1st, 2007 | 12:00am
Today’s young people sometimes get a bad rap, criticized for being apathetic, spoiled, and, oh yeah, there’s that thing about downloading music illegally. But in this age of file sharing, everyone in Be Your Own Pet chooses to spend his or her share of $50 on vinyl albums instead of easily ripped and distributed CDs. “I was 12 when Napster was big,” bassist Nathan Vasquez says. “And I haven’t used P2P since I started getting paid to make music.” Ethics (depending on how you feel about downloading): check.
When we meet in April at The Great Escape, an independent music-book-comic–toy store about a mile up Broadway from the famed Nashville honky-tonks, the band is preparing to record their first set of demos for a new album, and looking forward to their May tour with Arctic Monkeys. They’re immediately greeted by their manager, who has some business to take care of once she finishes gushing over vocalist Jemina Pearl’s shirt, which Pearl has decorated herself using a marker (it’s a nice rendition of the Ramones logo). Then, it’s down to brass tacks: she asks if the band is willing to donate some of their comp tickets to their concert in Vancouver to a program that brings disadvantaged kids to rock shows. Guitarist Jonas Stein is quick to agree before darting off to dig through a bin of second-hand toys. Altruism: check.
The last member of BYOP to arrive is drummer John Eatherly, who at long last has just received his driver license at age 17. “Finally,” he says, sounding both relieved and genuinely excited. (Eatherly lives in a small town about 20 miles outside of Nashville, and hitching rides with parents or friends was definitely getting old.) He’s the first to pick out an album, the Velvet Underground’s White Light/White Heat. Appreciation of the classics: check.
Vasquez is playing hooky, sort of. “It doesn’t matter what time I go to school,” he says. In a soft voice, Stein explains: “Nathan goes to a very accommodating school.” Vasquez smiles in agreement. “That’s a nice way of putting it,” he says, then heads to the shelves, where he eventually ends up looking at all the Complete Idiot’s Guides to all kinds of things complete idiots probably shouldn’t try to do — like relive their past lives. But Vasquez’s hooked, and he immediately dives in. Book learnin’: check.
The toughest customer at The Great Escape is Pearl. She carries a stack of records around, but isn’t really that interested in any of them. She calls a few friends: “What about these Nuggets compilations?” Meanwhile, Stein has left the toys and picked up The Very Best of Hank Williams. If that sounds a little too Nashville, consider that Willy Mason’s cover of “Lovesick Blues” partly inspired the purchase. Pearl, in the meantime, has grabbed the soundtrack to the movie Meatballs. “I saw it on cable the other day,” she says. Maybe, considering the meteoric (and incredibly level-headed) rise of Be Your Own Pet, she’s buying the album for David Naughton’s disco hit, “Makin’ It.” Sense of awesomeness: check.
And Stein even offers to pay the difference if the band goes over Venus Zine’s $50 budget.
—
Jemina Pearl’s picks
• Kiss, Dynasty
• Various, Meatballs OST
• A Nightmare on Elm Street (VHS)
Guitarist Jonas Stein’s picks
• Hank Williams, The Very Best of Hank Williams
• Emmit Rhodes, Emmitt Rhodes
• Bettie Page postcard
Drummer John Eatherly’s picks
• Velvet Underground, White Light/White Heat
Bassist Nathan Vasquez’s picks
• Fats Domino, Cookin’ With Fats
• Michael R. Hathaway, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Past Life Regression
• The Minutemen, What Makes a Man Start Fires?
TOTAL: $50.61
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