The City Veins

The headline somewhat implies that there have been many members of The City Veins, but alas, we have only ever had four members.  Adam Bayes, once lead guitar and hummingbird for The City Veins (I will explain this later) was married in Geneva, NY to the lovely and surprisingly rational Haley McCoy in front of 70 or so people.  As a result Adam is officially done rocking.  I have declared this to be so.

There are many opinions regarding Adam’s bow from City Veins’ grace around September of last year.  While Adam was able to leave quite gracefully in this public forum, the reasons he gave have since been made obsolete by the events of the past six months.  I stand by my assertion that he chose to drop out of the band primarily as a result of his relationship and NOT because of discontent related to the band.  Others, I’m sure, would disagree.  I’m sure that he genuinely felt his relationships with members of the band had become strained and that elements of the “small local band” process had become disheartening, but that’s putting the cart before the horse.  He simply had less patience for those things because his interests had moved elsewhere.  This is not an indictment, just an observation.  Certainly, choosing to commit your life to someone else is a fine reason for leaving a band.

The wedding was very nice.  The lake was beautiful, and it was clear from everything that occurred that Bayes had actually thought about what he wanted in a wedding.  Aside from the fact that Haley did not want to walk down the aisle but was forced to by the laws of physics, they managed to put together the very low-key wedding that they wanted.  It was evident from those events that this was not something that was happening on a whim.  And Bayes looked very happy, which I hadn’t seen him in a long time.

Back to Adam leaving the band.  It has long been my feeling that it was very difficult for someone to sustain a serious relationship while also playing in the band.  This has nothing to do with women throwing themselves at “rockstars”, because that has never happened to me (though I’ve also never had any degree of stardom).  Primarily, this is a result of the emotional energy that each takes in order to be successful.  I have had failed relationships because of bands, and I left a band for a relationship.  It’s a hard thing to do both and do them well enough for them to work.  Maybe I’ve finally learned this trick.  Or maybe Rachel is just that good.  But this is what I mean when I say Adam is done rocking forever.  He’s married, which is likely permanent, and he’ll never be able to go back to a point where he can devote himself to a band, which means at the very least that he can never be in a band as I’ve known them.

Oh, and the hummingbird:  on-stage, it always looked as if Bayes was not moving much.  However, in every picture he is blurry, streaking from side to side, while everyone else was still.  The theory is that he was moving too fast for the naked eye, and that this movement could only be captured by digital camera.  There you go.

Congrats, Adam.

People remember:  June 6th, Iota, CD release.  June 14th, Arlene’s Grocery, NYC, CD release.  Get there.