Relationship Of Command

Is there a greater metaphor for the final initial run of At the Drive-In than Icarus?  The closer to the sun they flew the more their wings melted.  The greater to success, the greater the chaos.  Even for a band as notoriously energetic as At the Drive-In, the tours supporting Vaya and Relationship of Command were especially frenetic and dilapidated.  

The work ethic these individuals had exuded for nearly a decade had finally caught up to them just as they were about to be successful.  Endless years of playing shows for months straight to nearly empty rooms, traveling across the country over and over, sleeping in basements, and eating crummy food had finally bore fruit for them.

It is hard to really convey how much of a grind those years were, even through extensive research by dedicated fans we don’t know every show they played over the roughly five years before things finally began to explode.  Even then, that explosion wasn’t particularly fast.  

At The Marble Shrine we decided to begin the Relationship of Command era at the beginning of 1999.  One could argue this is too soon, but we decided that it should include Vaya’s era of relevance as well.  Vaya is a clear turning point for the band, a shift from the so called “emo” sound with jangly guitar riffs and thinner sounds to a harsher, heartier, and fuller sound with sharp edges.  The shift is significant and while they still aren’t going to be headlining most shows, their fanbase continues to blossom.  You also start to see venues you actually recognize like The Troubadour and fewer shows in VFW halls, illegal punk rock spots, or living rooms.  1999 is when the momentum starts to work on their side.  

1999 starts much like 1998, and endless onslaught of cross country shows, but again, they are shows at places we recognize; real venues with the potential for real audiences.  More recordings also begin to surface during this time and the upward shift in quality and cohesion continues much like in 1998.  Yes, of course, the concerts are chaotic, this is not going to ever change, it is an expectation for an At the Drive-In show but the ballistic nature is paired with solid chops.  The songs are performed well, although Cedric does sometimes choose to run around so much he has no air to sing, and Omar will also sometimes opt for chaotic guitar noises rather than performing the actual song.

In early Spring the band embarks on their second European tour, and again, the difference is significant with actually promoted shows with known venues instead of a bunch of show dates with a “venue to be determined.” They really seem like a proper band now.

They would return to the United States as Spring began to close, continuing their endless run of gigs including a performance at This Ain’t No Picnic, a festival they would return to a few years later as The Mars Volta.  In July the band would celebrate the release of their follow-up to In/Casino/Out, the short but punchy Vaya, with back to back shows in their hometown of El Paso.  One would think that just releasing a new collection of music and being in your hometown would indicate it is a good time to pause, reflect, and rest, but as the theme of this should indicate there was no stopping this train. 

I am left wondering, would halting the endless forward momentum have saved the band from its impending implosion?  Would it have granted everyone the opportunity to release the crushing pressure and save their friendships?  Would it have helped curtail the growing substance use problems?  On the other hand we must also consider do we get to see these guys on a mainstage at Big Day Out without the brutal touring schedule.  Perhaps these new glimmers of attention and recognition gave too much indication that stopping now was the wrong decision; the sun and glory days were just over the next hill and pushing even harder would allow for them to reach them.  The rest of the year would see nearly endless touring, with only brief reprieves in September and December.  The growing availability of recordings continue to prove they were becoming stronger as a band and while their performances were chaotic they could get to the end of them.  That and the very first song of the coming era was played live, Catacombs.

2000 would be the year for At the Drive-In, the year the spark turned into a raging inferno at an unbelievable pace, and the cracks in the foundation began to expand.  The recent release of If This Ever Gets Weird documents the beginning of 2000, with the band heading to Indigo Ranch to record the most successful release, Relationship of Command, footage of which shows the growing fissure between Cedric and Omar and the rest of the members.  Cedric and Omar traveled by themselves to the studio and chose to stay there while the other three would venture into the city below.  The duo, left to their own devices, began to experiment with music and use copious amounts of crack cocaine, with Omar’s use being more problematic.

The footage, to me, is telling, a band that has pushed themselves so aggressively only for the fatigue to begin really sinking in.  The explosions of song-writing brilliance are dogged by the metaphorical cabin fever of their touring.  The cracks in the foundation are audible.  Selfishly, this tension may have been detrimental to health and friendships, but it did lead to one of the greatest albums of 2000 and arguably the decade.  

Of course, three months off the road was unacceptable and after recording they immediately returned to touring.  The first known show of the tour in March of 2000 debuted One Armed Scissor, Arcarsenal, and Pattern Against User, three of the more popular songs from the upcoming release.  These few US based shows would be the warm-up before their return to Europe.  As I have joked before, their presence had grown considerably and the venues, actually known locations.  In May their next milestone would hit, playing in Japan for the first time.  The Summer months would give them a chance to play music festivals like Summer Sonic and Reading Festival.  

Their Summer would conclude with their, at the time, release of their final album, Relationship of Command on September 12th.  Viewed in the narrative of the band, it truly is the culmination of the six years of work that had been put into the band.  The production is sharp, polished, and clear, the songs are matured, and it released on a larger label.  Viewed in the broader context of music at the time it was a sharp rebuke of the trending Nu-Metal skullduggery that was exploding in popularity.  The sonics were edgier, thinner, sharper, and willing to pull the on the brakes for moments of sorrow such as on Invalid Litter Dept.

Looking at the top selling albums of the 2000, there was no way At the Drive-In was going to hit the numbers of sales titans like The Marshall Mathers LP, Hybrid Theory, or No Strings Attached, but it would spark hype in the general public, and more important for the future, other musicians.  

Dropping their most successful album to date was merely a pin-drop in this timeline as the touring never stopped, shooting across the United States At the Drive-In was playing their biggest venues to date, proper midsize theatres with proper sound systems and the ability to have proper audiences.  Not only that, they were headlining those shows, no longer relegated to trying to win over a crowd with only 30 minutes of pandemonium.  Finally, they could stretch their wings and show the country and the world what they could do with a full time slot.

There is this overarching narrative throughout the At the Drive-In story so far, one of this near cosmic force pushing back against the band, like a relentless tide refusing to let a ship out to sea.  In their years getting to this point they faced (allegedly) manipulative members, deaths, car crashes, a lack of interest, and other cascading hardships.  It is around this point where the paradigm shifts. The winds no longer are blowing against them, but at their backs and at a level so powerful it seems the have no idea what to do with it.

It has taken us a long while to get to the breaking point of At the Drive-In and in the lead-up I have been wary of how I wanted to write what we knew was coming.  Writing paragraph after paragraph of incremental success and overwhelming hardship has made the coming car crash all the clearer.  When spending years as the underdog, fighting vigorously for any minute morsel of attention, and scraping every penny to survive how do you react when suddenly everyone who was against you wants to act like they never were?  How do you respond to the promoters who had denied you or the bouncers who threw you out of the venue thinking you weren’t part of the show welcome you with open arms?  How do you treat the audience that used to ignore you or throw things at you who are now fawning over your every word?  Even worse, how do you respond to the growing adoration of ‘At the Drive-In’ when they still scream racial and homophobic slurs at individual band members; when afros and tight pants are more a point of focus than the lyrics depicting mass murder of women in Mexico?  How and why do you choose to participate in the machine when your years of hard work are reduced to a cardboard cutout?

This is the paradigm shift that happens in the late Summer and early Autumn in 2000.  The winds shift rapidly and the enemies are now your friends.  The wind is now with you and its blowing far more intense than you can ever have imagined.  The change is sudden, rapid, and vexing.  I think it is rational to think this would lead many a person to fold under the pressure, and fold is what happens.  Can you see At the Drive-In perform on Letterman’s show?  Yes, and you can also see their live performances slowly turn in cascading disasters.  The raw energy of just earlier this year becomes for more combustible, volatile, and unhinged.  The harnessed focused they had developed over their years on the road has now gone supernova, and out of control.  Worse than that, the audience of punks, outsiders, and hardcore heads has become hypermasculinized, meat-headed, and violent.  Moshing takes over and people are getting hurt.  Shows have to be halted so people can calm down.  The intensity of this success seems all too much for the five El Paso vagabonds.  Omar hurls his guitar more than once during a live studio performance.  Is it Rock ‘n Roll or a cry for mercy?  Judging from If This Ever Gets Weird, its the latter.  Autumn concludes their final United States tour, playing their biggest shows to date and aside from one London gig in 2001, their final tour of the United Kingdom.

Time to rest?  Time to celebrate all that has come of their hard work?  No, no rest, no recovery.  Two weeks into January they back at it, first a run through Japan and then to Australia which leads to three interesting points of interest.  First, yes, we all know the infamous Big Day Out performance on January 26th, 2001.  For the uninformed who have chosen to read this long, after three songs the band had become far too disheartened by the out of control audience that they chose to walk off stage following a taunting chastising by Cedric filled with sheep imitations and probably some crack cocaine.  While At the Drive-In’s music was a strong antidote of Nu-Metal tidal wave, this did not mean the audience was having the same interest in rejecting the musical zeitgeist.  We were only about 18 months removed from Woodstock ’99 and the brutal machismo of the times continued to permeate, keynoted by the death of an attendee later in the day caused by the out of control nature of the audience. 

Second, the band sounds rough, Cedric sounds exhausted.  Perhaps this is the injection of hindsight, but they do not sound well.  The self-immolation is apparent, which makes their coming collapse relatively apparent to anyone paying a modicum of attention.  

Third, and circling back to an earlier point, what makes this show so interesting is a small little hype package that was made before their performance.  Multiple musicians are interviewed before this disastrous performance and asked who they want to see and the overwhelming response is At the Drive-In.  These guys were clearly making music for musicians and were inspiring them.  It is a small detail, but one worth hitting on.  

At the Drive-In played two more shows in the following two days.  Not giving themselves anytime to reflect on how the foundation was collapsing beyond a point of return.

The following Euro tour in February is more of the same, chaos, exhaustion, and  disillusion.  The recordings of these shows are pretty painful to watch.  No one looks happy, everyone is tired, and all their success now seems to be a curse.  New behind the scenes footage from the movie show an exhausted Omar frozen in place, incapable of playing to an increasingly violent, macho, and angry audience.  On February 21st, 2001 it all finally collapsed.  Following the performance they declared it was too much.  At the Drive-In was fundamentally broken and could not continue at this time.  A historic rule was activated in that a member could declare a hiatus if needed.  The rest of the tour was cancelled.  Paul, Tony, and Jim went home.  Omar and Cedric met with Ikey and Jeremy and completed a tour as De Facto throughout March.  The rest of that history is covered elsewhere.

If This Ever Gets Weird reveals that, allegedly, Jim had made efforts to start booking shows again for September, shortly after the hiatus was declared,  which was the final straw that broke the camel’s back and led to the 11 year hiatus.  

I am left wondering if At the Drive-In would have recovered had it been given the time to reconvene and if so what would have that looked like?  Later interviews are filled with revisionist history and it is hard to really consider if there could have been a future for the band.  Omar and Cedric clearly had interest in different musical endeavors, with demos for The Mars Volta coming to fruition mere months after At the Drive-In’s halting.  It seems he was ready for the next thing and if more recent history is anything to educate us on, Omar has no problem dropping and picking up projects with barely a moment’s notice.  Even without this allegedly slighting via booking efforts, I still see a future where At the Drive-In is halted, perhaps with less of a pointed justification.  

As much as Omar and Cedric vilify Jim I do have some empathy for him.  He worked, seemingly, just as hard as anyone else and at his age was excited to see that success blossom.  Even if it was overwhelming or hard to grab on to I can imagine many people wanting to try and get a grip on that once in a lifetime moment.  Even if you have to bend yourself in a logistical pretzel to get there, why would you not want to celebrate it or at the very least take full advantage of the opportunity granted?

The end of At the Drive-In is full of hypotheticals, what ifs, and other types of hand-wringing.  I find myself eager to postulate endless questions and scenarios.  Most importantly, however, I am left with empathy for these five, and to be fair, the ones who did not make it to that stage in Australia.  At the Drive-In, in the end, was five wayward souls of varying corners of El Paso, but those were not the five that started back in 1994.  It is a sage of pain and sacrifice in order to finally reach the apex of success, only for the crushing weight of a lack of mourning for that history to finally suffocate it.  There are didactic feelings of understanding why they couldn’t stop, lest we  forget the fear of losing the tiny bits of momentum they were building.  At the same time we have to wonder what could have happened if they had given themselves any chance to breathe, recover, and heal from the crushing abuse they put themselves through.  It is easy to feel both sad and angry toward those young men who brutalized themselves for their art.  

It is why I get frustrated when their story is reduced to the finale of this initial saga rather than the totality of the journey.  The ending is the juicy bit, but lacks the soul of them crisscrossing America and Europe in hopes of someone giving a shit about who they were.  It is a humanizing and relatable story, of how hard we as people sometimes have to work in order to feel like anyone cares about us.  At the Drive-In is the story of being human, the hurt, the sacrifice, and occasional triumph that comes with it.    It is relatable in that regard, the saga of being a burgeoning adult in this unforgiving world.  Fortunately, for all of them they would have other chances at that top of the summit.  This was just the first mountain in the range.