A song about connection, friendship, belonging, trust, cherished local dive bars, rainy streets, and whiskey.


The Background

In high school, I played in a Butt Rock band called The Shades. We were a drummer and two guitarists forever in search of a singer who could sing the AC/DC songs we loved. It turns out that playing the guitar parts is pretty easy, and singing the vocal lines is very hard, most singers can't do it. We also lacked a bass player, but someone knew someone who knew someone and we were introduced to a new wave guy who was willing to play butt rock with us: Chris Mirabueno, now of Seattle Jangle Pop band 86 Miles. Chris and I became pals in high school, but drifted apart after graduation, and didn't see one another for decades until we bumped into each other at the grocery store 5 years ago. It turned out that we were neighbors. We fell back in as pals, and got into the habit of meeting for weeknight drinks at Olaf's bar in Seattle, a cool old 50's style joint with tater tots, booth seating, and plenty of whiskey. Whatever state we found ourselves in at the end of night, Chris' girlfriend Kelly would come pick us up at the bar, drop me off, and then take Chris home. She deserves a medal. A side effect of living in a town like Seattle where many people move for high end jobs is that the regular people that were here before those jobs tend to leave for cheaper pastures. The middle class folks that I went to public high school with in the inexpensive Seattle of the 1980s have mostly moved away by now. I don't normally run into many actual locals. This leaves me feeling a little lost at times, like I don't know anyone who really understands where I come from or who have shared in the formative moments that made an Ean Hernandez. A night out for drinks with Chris is a real treasure because we are both from here, came up in bands here, ran in the same high school crowd here, and I feel like I'm talking to someone who really gets me. This is a pretty rare feeling for me in 2023.


The Idea

One night after a few drinks with Chris at Olafs, Kelly came to pick us up like usual. She took a slightly wandering route through the streets and neighborhoods, and somewhere between the drinks, the rain on the streets, and the warmth of connection, the view out the window took on a dreamy character for me. I don't take drugs, but I do have the occasional 15 minutes where what I see probably isn't 100% lined up with what everyone else sees, the world gets staticy and dreamy from where I'm sitting. This was just one of those nights where that happened. The street lights seemed far away and blurry like stars, some papers blowing around on the sidewalk seemed important somehow. As each car passed, I looked at the windows and imagined a scene playing out inside. It occurred to me that for a moment, the occupants of both cars shared the same space in the universe, like a parallel universe that we can't see. As my ride home wound down, I was pretty quiet and sleepy. It's a wonderful thing to have friends that you can nod to and mumble a quiet goodbye at without fear of under-engaging, folks that are as comfortable with you as you are with them.



Later on, it occurred to me that to some degree, my blissed out state may have been as much due to the feeling of warmth in friendship as to the bourbon. I think both must be equally intoxicating.



Making the Song

When I started writing this song, it was titled "Thank You 70's Punks". Here is an early demo. I wrote the intro guitar line after I watched a facebook short where one of the Gallagher brothers from Oasis was talking about Steve Jones' intro guitar line in the Sex Pistols song Pretty Vacant, which he thought (and I agree) was genius. Just a simple little line picking over an A5 or "power" chord as we call them in rock and roll. I stole this idea, changed it around a bit, and came up with the intro to the song. The verse is my idea of a stompy Georgia Satellites progression, with the classic Sicko switch from palm-mutes to a louder and revoiced 2nd half of the verse, where I tried to invoke Guided By Voices' atmospheric 2nd guitar from My Valuable Hunting Knife. The chorus was just my (probably wrong) idea of what the Jam would play there, since Denny's into the Jam these days I do spend a certain amount of time asking myself What Would Denny Do? (WWDD) He is definitely one of my favorite songwriters.

Back to the 70's Punks, I am indeed very thankful for their risks taken, frontiers opened, and oppressions endured, for the vision they had and the trails they blazed, whether we are talking about Stiff Little Fingers or Black Flag, or even the Sex Pistols. We in punk truly stand on the shoulders of giants. However, The problem with the Thank 70's Punks idea was that I was struggling to nail down vignettes to draw my lyrics from, and as we were close to starting the recording session I didn't really have the time or energy to do a deep dive on a subject like I did for "Smart Punks" (I'll talk about that process in a later mail). In a nice turn of events in my living room chair, I hit on the idea of telling a story a little closer to home, and the whole thing came tumbling out over a few evening chair sessions. At this time, the Subjunctives were several months into the process of rehearsing for the Let's Try This Again sessions, two sets in a row twice a week, which it turns out is a lot for us physically but does make us into a pretty cohesive unit. We were only a few weeks away from flying out to Chicago for the session, and still needed a few songs, so I showed this one to the band. Wendell found the beat almost immediately, and Jeff noodled around a bit, quickly finding the lovely walking bass line that sews the verses together behind my simple chords… verse: DGDA, chorus: GAD. The time constraint pushed us to make our arrangement and voicing decisions quickly, and the song was done in one or two practices with less than a dozen plays through. I really like the way that urgency forces economy and compels a simpler, more true-to-the-band song. I feel like this is one the most "The Subjunctives" songs on the Album.