Breaking up is hard to do



It's always sad to see a band go. Last year, Beulah guitarist Bill Swan said on their website that the aptly titled Yoko was going to be their last album and that they were going to "go home to our wives, girlfriends and kids, get real jobs and become adults." The next day, they retracted the announcement. During the recording of Yoko, released September 2003, four out of the six band members broke up with their wives and girlfriends. They finished Yoko, toured Europe and announced their final show, held today at Castle Clinton.



Miles Kurosky has this to say: "What I write about is not so much mortality, but the mortality of being in a band: How long can this last? Here I am in an indie rock band that's done quite well and done a lot of things we never thought we would. We've played festivals, we've been on Conan O'Brien... but at the end of the day I wonder what I've done. All I got is some crow's feet. What's the fucking prize?"



Tonight's Castle Clinton show was fun and yet there was the knowledge at the back of everyone's (or at least mine) minds that the last song tonight is going to be their last song ever. I wonder what it must be like to be in a band for a decade, to record songs, go on tours, be on the road with these guys, who you see more often than you see your own family, and then to just suddenly stop playing together.



At tonight's show, they played my favorite Beulah song at the exact moment that I crossed my fingers and wished they would. For five minutes, I forgot about the craziness at work and having to deal with dishonest siblings and the gnawing fears and doubts I have about my life. At that moment, I was just singularly happy. Music can do that to you, I guess.



In the end that's what really matters: that you've played your songs and have made people happy and made yourself happy. That's the fucking prize.