Afternoon Baseball

And Sublime became a band in retrospect only. Their self-titled, grandest album, with a mix of styles and catchy hooks in the context of three talented guys who clicked when playing together, was instead a posthumous salute.
All their fame was after the band no longer existed -- yet they were contemporaries, and friends, of No Doubt, who headlined a tribute show after Nowell's death.
Ironically, their earlier releases gained in popularity, and a whole generation knows the early signs of talent in "Smoke Two Joints," "Date Rape," "40 Oz. To Freedom," "Greatest Hits," "Work That We Do," and "All You Need," among others.

I'm one of the many (the most) that's playing catch-up, not having really heard them until after Nowell was dead. Is it the best music I have? Not really, but it's stuff you can always come back to, that never quite gets old.

So anyways, here we are 10 years later, is there much notice? Maybe there shouldn't be; after all, it's a sad memory, and God knows there's been way too many rip-off albums put out that have no new material and seek only to profit ("Secondhand Smoke" being the main exception).

LA Weekly has a piece on how Sublime's influence is at once nil and yet powerful in various circles.

But that's mostly it. There's a small piece on a band, Slightly Stoopid, that was discovered by Nowell and now is on Surfdog Records, which also has a few other bands, including the favorite band of this blog, the seemingly-defunct Echobrain.

So 10 years later, there's a whole college-and-older crowd that's still into the band, which is great. They are up high in Facebook rankings for music, which means something, I guess. But that's going to pass sooner than later, I'm afraid. I was not yet 13 when Nowell died, and 14-15 when "Sublime" became a hit. College freshmen in September will have been between 7 and 9 in that same span.

Biggest example of this slippage? May of 2005, the last night before senior week started, and I was drinking with virtually every underclassman I wanted to see -- it was spectactular luck, I have to say. Anyways, at one point my buddy, um, Buddy, cranks up "Smoke Two Joints" and we are loving it. But we look around and most of them know the song, but only about half can place it. And we shake our heads.

That's how it goes. There's too many humans, too short a timespan, to remember everyone. Maybe some day there'll be a revival, but until then, enjoy what's there, and hope that the next great band can actually live long enough to make it -- and talk about it.