It’s Always the Drummer, Pt. 2
April 22, 2015 § Leave a comment
Last year I wrote about David Ryan, onetime drummer for the Lemonheads, who went on to pursue a fiction-writing career and publish a collection of stories, Animals in Motion.
Lately I’ve been listening to another Boston band, the Blake Babies, after finding one of their discs in a used record shop. Their lead singer was Juliana HatfieId, whose albums as both a solo artist and with the Juliana Hatfield Three were pretty well known on Boston radio. It turns out that the Blake Babies’ drummer, Freda Love Smith, is a writer in her own right, having earned a creative writing MA from Nottingham Trent University. She has a story, “After the Thaw,” in SmokeLong Quarterly (Issue 41, 2013):
We were well stocked with cans of soup, packs of batteries, jugs of distilled water, boxes of matches, rolls of wool socks, stacks of blankets. Flashlights. Candles. Powdered milk.
In fact, the days leading up to the storm had been busy and bright. The run to the store, the teasing arguments.
“Snowpocalypse,” he said.
“Snow way,” I said.
“Snowmaggedon,” he said.
“I don’t think snow,” I said.
And we laughed, my husband and I, despite the depth of our disagreement. His sad way of believing whatever people say; my way of believing nothing.
Love Smith works as a lecturer and an advisor for undergraduates in the Department of Radio/Television/Film at Northwestern, and writes a food blog, Lovesmiths.
I expect a Boston drummers’ anthology to make its way into print soon. In the meantime, here’s “Out There,” a song I can’t get out of my head, from the album Sunburn (1990):
Neil Serven 
Leave a Reply