The Sebastian Bach Paradox

The Sebastian Bach Paradox has come to light recently, as the cool/cheese/wrong/geek/bad/retro worlds have all collided and smashed into tiny bits.

My talent (?) as a writer cannot do this subject justice due to the complexity. I can only do this chronologically. See if you can follow. Spare your judgments until you have read the salient information in its entirety. And then, and only then, do I kindly ask for your help in telling me what to think.

First, I was born in 1968. Then, in 1975, I started playing drums. By 1980, I was 12, and I was okay at the instrument. Not bad actually. The late ‘70s, and I have chronicled this before, was bereft of good music in the Chicago suburbs. Far removed from the hipness of the East Village, I was left with REO Speedwagon.

Then. Late ’80. Rush. Moving Pictures. Changed my world. Changed everything. My obsession with the band was embarrassingly thorough from 1980 until 1986. I wasn’t aware that liking the band was a bad idea until I showed up at music school in 1987. Me and my Rush records went underground as I attempted to act “cool” and like jazz fusion (Minor story digression: Hiding Rush records in favor of fusion is, indeed, as pathetic as it sounds. I am NOT making an argument for fusion. I am merely recounting the facts. The story of my musical taste winds up with a good ending, but not until about 1991, 1994, then 1999, and then again recently.)

Back to the story. I’ve still bought the new Rush records out of an obligation to my adolescence, and to the fact that I learned a lot of drumming from my 6 year immersion. I don’t talk about it, except with my friend E who is also an embarrassingly pathetic fan who has also led the confusing life of a longtime fan of a geeky Canadian rock power trio.

And this is where we find the beginning of the Sebastian Bach Paradox. Being a Rush fan is confusing.

Teo, is that your point? No. As Wallace Shawn said in the Princess Bride, “Wait ‘til I get going!”

Sebastian Bach. An odd man with an odd bit of 1990s fame, a tall man, a loud man, a guy from Jersey with an hysterical stage name, and a guy that never really did much for me as a musician when he was selling millions with Skid Row. They were huge in the early ‘90s, and they were fine, but I wasn’t in that world. I was kinda tuned into them for a while because (musician name-dropping warning here) I recorded a record in the same studio where they recorded a record. That doesn’t mean anything at all, other than at the time, it’s what my band (real name: Trainwreck) told people whom we wanted to impress with our rockness.

Then music changed, Skid Row stopped selling records, I moved out of Jersey a couple times, and we find ourselves in 2002 or so. I see Sebastian Bach is playing on Broadway, and I kind of though, “Oh,” and that’s about it. Then we find ourselves in 2005, and one of those MTV or VH1 shows shows a glimpse of good ole S.B. at his house in Jersey with his wife. Seems like a nice, funny, kinda wacky guy, in a now-I’m-rich-and-a-little-fat kind of way. He was kind of endearing.

THEN, it’s 2006, and I watch an episode of The Gilmore Girls, and I guess they have this band that’s part of one of the side-story lines, and it’s a cover band that is pretty funny in how they “bring the rock” and such. They’re bad, but they’re good bad, and they’re funny. And they’re doing this funny version of a Gwen Stefani song, you know, the "Hollaback Girl" one about bananas. So it’s recent. And it’s funny. And I look up from my book, and there’s Sebastian Bach, on the Gilmore Girls, singing a Gwen Stefani song, about not being a Hollaback Girl.

Do you see how worlds are starting to collide? Not finished yet.

Not only is he doing the funny cover on G.G., but he acts a little, and he flat-out cracks me up. I’m sitting there trying to explain the incongruity of all of this to LB, who has an idea of the incongruity of it due to my sudden interest in the G.G., but really, unless you knew the world of Skid Row and S.B., you really can’t understand the brilliance of that casting decision.

And at that point, I decided, Sebastian Bach is cool. I will defend Sebastian Bach. He is okay.

Last week.

Flipping cable, I run across VH1, which apparently is now the heavy metal channel (an entire separate blog post on that one, to be sure). Anyway, there’s Sebastian, along with some other metal guys. And they are in a new reality show about a new supermetalgroup for the purposes of getting some VH1 ratings. Fine! There’s Sebastian. My guy. I defend Sebastian. I watch for a while, mildly intrigued.

Sebastian Bach was wearing a Rush t-shirt.

The paradox.

Does this now mean that Rush is cool? My instinct says no. But we have retro (it was a shirt from 1980 or ’81, and believe me I would know, and that was a good era for the band). And we have S.B., who freaking played a Gwen song on G.G. and sold it, and we have a guy who I actually think kind of believes in his music, even if it doesn’t sell records anymore, and we have kind of a good guy, and one who is comfortable enough in his own skin to do the Gwen/G.G. thing and also a cheesy reality show and also wear a Rush t-shirt throughout the whole episode.

So,
#1 is Sebastian Bach cool?

And,
#2 is Rush cool?

If no to #1, then how do we explain the Gwen/G.G. thing?
And if yes to #1, then how do we answer #2? Does this vindicate my decision to purchase this album in 1982? Or this one in 2002?

I do not know what to make of any of that.