Rich writes:
In college, I worked for our college radio station. I loved it and had way too much fun. I also was fired three times and then hired back, and eventually got a coveted executive board position with my own shared office and personal phone and desk. But that is another story.
So, I get fired, and to get back my shift, I was told that I could slave away in the library reviewing the stacks of CDs that no one got around to checking out. It wasn't a bad way to spend a few hours, but these were all the records that didn't make the first cut, so they were generally bad and/or mediocre.
This was 1990, and one of the CDs I had to review was by this band the Rembrandts - the band who's music was later used to maximum annoyance on TV's Friends.
This was a pretty cornball album, and I was thoroughly bored by whole thing, and wrote a smart-ass review of it with the key point being that the only song to play on it was the one that was 58 seconds long.
I smirked, stuck the review in the jewel case, and put it in the 'Done' box and went on to the next one.
Eric Writes:
I went to the same college (and worked at the same radio station) as Rich. Back then I only knew of him peripherally. We weren't friends or anything, but I had seen him around.
To me, the best thing about the radio station was the fact that my musical taste veered sharply from what passed as playlist material. What this meant to me was that the radio station would toss aside the kind of CD's I would normally buy. So instead of having them just sit there, doomed to a life of neglect, I'd sneak them out and give them a loving home in my collection.
One day I found a CD by a group called The Rembrandts in the box of cast-off discs. I had read some things about them, and they seemed like a cool band, so I took it. I gave it a listen and it wasn't bad. It was definitely not college radio fare. Sort of like the Everly Brothers from a vocal harmony point of view, with a touch of Crowded House here and there. The lyrics WERE cheesy, but then I've never worried about the word part all that much if the music was okay. Speaking of words, one day I was flipping through the album's booklet, when out falls a little piece of paper. I unfold the paper to see the following written on it...
"Um...I would classify this as Top 40. Reminds me of The Hooters or The Squeeze. I didn't find the "good" tracks that good. Too safe! Too cliché! Track 8 or 9 are cool if you play this (esp. #8).
Rich B."
Indeed, as Rich stated earlier, track 8 is only 25 seconds long! It's an instrumental intro to track 9 which is only 1:28! At any rate, it was clear that the person who wrote this was not a fan. But it gave me a good laugh and I kept that review in the CD, where it remains to this day.
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Conclusion (by Rich)
Years later after college, we all move to the same coastal town where we eat, drink, and smooch people as much as possible - kind of an after college party for a few years. I meet Eric and he seems nice and funny (or nicely funny), and we hang out and do goofy crap.
One night the band the Rembrandts comes up. I say something in my usual stupid manner like, "oh god I hate that band", and we discuss that for a bit, and then I mention once having to listen to a whole album of theirs just to review it for the radio station.
Neither of us knows exactly what happened after that, but it was basically Eric realizing that he was talking to the turd-head who panned a cd he owned and kind of liked. A turd-head who wrote this really smart ass review that he looks at everytime the plays the cd.
I think to add some flare to the story, we should of gotten into a fist fight or something, but we didn't. We just stood there and chuckled about it.
Meaningless, yet true.
