In 1996 I was living in Northampton, MA among the “Five Colleges”. I wasn’t a student, I actually worked two jobs full time: record store clerk by day, restaurant line cook by night, but I pretty much lived the life of a college student, minus the having to go to class and the homework/exams. My girlfriend at the time had mentioned to me that she had recently met the boyfriend of one of her classmates who also attended UMass and that he was really into records but was a bit shy and a little bit of a recluse. Her classmate said that she wished her boyfriend was a little more social. She also told my girlfriend that one of the reasons he doesn’t have many friends was because “a lot of people think he’s a nazi.” That was all I needed to hear to peak my interest so we set up a date for us to hang out. I went over to his apartment with a six pack of beer and some records. We ordered some take out, started chatting and listening to music. His favorite band was Big Dipper. Interesting. He had a quite a few books about WWII on the huge bookshelves that stretched to the ceiling of what was undoubtedly the fanciest student apartment I had ever seen. As we finished the beer and moved onto harder stuff, the music talk moved on to politics and before I knew it he was wearing a military helmet and goose stepping around the apartment shouting in German. I couldn’t believe my luck! It actually turned out that he was a German history major. He was a bit shy and I guess sometimes when he had a few drinks in him he may have gotten a little overexcited and a little loose with the nazi jokes. He was actually a really funny and intelligent guy and I felt lucky to have met him. As a parting gift he gave me a 7″ by his band that he hadn’t mentioned all night. We did one last shot together and he made me promise to let him know what I thought of the record.
The record blew me away. It was impossibly catchy in a way that I can only compare to early Beat Happening, but a little more…”normal”. The music was actually a little stiff for such a DIY affair and there was nothing “punk” about it. The closest thing I could compare it to at the time was maybe Jonathan Richman playing with The Smiths recorded on a two track. Of the six songs on the record, three have the word “friends” in the title, two have the word “party” and the last song is called “Turn the Living Room Into the Dancefloor” which is sung with all the zeal of a Walker brother. There was something very serious about the tone of the songs yet it was undoubtedly tongue-in-cheek in a way that made me feel like I knew it was somehow an in-joke, but I had no idea what the joke was, and there was no way the band was going to let me in on it. My new friend was very happy I liked his band but he didn’t seem convinced that the band would be around that much longer due to the his main collaborator living a few hours away. I was sad to think they’d never write new songs again.
A year or two later I was living in Boston, MA in the Brighton college ghetto and I was neck deep in the nascent “mod scene” centered around dance nights at bars like Common Ground, Phoenix Landing in Cambridge and the Penalty Box next to the Boston Garden. One night at the Common Ground, before the DJ started spinning, a two piece band was setting up which caused everyone I knew and myself to roll our eyes as we were ready to get on the dancefloor and seduce women with our Jarvis Cocker impersonations. When the band started I nearly swallowed the cigarette I was smoking: it was a song from the Umpteens 7″! After a few songs the singer announced his name as “Don Lennon” and continued to play a few other songs from the record as well as a few I’d never heard. As soon as his set was over I ran up to him, stuck out my hand to shake his and proudly said “M___ M______!” the name of my friend back in Northampton. For the first time that night a smile crept across his face and without making eye contact he asked me how I knew him. Turned out they were friends growing up and had started the band together but less than a year before this they had broken up onstage mid song and vowed to never play together again. “Don” decided to continue playing some of the songs they had written together and he was about to release a debut album with a few of the Umpteens song re-recorded. The album, “Maniac”, is as great a listen as the 7″ and takes the monotone faux-serious dark pop of the Umpteens into even more bizarre but catchy territory. There’s a very repetitive quality to a lot of the songs, as if the aforementioned Jonathan Richman was trying to sneak a little Spacemen 3 vibe into his tunes.
For years Don continued to perform around Boston and NY and released a handful of albums before he seemed to disappear. One of those albums was released by Secretly Canadian and got some pretty decent reviews from what I remember. Our old friend who had first given me the Umpteens 7″ is now a pretty successful journalist and podcaster and even has one of those lil blue checks next to his twitter handle. Don’s girlfriend let his real first name slip one night when I was chatting with them after a show and they swore me to secrecy. Even still, I only have a first name to go on and that hasn’t been enough to figure out where he might be now and if he’s still making music.
Last note: I’m not sure how many years ago I started using Discogs, and I’m not sure when the Umpteens 7″ was added to the database or when I added it to my collection, but out of everything I have marked on there as something I own, I’ve had more random Discogs users message me asking if I would sell them my Umpteens 7″ over the years than any other record. I’ve asked a few people how they even knew what it was and I never got a response.
