The first order of business was to form a band. I thought that'd be a good place to start. I knew my brother Matt was moving back to town so obviously, he was going to be the drummer. Then I thought it'd be a good idea to ask buddies who like sports to fill the other spots. That way, there would never be an issue with band practice if there was a big game on because we'd ALL want to watch it! I knew Richard Mikulka was a big baseball fan and even though his team is the Mets, I decided to ask him anyway. He joined up on guitar. Our mutual friend Chuck Bradburn, Braves fan, was asked and accepted the bass role. We had ourselves a band! Now, we needed a name.
Our old friend Z-Dog always likes to remind me and my brother of a very short-lived punk band that we formed in high school called The Dead Lane Boys. So that was it, that was going to be the name of our new band, The Dead Lane Boys. Hmmm. Most people thought it was dumb. Honestly, I kinda did, too. That joke quickly died off and we shortened it to just The Lanes. We had a name. Now, we needed songs.
I figured six songs would be plenty for a debut show, right? Ok, six songs, I can do this. I've never been a very prolific writer so I came up with an idea to get me going. I would write these six songs, one each in the style of a band that I love. First up was "Only In A Dream," inspired by Weezer's beautifully epic "Only In Dreams." Our song sounds nothing like their's but that was kind of the idea. I just needed a jumping off point. Next was a Teenage Fanclub salute, "All I'm Wanting's You." I wanted to write my very own "What You Do To Me" (it's not as easy as it sounds folks, we've since scratched this one from the set). Next up was an attempt to write an answer song to The Zombies' "Maybe After He's Gone." Ours is called "Now That He's Gone." Well, maybe not exactly an answer song but you get the point. The fourth one was "My Mistakes," an attempt to mimic the throbbing sound of The Strokes but it has a sort of psychedelic spin to it. Four songs, almost there! Just two more. We gotta have a Ramones song, right? That turned into "Never Enough," just a pure, straight rocker. I had five songs now. I just needed one more. For the last one I had a little different idea, I thought I'd just lift lines here and there from songs that I love. Don't look at me like that, time was running out! That ended up being what I jokingly refer to as our power ballad, "Good Times Will Come Again." Boom! Six songs, I did it. Now, we just needed to learn them.
We rehearsed our little six song set for a couple of months. After some great ideas and changes to the songs from Matt, Richard, and Chuck, we were ready to roll! We played our first show at the 2011 Americana Festival to a good crowd at Little Kings. It went off without a hitch, pretty much. It felt great. We did it.
We could not be happier to be sharing the stage this Saturday at the 40 Watt with one of my all-time favorite bands, The Rock*A*Teens! I knew when they split up in 2002 that even if they DID never play another show, we hadn't heard the last of this band. Records that good aren't just forgotten about. Sometimes it just takes a while for the world to catch on. There had been rumblings over the past couple of years of a reunion, but now it's actually happening. And they're playing the goddamn 40 Watt, right down the damn street! Don't be crazy. Go see them play this weekend. I wouldn't miss it for the world. Hope to see you there!
-Kevin Lane
