A Seth Pohorence Pop-Ed: Overcoming the Greatest Addiction

With spring coming around the corner (or for people who live in the northeast, whenever we have our last snowstorm or ice storm), I decided to kick off my spring cleaning. It’s at this lovely time of year I finally decide to get rid of my old crap I don’t need or use.

Last year, I finally said farewell to an old pair of Abercrombie and Fitch cargo pants I bought in high school and proudly wore throughout college. Yes, I know cargo pants are totally not cool anymore. Even a pair that had those extra baggy legs that a family of badgers could live in, but, hell, I spent $50 on the motherf***ers, so I wanted to use them up!

Apart from departing with more worthless college clothing I will never wear again, I finally decided to go through my CD collection. For those reading this under the age of 18, CDs or compact discs were ways people listened to music. They were these discs that were impossible to get the wrapping off of. The CD also helped rid the world of Camelot Music and Tape World stores.

As I decided to purge some of my music, I feel safe in saying I am finally done with my Dave Matthews Band collection. As most of you laugh at me or make fun of me, I’ll wait to let you get it out of your system … Done yet?

For about five glorious years spanning high school and college, I was one of those poor bastards that would listen to Dave Matthews Band or Dave or DMB at a daily pace. Whenever Dave Matthews came to town (which was every three months), I would pay $50 to hear long jam songs and be asked if I was Holden Caulfield or William Holden in the men’s room.

While my friends and I would make fun of anyone asking to hear “Crash Into Me” at the shows, I would pray they would do "Ants Marching" or "Warehouse" or some other song that requires Dave to dance like a kid mid-seizure and make drummer Carter Beauford sweat a great deal. He combated his hot drumming by wearing athletic apparel.

Of course, going to a Dave show is an adventure all its own. Western New York's Darien Lake, with its ample lawn seating, also hosts one of the crappiest sound systems in the universe. So take all those hippy jam band sounds and put them in a wind tunnel but transmitted over an old AM radio receiver.

Dave shows also include high school kids using it as a great place to cop a feel on some girl, drink way too much beer and soak oneself in as much Abercrombie and Fitch cologne needed to mask the reeking smell of weed.

As many people who hate Dave know, this band has a shitload of groupies. Nearly 88 percent of them claim to have been at the infamous Red Rocks show. They always act so cool when making that statement too.

OK, so I’m just doing nothing but mocking Dave or DMB or whatever name you hate reading. I will admit, I was pretty hardcore about it, but not in the sense I would go on about collecting all his live shows … my friends did that. My taste changed when I was in college. One of my professors introduced me to new wave music, which led to becoming a huge Talking Heads fan. This led to building a great love for David Bowie and Blondie.

I don’t regret liking the band. Though I liked a lot of stupid things in high school, like thinking Scarface was a great film. Ugh, if only Seth 2014 could have told Seth 2003 to pick up a copy of Taxi Driver instead of that crap. Hell, I should have told that Seth to buy Eraserhead or Twin Peaks. If only I could get rid of my Barenaked Ladies CDs as well. I’m over that crap too.