Sad sad me

About two months ago, a member of The Nixons called us to ask why we had it in for his band after an especially snide reference to the group's latest album, the appropriately titled Latest Thing. What exactly, he wondered, was our problem? (It's not like he's alone.) A few weeks later, after our less-than-favorable review of the disc appeared (Out Here, April 6), he called back to inform us that, in the spirit of competition, he'd written a song about us, and he was going to try to get the band to add it to the set list. We didn't really think much of it at the time, assuming that if the group ever did play the song, it would be behind the closed doors of a rehearsal room.

So we were a bit surprised when a friend of ours called from Starplex Amphitheatre, the site of this year's April 29 installment of EDGE Fest, to tell us that The Nixons had just played a three-minute song titled "Zac Crain." After checking the band's Web site for more information about the song, we found all we needed: A live recording of it (www.nixons.com/archives/archives.html) taken from a show in Stillwater, Oklahoma, on April 26.

Without spoiling much of the surprise, suffice it to say -- as someone at the office did after hearing it -- that we'd be flattered if it was, well, any good. Actually, come to think of it, the song's la-la-la chorus does stick in your head for a few seconds after listening to it. But the lyrics are another story, though not, truth be told, a very interesting one. Which is probably our fault more than anyone in the band, since if we were more exciting, then the song would be as well. Or something like that. Decide for yourself: "I wish I could be as cool as he/He writes for a paper, he knows everything...I like the way he writes about shows/Nobody's ever seen him because he never goes." Or, "I like the way he tells you about how I suck/I like the way he stands in the way of my truck." Cheeky.

And that, as they say, is that, except for the part where singer Zac Maloy repeatedly sings my name, a few bars of which are destined to turn up on our answering machine in the near future. Of course, we are flattered to have a song about us performed in front of more than 20,000 people, even if they are the kind of people that would hang out at EDGE Fest all day. But in terms of eye-watering pride, nothing will top the flyer Caulk printed up for a show in July 1998 that read: Zac Crain of the Dallas Observer says, "I LOVE COCK! I mean...Caulk!" Now that's something to mail home to Mom and Dad.