In February 2013, a Nashville-based band, Escondido, released their first album, The Ghost of Escondido. Lead by classically beautiful singer/guitarist, Jessica Maros, and multi instrumentalist, Tyler James, the band's music was described alternately as indie folk or psychedelic folk.
A part-time barista at Frothy Monkey and full-time Seattle Mariners and Seahawks fan, Grant Geertsma, played guitar in the band, as well. I knew Grant in passing only, as we often exchanged small talk when I went to the Frothy Monkey for coffee on weekends before going to visit my mom at NHC Place before she died. A class Nashville thing, for sure. An acquaintance of mine played - who made me coffee and good coffee, at that - played in a band I liked completely unbeknownst to me, at least initially.
The biggest song off the first album and, I think, the band's biggest song, period, is Cold October. What struck me first about the song was Jessica's voice, best described as haunting. The lyrics of the song, too, stayed with me.
Miles down the highway
I called you on the phone
Couldn't bring myself to tell you
When I had you all alone
'Cause I love you like a summer's day
Those night's spent in your arms
I said I'd never leave you
Guess I'll be doing you some harm
I'm not sure when or how I first discovered Escondido. I think Cold October appeared in my Spotify Discovery playlist one Monday morning - probably in 2015 - and after hearing the song one time, I was hooked. That's usually how it happens for me with a really good song, like Cold October.
I do know that Joe and I used to listen to Cold October every day on the ride to Children's House, which would have been 2015 or 2016, when he was three or four years old. He absolutely loved that song and I did, too. To this day when I hear it the opening guitar chords of Cold October, I'm instantly transported back in time to those mornings Joe and I spent together before school for him and work for me. Simpler times, yes, before Carley got really sick and my mom died.
The band had a moment, for sure, and three years later released a second album, Walking With a Stranger. I'm not sure but I don't think that album did as well as the first album. And suddenly, like a star shooting brightly across the sky on a late summer night, Escondido was inexplicably - to me, anyway - gone. No formal announcement of a hiatus or breakup. Just no more shows or new music.
This being the age of social media, of course, I kept up with Jessica Maros, Tyler James, and Grant Geertsma, individually, on Instagram. In an odd way, this made the end of the band's run harder for me to take. Why? I could see what they were up to, almost in real time. And what they were up to was not making new music or playing together as Escondido.
Jessica traveled a lot and, sadly, dealt with the death of her father. Having fairly recently lost my mother, I could understood how hard that must have been. Tyler built a studio at his house and kept making music. He even produced a few songs by the Almanacks, another band that Grant Geertsma played in. Grant got married. In other words, life moved on for the members of Escondido and for me, too.
Every now and then, I'd check in Escondido's Instagram feed to see if I had missed a post or if there was any news about the band? Nothing.
Finally, on May 19, 2021, Jessica and Tyler posted a video of the two of them sitting on a couch at her house, playing guitar and signing a song together. By way of explanation, they had run into each other at Publix and decided to show each other their new houses. At Jessica's house, they decided to play a song together and, I guess, to video it and post it on Instagram.
It was breathtaking beautiful to watch them play together again but, predictably, it left me with more questions than answers.
For one thing, how could two people front a band for several years, experience a modicum of success, then lose contact with each other to the extent that they hadn't seen the other's new house? In the same town? Strange, or maybe not.
Or, how could two musicians - artists - find the chemistry some search and entire career for and stop playing together on the brink of stardom, or whatever passes for stardom in the music business these days.
For sure, bands I've loved have broken up before but usually after a longer run together. Blue Mountain out of Oxford, MS, comes to mind. Cary Hudson and Laurie Stirratt were married, then divorced, so it was unlikely the band would stay together indefinitely. Also, in some form or fashion, Blue Mountain played together for more than two decades.
I felt the same way when Kelsey Kopecky - whom I had met a time or two in passing through one of our early nannies (and a professional violinist), Laura Mustan - and her band, Kopecky Family Band (later, Kopecky), broke up without any explanation that I could find.
Similar to Escondido, the Kopecky Family Band had a fairly brief run, starting in 2007, that included the release of single, Heartbeat, that charted in the top 10 - the video for the song was filmed at Sevier Park, on the tennis courts, no less - and appearances on Kimmel and Leno, and an NPR tiny desk concert. The bank released albums in 2013 and 2015.
Seemingly on the edge of sustained success, the band broke up and Kelsey Kopecky embarked on a solo career that, to my knowledge, has not really resulted in any sustained success by music industry standards.
Still, whenever I hear Cold October by Escondido, I recall those mornings with Joe, six or seven years ago, on the way to school at Children's House, singing along with Jessica Maros. That song always will remind me of Joe, at three or four years of age, and our innocent, uncomplicated mornings together before school and work.
I'll also always wonder about what might have been, for Escondido, and about what's to come, too. And maybe that's the point.
Postcript to this post. Jessica Maros got engaged yesterday on a hike in the mountains in Vancouver. Now, that's pretty cool.
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