Guest Blog: Trevor Backer – TM of Polar Bear Club
This is a guest blog from Trevor Backer, aka Tracker, esteemed tour manager of Polar Bear Club and reluctant recycling aficionado. He wrote this for the second edition of the Vans Warped Tour “Guide to not Being an Environmental Disaster”, which was not able to come to print this year.
Story by Trevor Backer
I’ve never supported any type of cause. Never have I cared for much of anything or about anyone other than myself. But being one of the oldest dudes on tour that isn’t in Face To Face means I have a couple of opinions and a few stories to tell. Other entries in this ‘zine will encourage you to reuse this and to not eat that. Beliefs and stances, well, that isn’t really my style. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I refuse to participate in recycling, but I certainly don’t make it a point to sort my trash. I’m not a hobo who plays with their waste. Yes, I’m a vegetarian but like with most things in my life, I’m sure it started out as an attempt to impress a girl. I’m not dark and mysterious nor do I try to be. I’m just lazy. But somehow, through all the jadedness and contempt for most everything, there are two things I still fully support after all these years: fast music and the Warped Tour.
I vaguely remember a time, many, many years ago, when large pants and silver balled necklaces ruled the world. Well, my world at least. Shocking bright neon colors adorned a person’s hair and not a large, bold print t-shirt. Polar Bear Club was only a song by Silent Majority and not yet a band made up of the ugliest dudes to ever pick up instruments. Ah, the mid 90s…when Victory Records actually mattered and social interaction instead of social networking got you laid. Well, my friends laid. Specifically, the year was 1996 and the location was Buffalo, New York. It was my first Warped Tour and one of my first shows in general. My parents were fucking weird. No, not in a “watch you while you shower and take notes” kind of way, but in an “over protective, shelter you from the outside world” manner. For whatever reason, it was always a herculean task to convince them to let me borrow their car to travel five miles. In order to get the 1993 Ford Tempo for a four-hour drive, I must have promised the world. Maybe I swore up and down that I’d move out of their house right after graduation. Joke’s on them! I still live there! Sigh.
Over the years I’ve heard all sorts of people denounce Warped for being too much of this or not enough of that and maybe at times I’ve agreed with the naysayers. I mean, come on, Brokencyde last year and Limp Bizkit many moons ago? There’s never an excuse for either of them. But what I can tell you is that day kick-started a fire inside of me that still hasn’t gone out all these years later. Thanks to Warped Tour, I’ve been able to see many of my favorite bands for the first time and in some cases, for the only time. The Descendents. I saw the fucking Descendents! The Bouncing Souls, Hot Water Music, Social Distortion, Lagwagon, Rocket From The Crypt, AFI, and hell, even Deftones. They were all bands I first experienced at a traveling summer festival.
And now the year is 2010 and I don’t have any type of health insurance. Right now, today, if I broke a bone, I don’t know what I’d do. Maybe grin and bear it. A quick tour of the inside of my mouth with my tongue reveals a graveyard of teeth missing and molars I still need removed. A trip to my local bank’s ATM will tell me that my checking account currently yields an impressive $7.23. Savings account, you say? Hell, haven’t had one of those since…ever. Due to excessive boozery, my liver is the size of a scab and my total overall debt likens itself to a CEO’s salary. But last year I went to Europe and the United Kingdom three times. In August, I’m going back for the fourth time. Thanks to three chords, I’ve traveled the United States back and forth countless times. Due to my friends who play those previously mentioned notes, I’ve made life long relationships and hopefully during the process made my parents slightly proud. Sure, my high school friends grew up, got married, and bought their houses. But did I mention I once saw the fucking Descendents?!
So maybe I believe in more than I previously thought. Perhaps I do champion a cause or two. And I guess the point of me throwing together these grammatically incorrect sentences is that I hope maybe you do, too. And if not now, perhaps by the end of your stay here, you find something or someone that keeps you around for years to come. Check out a smaller stage or two, peer in on a band that maybe you’ve never heard of. Who knows, maybe you’ll end up like me and ride the coattails of your friends’ band to the other side of the ocean. And hopefully, unlike me, you’ll still have all of your teeth. See you in fourteen years.
