Lisa delivers: So, here I am, living in America, where the music scene is about as fresh
as the snow in New York [where I live]. To satisfy my craving for good
bands, I'd always have to check out the single hour of M2 that MTV used to
air daily [and incidentally, they've gotten rid of it now, the bastards],
in the slim hopes that I might actually see something halfway decent.
...Flashback to late 1997, circa November. As I gazed bleary-eyed at the
television screen while one "alternative" band after another moaned about
their horrible lives, there suddenly appeared across the airwaves a
bright sun of inspiration, in the form of Travis' All I Want to Do is
Rock. I looked on, enraptured, as Fran and co. blasted their
rock-and-roll enthusiasm into my meager sitting room. It was as if God
had sent a ray of heavenly light into my dark, grunge-overdosed life to
save me from the shadowy depths of hell.
It could only be described as Epiphany.
As the final notes of the song rang out into the air, I realized that
those 4 minutes were among the most meaningful I had ever gone through. I
felt out of breath from the experience. As I struggled to collect myself,
a thought occurred to me: Surely I must have heard of these guys before.
How could the world possibly have ignored these veritable deities of rock?
Immediately I ran to my room to consult my stack of British import
magazines. I scoured the pages for any mention of the band known only by
the simple-yet-elusive name, Travis. And then... in Q [or it might have
been Select]... I saw it. A half-page photo of the band, taken in my very
own hometown of NYC, with the lead singer standing triumphantly atop a
yellow taxi, arms raised high, and the other members of the band
around him, looking similarly vindicated. Although perhaps no one else in
the area even knew who they were at the time, they looked as though the
whole world belonged to them and their music.
And in that moment I knew that this... was the band for me.
What else can I say? Next day I hopped over to Virgin, bought the CD and
the rest is history.
