History of the Thunderballs, Part 1: I Meet Rasta Early on the Beach
Back in ’99, as the millennium was about to turn, the daily freeze, the blustery winds and feeble, barely useful sun of yet another Vermont winter had been dragging on its usual fashion, and by February it really wasn’t funny any more. Each and every year the routine is the same: in summer we live in glorious denial, as vibrant color and delicious fragrance of earth and things that grow crowd our senses and convince us that it will always be thus.
As the riot of wildflowers and the intense greenery of it all begins to fade in October, when the skies are bright and impossibly blue and the air is crisp and clean, when the cooler temperatures cause the leaves to turn a glowing, almost fluorescent red, orange and yellow, we drink cider take deep breaths of the wholesome, if chilly, country air and say “Yes! Life is good.”
Soon the land will sleep and dream it’s unknowable dreams under a mantle of pure white, a cheerful fire will blaze in the hearth, and all will be snug and cozy. Ah! the cycle of life. Yes, I can do this!”
One evening as I was taking my sunset stroll down the beach, someone with dreadlocks spilling out of a knit cap of Jamaica colors – red, gold, black and green – wearing a scraggly beard, a faded Haile Selassie t-shirt and a toothy grin, was waving to me, and as we met on the beach we began to converse.
As the great orange ball sank towards the blue waters of the Caribbean, the conversation turned to music and Early was astonished to learn that I had made a CD for my band back in the States. CD’s were fairly new, and local musicians didn’t have them. If you were lucky enough to have a recording of your music, it was a cassette tape. Nobody, but nobody, had their own CD.