By Daniel Wirtheim, Features Editor Published in print Nov 19. 2014

You might have heard about the people who’ve been on the front of records as children, and the record has become a part of their identity.

There was that kid chasing a dollar on the front of the Nirvana album, “Nevermind,” who was only a baby then, but lived the rest of his life connected to one of the biggest bands of the 90’s. There was the baby from The Notorious B.I.G.’s album “Ready to Die” who, now a full grown man, will occasionally see himself on Time Square billboards dressed in diapers. I was one of those kids.

It all started my freshman year when my best friends, Arthur, Spencer and Tristan started a band. They were sophomores at the time and I wouldn’t have met them if I didn’t have a class with Arthur.

I remember meeting him after class as he smoked a Camel cigarette. Together we talked about music, moving to Portland and the movie SLC Punk among other things.

The next day Arthur invited me over to his house where I met an array of people who would become the best people I knew throughout my college career, including my girlfriend.

We spent the next year of our lives staying up late into the night in an old three-story house on East Lake Street.

We listened to sad music and let the cigarette smoke seep into everything around us. I can remember those days vividly, even with all the underage drinking that was going on.

We would wake up whenever we felt like it, blaring music and eating vegetables while standing in the kitchen, but not because we needed the nutrients. We had a feeling that our vision of a better world was enough to carry us into the next day.

Things were light and easy. No one was dying and everyone was beautiful. Our faces let off a sort of radial sex appeal that will look good in photographs fifty years from now. Then one day the band formed.

Black Santa was what they called themselves. I recall a few arguments in which Tristan would defend the name, going out of his way to explain why the name was not racist. To this day, I still don’t think there is any deeper meaning to the band’s name other than they thought it was a humorous thing, a silly concept that someone had created just to oppose a white Santa. Just the idea that this was a point of contention was laughable and that’s what it was all about.

I don’t really know what happened to me at this point. I was a little disheartened that I wasn’t in the band. I had always played in bands before, on drums or guitar, and I felt like I should be doing something. I suppose there was something disenchanting about my freshman year that made me feel like a lone wolf. Also, by this time Arthur, Spencer and Tristan had formed a tight sound on their instruments.

I decided to get behind them, as I was really into pseudo-Buddhism at the time and felt like karma would bring my positive energy back to me in some form. I was hoping it would come in the form of a motorcycle or some kind of stint as a late night talk show host. Instead, the first E.P. was called “Danny, We Love You,” with a picture of myself on the front.

When the band started getting shows on a regular basis, things got really exciting. On the surface we were highly functioning human beings. We were good students who loved literature and asked good questions to our professors. Yet when 10:00 p.m. came around we would pack instruments into a van and become the hedonist rock stars of our dreams.

I remember a lot of basements from these days. In fact, the first Black Santa show took place in a basement not far from campus. I helped them set up and then found my way to the keg at the back of the room, making sure to shake everyone’s hand I knew. I thought everyone was nice in the Greensboro music scene, maybe even talented. But when I heard Black Santa I knew that we had something special. I knew from the first song that the nights we had spent up late together were paying off.

The exulted sounds of delayed guitars, danceable and introspective over the primitive jungle beats of Arthur’s drumming were unashamedly sexy for what it was. After some time, Tristan became the lead songwriter and it gave the band a more gritty feeling.

Occasionally I would make appearances in the set, reading poetry, spoken word sort of stuff, and it felt good. Even when I wasn’t actually performing it felt great.

I remember nights in Raleigh, traveling hours with those guys, screaming in the car and loving everyone at the venue. I remember being surrounded by police after a sketchy art exhibit in someone’s parent’s house went astray. We were packing up the instruments when the house was suddenly vacated, except a few weird stragglers, the band and myself.

I went outside to see what had happened and saw a friend of mine sitting on the porch while at least five police officers stood in a semi circle with their eyes fixed on us.

“I was just seeing if Rachel was still here,” I said to my friend, just trying to say something, anything at all to not look suspicious. I didn’t even know a Rachel.

“Yeah, I think she is. Let’s go check,” he said and we walked back inside the house, where we knew it was unsafe to leave.

We were forced to stay there all night with an insane Asian man. I don’t say Asian because I judged by his skin color, I mean he spoke Japanese and continuously poured us shots of rice liquor from a large bottle. During those times, it felt like we were on a trajectory to the stars.

Of course there was some infighting. At first it was nothing. There were a few arguments, and one of the members would come to me saying the other one was being a jerk. Eventually it led to the breakup of the band. On Nov. 7 they played their last show.

I was too busy with other work to really let it sink in. As I was writing this article, it really began to effect me.

These were my best friends, the best band I ever knew, personally. When I saw them play or listened to their cassettes, I knew they were the best band. Each song was so personal and about the passion in seeing everyday things threw the eyes of wily 19 year olds.

Songs like “Arthur, fix the f***ing window” were written after Arthur pretty much slapped a window out.

It was in the middle of winter and the window was covered with a plastic bag for a month until Arthur finally hired someone to fix it. It seemed that the love that had bonded the group also carried the seeds of its destruction.

It seemed that each persons dream began to defer the other and before I knew it, they wouldn’t play anymore.

Of course, there’s still the cassettes, the cds and t-shirts. Occasionally I’ll see one, with my own face staring back at me. Although it still makes me feel slightly awkward, it’s not for the same reason that it used to.

Instead of making me wonder why a CD with my bare chest on the cover is being sold for $8, it’s as if I’m looking at an artifact. Something that’s been dug up, carbon-dated and estimated to come from a very passionate era.