Artist Essay:
Sunset Rubdown by Spencer Krug

And whenever you have a free hand,” continued Krug, 

“Wave it around like you’re shooing away bugs while you sing, holding the other hand down on the keyboard like the thing wants to fly off the stage.” Spencer II’s eyes narrowed. Krug’s narrowed back—a reflection seen through an old, dusty mirror. 

Krug spread his left hand over the keys, pinkie to thumb spanning ten of the whites. “I’ve got a wide reach,” he said. “Can you do that?” Spencer II starfished his hand. Only eight whites—one octave. This was normal, still, his handsome lip began to quiver. 

“It’s okay, don’t cry,” said Krug. “We can rewrite some parts. You’re sensitive though! That’s good!” He slapped Spencer II carefully on the back and the awkward sound echoed limply through the abandoned venue. “In my prime I was very prone to emotional outbursts. That’s bonafide stuff. Alcoholism helps that along, for what it’s wor… No, no, take your hands off your face. You don’t have to start drinking.” 

Krug hobbled across the stage, grabbed a drum stool and dragged it back behind him like a caveman’s club. The sound was intolerable against the hollow floor. “Here,” he said. “Let’s move on to this and how I sometimes perch on it like a gorilla on a unicycle, other times kick it over like an angry toddler.” 

Crying in the rain with Original Michael on a fire escape overlooking Tokyo in 2009—that was the closest thing the band ever had to an ending. Didn’t play again for fourteen years, until he had a dream about a reunion, of all things, and they did it, and it felt surprisingly good. Original Nicholas replaced Original Mark on bass, but other than that it was the same people. The old monster was alive again, planning a new album—they were doing it! But then Original Michael withdrew. Of course.

So, rather than try to replace him, they decided to make a record with no electric guitar, but then the critics focused on what the music wasn’t, rather than what it was (which is no way to look at anything). “It’s not how we remember it,” they wrote. Krug locked himself in his studio for weeks. The soundproofed walls couldn’t contain his sobs. The carpet went moldy from his tears. When he finally emerged it was with the declaration: Sunset Rubdown would return to their signature sound. They would find and train another Michael, call him Michael II, and never play as a four piece again. That was how the passing down of memberships started.

Over years, the rules clarified. The exasperating details of one’s parts had to be passed on of course, but adoption of personal style and stage conduct were also expected of all replacements. Physical resemblance in height, build, and hair color were encouraged, but not strictly required. And replacements had to change their names to that of whoever was exiting the band. Now, in 2054, Sunset Rubdown consisted of Camilla III, Michael III, Jordan II, Nicholas IV, and him, Original Spencer Krug. 

At first there was resentment from fans. That’s not the real Jordan—hair’s all wrong. Bring back Camilla II, this one sucks. Et cetera. But folks always came around after an album or so. 

In some cases, repeated replacements rendered new members unrecognizable from their originals, like how a game of telephone perverts a phrase. Nicholas IV, for example, looked nothing like the tall, denim-clad charmer Krug had once known. The current bassist, rather, was short, bald, and dressed only in leather.

But it didn’t matter. His name carried on. His name, his parts, the songs, the band. Original Nicholas now lived in a small castle he’d built for himself in Vermont. Original Camilla ran a factory in France that produced pineapple-flavored whipped cream. Original Jordan spent a lot of time running (and winning) marathons for seniors in Montreal. And no one had seen Original Michael since he’d slipped into the wilds of Yukon in 2036 with a backpack full of whittling supplies. But Sunset Rubdown was still a band. 

At seventy-seven years old, and the last original member, Krug was ready to relinquish his role. He discovered Spencer II—a perfect throwback—busking on the sidewalk outside a musical theater school and was immediately struck by his naivety. “Music is just so wonderful and the world is so exciting,” said Spencer II. “You’re perfect,” said Krug. 

But training his replacement was proving more difficult for Krug than it had been for other members. Besides the playing, the lyrics, and the bizarre vocal delivery, Spencer II needed to learn how to be simultaneously self-effacing and disdainful in interviews; learn how to both love and hate everything the band did. Krug remembered Camilla II going through something similar when training Camilla III. “No, Original Camilla was self-assured, yet oversensitive,” she’d said. “A confusing mix of vanity and insecurity.” 

He’d put in half a century. What’s a few more weeks spent on training? In the black, sticky-floored venue where they instructed their replacements, Krug led Spencer II across the dusty wooden stage. Both were hunched at the shoulders, hands clasped at the belly, sneakers barely leaving the floor. They looked like monks shuffling through a monastery, but in fact it was just Krug teaching Spencer II the proper posture for pacing around stage during performances. 

He turned to Spencer II as they scuffed along. “With me leaving, this thing’s turning into a real Ship of Theseus, hey?” 

Spencer II frowned. “Um… I’m not familiar…” 

Krug faced ahead again. “Excellent.” 

They stopped and sat on the drum riser, Krug clearly winded. “So why now,” asked Spencer II. “Why are you finally leaving?” “Oh, I don’t know,” huffed Krug. “Hotel prices, Spotify, so on.” But as he spoke, Krug watched a yellow monarch fluttering across the sunny frame of an open loading door, as though across a screen, and thought again to himself, as he had so often in recent years, how easy it was going to be to transform into a butterfly, just as long as they showed him how.