SUSAN & I IN NYC, 2005
Just days after she had received the diagnosis for the cancer that would end her life, my best friend Susan Curran gifted me with a magnet that proclaimed (in a jokey retro font): “I may be old, but I got to see all the cool bands.”
At the time it was a joke between us, since we were both reaching “that age” where early shows are a blessing and SEATING is a fucking godsend.
Now that she’s passed away at the untimely age of 41, I want to say, “We’re NOT old, and you had way too much time left. SHOULD have had so much more time left. Damn it, who’s going to see the 20th anniversary LAST SPLASH shows with me?!”
But she didn’t, which seems radically unfair. Fate works in some twisted ways. It hasn’t sunk in and probably won’t fully for a long time to come.
Susan started WARPED REALITY with me and rapidly became someone I considered an essential collaborator. The two of us had a kind of wonderful mind-meld: each of us spurred the other to greater creative heights. And we unfailingly trusted one another’s creative judgment and advice in all things: editorial, aesthetic and personal.
More than that, we were best friends who had more adventures than I can count. Usually, music was the spark but we loved seeing the world together when and where we could. Travel to Glasgow to see Prolapse and Arab Strap at King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut? Why not. Take two weeks to go to London for the 1st time and celebrate 4AD’s 13th anniversary? What the hell.
Once we graduated from college and settled into careers, those spur-of-the-moment adventures became fewer and far between. But we still found the time, whether it was spending New Year’s Eve in Paris with Susan and her husband Matt or meeting up in Williamsburg, Brooklyn to attend the first-ever Smorgasburg, we MADE the time.
I’m thankful for all those wonderful memories now as I contemplate a Susan-less future. Much love into the ether, Susan — we all love you and miss you.