Weezer with Carli (holding a slice of cheese) and Mykel....that was the first line of the last email I ever received from Mykel Allan, one-half of the sisterly duo known to thousands of Weezer fans simply as "Mykel and Carli." It was July 5th, 1997, and the girls were, as the band's fanclub presidents and long-time friends, traveling with Weezer on one leg of the Pinkerton tour. I think they were in Utah when they sent that email, and they were due to arrive in San Francisco a few days later where I would be picking them up at the airport and hosting them at my humble abode. In emails prior to their arrival, I'd told Mykel and Carli of the dozens of Happy Donuts the city offered, with its strange but somewhat appealing combination of Chinese food and donuts. It was one of the things Mykel was really looking forward to experiencing.
That element is pretty much the only food-related aspect of this blog entry. The reason why I am posting today is because it just occured to me that it has been eleven years to the day that these lovely girls, along with their younger sister Trysta, were killed in a tragic car accident on their way home from a Weezer concert. Eleven years. Wow.
I met Mykel and Carli because way back then I was a music journalist and Weezer was a band that I'd spent a good amount of time interviewing. Through my research, I'd discovered the tale of two sisters who nurtured the band through its lean years and supported them when no one else cared. After I'd conducted a phone interviews with the girls, they invited me up to their Portland home for a weekend of fun, food and Weezer craziness. They were so open like that; the weekend I was there, they also hosted a random group of fans including a guy named Chris, and twin sisters Keirah and Khadeja (who I am still friends with to this day). The girls had an amazing sense of humor. Acknowledging that they were both on the heavy side, they used to joke that they were "Weezer's BIGGEST fans!" I loved that.
They took me to a cool place called Dots for a great meal and we stayed up all night talking about music and going through the bags of fan mail that crowded their living room. Carli gave me my very own Weezer fanclub membership card, complete with a photo of a girl she thought "looked like a Clare" (she'd made it before my arrival). I met their parents, who just happened to be passing through Portland that weekend and we all ate KFC by a creek (for some reason I remember this clearly). They took me to Powell's bookstore. They laughed when I marveled at the lack of sales tax in their city. We saw Weezer play and hung out backstage and walked around the tour bus. It was, in short, a perfect weekend.
We exchanged many emails after that visit about everything from crazy fan stories to mundane daily happenings. My article came out and they were happy to have been included, though I was the one who felt grateful to have been let into their lives with such open arms. So many people in the music industry, especially those closest to the artists, typically want to keep those connections to themselves. Mykel and Carli did nothing but share it.
Flash forward to the day when I got the phone call from Carli's roommate, telling me that the girls would not be coming to San Francisco because they had perished in a car accident. I'm not going to pretend like I knew them forever; I'd only known them probably a year at that point. But when I heard the news my knees buckled and my heart plunged to the floor. It's strange and wonderful how, even in a very short period of time, someone - or, in this case, two people - can touch your life and leave an impression that still remains over a decade after they've left this earth.
Anyway, I just wanted to write something to acknowledge the anniversary of their departure, and also the impact they had and still have on me today. They were sweet, kind and nurturing and thinking of them always brings a smile to my face.
That element is pretty much the only food-related aspect of this blog entry. The reason why I am posting today is because it just occured to me that it has been eleven years to the day that these lovely girls, along with their younger sister Trysta, were killed in a tragic car accident on their way home from a Weezer concert. Eleven years. Wow.
I met Mykel and Carli because way back then I was a music journalist and Weezer was a band that I'd spent a good amount of time interviewing. Through my research, I'd discovered the tale of two sisters who nurtured the band through its lean years and supported them when no one else cared. After I'd conducted a phone interviews with the girls, they invited me up to their Portland home for a weekend of fun, food and Weezer craziness. They were so open like that; the weekend I was there, they also hosted a random group of fans including a guy named Chris, and twin sisters Keirah and Khadeja (who I am still friends with to this day). The girls had an amazing sense of humor. Acknowledging that they were both on the heavy side, they used to joke that they were "Weezer's BIGGEST fans!" I loved that.
They took me to a cool place called Dots for a great meal and we stayed up all night talking about music and going through the bags of fan mail that crowded their living room. Carli gave me my very own Weezer fanclub membership card, complete with a photo of a girl she thought "looked like a Clare" (she'd made it before my arrival). I met their parents, who just happened to be passing through Portland that weekend and we all ate KFC by a creek (for some reason I remember this clearly). They took me to Powell's bookstore. They laughed when I marveled at the lack of sales tax in their city. We saw Weezer play and hung out backstage and walked around the tour bus. It was, in short, a perfect weekend.
We exchanged many emails after that visit about everything from crazy fan stories to mundane daily happenings. My article came out and they were happy to have been included, though I was the one who felt grateful to have been let into their lives with such open arms. So many people in the music industry, especially those closest to the artists, typically want to keep those connections to themselves. Mykel and Carli did nothing but share it.
Flash forward to the day when I got the phone call from Carli's roommate, telling me that the girls would not be coming to San Francisco because they had perished in a car accident. I'm not going to pretend like I knew them forever; I'd only known them probably a year at that point. But when I heard the news my knees buckled and my heart plunged to the floor. It's strange and wonderful how, even in a very short period of time, someone - or, in this case, two people - can touch your life and leave an impression that still remains over a decade after they've left this earth.
Anyway, I just wanted to write something to acknowledge the anniversary of their departure, and also the impact they had and still have on me today. They were sweet, kind and nurturing and thinking of them always brings a smile to my face.
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