"Don't get caught watching the paint dry"

Chitwood & Hobbs

Made in the U.S.A.

Mon Apr 11 2011 ∞

Darko is Free

by nickhall

It’s a sad day. You might have heard that Darko’s mood is currently repentant. FreeDarko has shut the main gates and fastened them with a chain. The basketball factory goes silent and deserted. The chimneys stopped smoking and the machines stopped whirring. Not a soul going in or out.

I was late to the FreeDarko party, they had been publishing for years before I stumbled upon their existence. The first time I found the site I was kind of mad. I’d been thinking about writing some sort of sports blog for years and when I found FreeDarko it dashed all hopes. These were brilliant writers and 50% of the content was over my head. It didn’t seem like there could be a place for what I had to offer. I felt that way for a while but continued to read. At some point I got over my spite and enjoyed it for what it was. Since that time I have turned into a total fanatic.

When I think of the end of FreeDarko I find parallels with the punk band Operation Ivy. Bet you didn’t see that coming. It’s only fitting that I return FreeDarko’s free jazz/nba analogies with a blogging collective/punk band analogy. Let me explain. Operation Ivy was a punk-ska band that existed between 1987 and 1989. In those two years Op Ivy performed 185 shows and recorded 32 songs. They went on a national tour, began booking larger venues, and felt pressure to sign with a major label — instead they broke up. They flamed out.

Started in ‘87, Ended in ‘89, Got a garage or an amp, we’ll play anytime. It was just the four of us, Yeah man the core of us, Too much attention unavoidably destroyed us. Four kids on tour, 3,000 miles, in a four door car, not knowing what was going on. We got a million years, of tourin’ out like this, Hell no, no premonition could have seen this!
— Tim Armstrong (Operation Ivy guitar/vocals)

The good news is that the idea of Op Ivy didn’t die with the band. They were arguably even more successful after they broke up. Their only studio album, Energy, has sold more than 500,000 copies and the iconic band has been credited with the 1990’s punk revival in California. They are a worldwide cult success. Tim Armstrong parlayed Op Ivy’s popularity into Rancid, the Hellcat Records label, and a lucrative song writing profession for artists such as Pink and Gwen Stefani.

If Shoals covering the NBA playoffs for GQ isn’t shades of Tim Armstrong writing songs for Good Charlotte than I don’t understand writing or music. And as long as I’m not completely off base I expect us to enjoy FreeDarko for years to come. It just won’t won’t be labeled as FreeDarko.

I can reassure myself of this as many times as possible but the fact stands that this is a sad time. Sad because of what we, the FreeDarko fan, will miss. We’ll be deprived of FreeDarko’s take on Kobe’s retirement speech, how LeBron handles his first championship off-season and when Kevin Durant finally loses all of his baby teeth. Poor us.

And on the off chance that this is the last we ever hear of FreeDarko I will always blame LeBron James for taking his talents to South Beach in the 2010-2011 season and driving FreeDarko into retirement.

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