Yesterday as I was driving home my phone played the song “bloodseconds” by 40th Day in my car. I don't expect you to know who 40th Day is. This is the year 2023 and that band hasn't been around in any form I'm aware of since they had a reunion show in Denver around 2013. (Yes, I was there.) They broke up sometime in the nineties.
So why am I bringing them up?
While listening to the song I had a flood of memories of my time in Denver in the early nineties come back to me. 40th Day along with several other bands in the Denver scene used to trade headliner slots with the band I was in at the time. One show, say in Boulder, we'd open for them. The next show, say in Fort Collins, they'd open for us. We also shared costs on renting PA equipment as well as share drums and backline so we could all travel light. It worked that way at the time with a lot of local bands on Colorado's front range. The great thing about it was that we became friends with a lot of other bands and we all supported each other. We also got to hear a lot of great music that would influence what we were doing and it made everybody sound better over time.
Later I moved to San Francisco assuming I'd find more of that same kind of social scene among bands but it was unfortunately not like that. The bands I played with seemed to want to isolate themselves and viewed other bands as competition. It made building a fanbase much harder because you had to rely on marketing and self promotion instead of encouraging your friends to listen to the other bands you like at your shows while knowing those bands were doing the same for you. It didn't feel like anybody had our back which made it also feel kind of lonely.
40th Day to me now sounds like it could have been right at home in the shoegaze scene, their sound having similarities to bands that came long after they were gone like My Bloody Valentine, Chapterhouse, and School of Seven Bells. You can listen to some of 40th Day's music on Bandcamp (although it looks like that song I mentioned was left out) or try your luck finding their CD on the internet.
-V