“I thought we were going to be together forever. About a week later, right out of the blue, she sends me a John Deere letter.”
- Harry/Dumb and Dumber
Today is the birthday of Pete Droge, alternative folk rocker from the great Northwest. Pete turns 57 today. It's good to see that some of those cool grungers from the 90s hung around long enough to get old.
Pete was never a household name like Vedder, Cobain, Cornell or Grohl. If I went out to the Springfield/Branson airport right now and asked a hundred random people, “Who is Pete Droge?” - I would guess possibly one might know.
But Pete's has had a good career, though. One niche he found was getting songs into movies that turned out to be widely popular. Depending on contractual arrangements, it can pay some decent cash. It certainly boosts an artist's profile some.
Most notably is his song, If You Don't Love Me I'll Kill Myself which is front and center in Dumb and Dumber. That's a win. Also, his Small Time Blues is in a prominent scene in Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous. He and Elaine Summers played it live for the movie scene. Crowe wanted it to feel as authentic as possible. He did Never Learned for the film A Lot Like You, and then there's Beautiful Girl in the movie Beautiful Girls. Did you see that one? To me, it's one of the great underrated films. And. what a dynamite cast -Timothy Hutton, Matt Dillon, Uma Thurman, Mira Sorvino, Michael Rapaport, Lauren Holly, Martha Plimpton, Noah Emmerich, Max Perlich, a pre-mental Rosie O'Donnell and a 14-year-old Natalie Portman. See it if you haven't.
One time, spur of the moment, Kendra and I went to see actor Jeff Daniels at The Bartlett Preforming Arts Center (350 seats). Bartlett is a town adjacent to Memphis. Jeff Daniels is quite a guitar player and a pretty good singer along with it. He had a nice dialogue with the audience that night. He said of all the roles he's played in movies and on TV and stage, and all the accolades he's received, all anyone every asks him about is the diarrhea scene in Dumb and Dumber. Such is life.
Happy birthday, Pete.