this picture was taken on our first cure road trip to dayton for the wish tour

Avasha's Cure History


1985

where to begin? this is merely for those who are interested in seeing how much influence a band could actually have in a person’s life.. i first remember hearing of the cure in 1985 on some mtv report, and not knowing who they were, i listened in, but don’t remember a damn thing, as i was in 5th grade..

1989

i don’t remember the first time i heard them after that, but as a suggestion from jason lucas and jim maynard, i ordered Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me and Disintegration from bmg shortly after Disintegration was released.. it was in late 8th grade, and i remember just being amazed at the eastern sound of “if only tonight we could sleep”.. i listened to Disintegration. as one long song, rather than different ones, and only discerned Love Song because it was on mtv so much..

1991

it wasn’t until 1991 that i became a cure fan, rather than observer.. a few friends decided to have a camp out in the woods of southern ohio at mike webb’s.. during the evening, 5 of us bonded and the soundtrack was the standing on a beach cassette.. listening to splintered in her head and a forest for the first time ever out in the middle of nowhere was quite an experience.. i asked to copy some tapes from jim and check them out.. later on, we had another camping trip, this time, a week long expedition to hillsboro ohio.. the event that changed forever my life in so many ways.. i finally defeated the typical high school bullshit mentality, as well as conquering some inhibitions of truly being myself, and was opened to new ideas, new experiences, and new music.. we played disintegration over and over, as well as the glove, and the head on the door.. i had never before felt so strongly about any song, and i was determined to buy all the stuff i didn’t have on CD.. my collection began at a rapid pace as i picked up staring at the sea, and all the rest 2 and 3 at a time..

1992

by the end of my junior year, i could recite any cure song, other than world war ;) .. i didn’t know it existed until then.. during that year, the cure was the only thing on my stereo, aside from an occasional smiths or morrissey tune, maybe some PIL, big audio dynamite II, clockdva, swans, fatima mansions, or some carter the unstoppable sex machine.. i was getting into lots of music, but almost always, it was the cure.. the cure was the soundtrack to my life, and eventually, my group of friends.. i introduced them from the hillsboro on to everyone i was close to, and some who i had just met.. we all bonded through the cure.. we had cure parties.. we voted on “one more time” for our prom song.. wherever we drove, wherever we hung out, wherever there was music, there was the cure.. it wasn’t just about the songs.. it was mostly about how robert smith seemed somewhat personable, as if he were just another part of the gang, even though his presence was never truly in ours.. we had a lot of fun driving around the city of huntington and the little town of chesapeake, ohio just exploring new found freedoms.. we called them cure road trips, and took many of them.. i remember sneaking out of school on april 21, 1992 to be the first to get wish, but garry white beat me to it doing the same thing just a little earlier.. as you may have read previously, i was not at first impressed.. i had seen “on stage off stage and more” and some of my favourite cure songs were from the secret gig.. thus, i wanted to somehow find a way to get the secret gig on cd.. this introduced my first encounter with bootlegs.. i discovered a little unmentionable record store in barboursville, and when i entered the room, the smell of incense filled the air.. one of the first things i saw made my mouth water.. the cure bootleg list.. carnage visors/curiosity on cd.. and the secret gig.. i freaked out and ordered both.. unfortunately, the secret gig lacked the 4 tracks i wanted, but i later found them on a double disc “at the edge of the deep green sea”.. after that, i kept wanting more and more.. i spent a lot of money back then on 25 dollar cure discs for a song here, a live track there, but i am very happy with my purchases.. many of those are out of print now.. (and they weren’t exactly in the budget bin at wal-mart originally anyway).. later that year, i journeyed to my first cure concert, in dayton ohio, and had never felt such an experience from seeing a band live.. although most of the songs were singles, the figurehead was offerred for the fanatics and the closing version of a forest was fantastic.. and i went prepared, with a recorder, not to bootleg it and sell it, but to listen to it at home again and again (and again and again and again..).. on this particular road trip, my friend tim bice encountered a man named brian greenspan giving ads away for his new cure fanzine - close to me..

1993

tim subscribed, but didn’t receive the issues for a while, and at that time, he just didn’t seem to care about the cure as much.. so he let me have them and i contacted brian several times with all the cure-iosity i had itching for cure knowledge.. living in a small parasite town to huntington, west virginia, i didn’t have much access to upcoming cure events.. brian knew everything and more.. he also gave me copies of the kiss me b-sides and easy cure demos i couldn’t get around here, as well as many rare live tracks.. later on, i gained access to prodigy in late 92/early 93 and i was able to meet all kinds of other cure fans.. we did a lot of trading and discussing online, and for someone from west virginia, i seemed to have my cure shit together.. i would send out tapes to everyone, and unfortunately, some of it brian forgot to mention was uncopyable.. after copying a couple demo versions of hanging garden and one hundred years, he wouldn’t give me any more cure rarities.. it was all a big misunderstanding, but i had lost contact with him since then.. by this time, cure rarities were surfacing everywhere and with the introduction of the www, the rarest cure tracks were accessible to anyone with a pc.. i think this helped boost the quality of the cure bootlegs of the mid and late 90s, as opposed to the dinky live concerts of before.. when i moved to college at ohio state in columbus, i was able to snag some cure vinyl and plenty of cure bootlegs, and returning home, i finally found the B-sides on cd a couple years ago.. the cure were quite the influence through my whole high school career and i will always associate those days with those songs and vice versa.. as a tribute, every year since, on april 21st, i have held a cure party, playing as much cure as i can for 24 hours.. the original was held at jason lucas’s house, and was the best party i had ever been to.. i decided to make it a tradition and place it on the 21st, robert’s birthday..

1996

i held one in my 4 roomate house in huntington, and we played softball listening to three imaginary boys, then sat around outside late at night listening to disintegration and b-sides..

1997

in 1997, i held the biggest cure party yet, at a local club, the gravity.. i rented it out for an evening, and posted flyers everywhere.. amazingly, over 200 people in the huntington area showed up, be it friends or cure fans i have never seen before, we all gathered around and listened to nothing but the cure all night.. i made double my money back and the bar pulled in over $700 that night.. it was quite the cure accomplishment.. to this day, i play at least one cure song for every night i dj on the local radio station at wmul..

1998

in 1998, i had moved in with a girl whom i had met at my cure party at gravity.. i began work on a my webpage and had developed Avasha's Glove.. the same year, i had begun the work which has become the Complete Cure discography, a cd collection of everything the cure has ever done in chronological order, digitally remastered, for my own personal listening pleasure..

1999

i've upgraded Avasha's Glove and have come a long way with the Complete Cure discography, and am looking forward to the new album, Bloodflowers.. and the cure will always hold a very special place, as cheezy as it may sound, in my heart.. strange, isn’t it?.. trying to figure out if this story is about the cure, or about me..