Singled Out: The Dont's Breakdown

It was a dark and stormy night, some Monday in June of 2007, when the band converged in the parking lot outside their rehearsal space in the cuts of San Francisco. Joey Don't, guitarist extraordinaire, had been at work avoiding lawyers all day, curled up in his cubicle, lining up dates for a potential SoCal tour. Kenny Don't, the drummer, was working days and nights at his new video store, the worries piling up like rabid dust-bunnies in the corners of a late-fee hell. And JJ "Powerboy" Don't was scrambling to keep hold of yet another job he so lasciviously wanted to quit, for in his heart of hearts, he was truly a superhero. Jonny Don't, singer, was the only one who had the opportunity to shirk all responsibilities and bask in the glow of the Strange Unknown.... and shirk and bask he did.

As they trudged solemnly, their notorious banter notwithstanding, out of the rain and into their womblike rehearsal space, Jonny wrapped his friends' anxieties around him like a warm coat. A warm, cantankerous, shrieking coat. JJ set aside his ubiquitous paper-bag-of-unknown-foodstuffs and powered up his bass amp. Joey opened the first of many cheap beers and turned on every pedal at his disposal, creating a carnivalesque glow at his feet. Kenny scavenged among a thousand broken drumsticks in search of illicit medical treats. And Jonny broke the seal on his last remaining bottle of pseudophedrine-laced cough syrup. As its sweet sickening warmth spread through his body, as the lights went down and the tube amps buzzed, a bizarre anthem -- later to be known as "Breakdown" -- was born.

The lyrics spat themselves out, oddly prescient about the economic breakdown that was to start just a few months later. Were The Dont's channeling some bizarre foreknowledge of the recession? Was the Dark Unicorn Of The Apocalypse trying to tell the world something, using The Dont's as messed-up messengers for a new millennium? Or was it just an ill-fated confluence of anxiety and stimulants? Following the churning tide of this improvised anthem, gazing with rolled-back eyes at his brothers burying their worries behind a wall of sound, Jonny wondered aloud, "What does it all mean?" Just then, the amps exploded.

Hours later, lying partially-conscious in a hospital bed, Jonny began to piece together how the events had unfolded. There had been chaos, and indulgence, and redemption. And his cell phone had recorded it all. He looked around the hopelessly white hospital room. Beside him, his brothers slept in silent vigil, drooling sweet nothings on the sterilized linoleum. He yanked out his IV, grabbed his medical chart, and began scribbling a note to himself. What doctors would later misinterpret as his signature on a Do-Not-Resuscitate form was just one lonely line from Jonny's fractured mind to his half-crazed band of brothers: "Don't let the breakdown get you down."