📄 Dylan
Filed by L. Wren
Entry #004 — Compiled from rehearsal recordings, lyric drafts, tour receipts, and a half-burnt notebook found under the van seat. Date uncertain.
Dylan was the first one to leave.
I don’t mean that bitterly — not really. He left because he was the only one of us who had a door that could still open somewhere else. College. Future. Something that wasn’t written in power chords and nicotine and missed rent.
He played bass like it was a language no one else quite spoke. Never flashy, always solid — like the floor of a venue that hadn’t caved in yet.
🎸 Role in Downvent
- Founding member, bassist
- Held rhythm together while Dirk let himself come undone
- Favorite bass: seafoam green Fender Precision, scuffed to hell by the time we hit Portland
- Designed the original Downvent logo on a library computer, using free software and spite
💭 Personal Notes
Dylan kept us grounded. He was the one who made sure we had gas in the tank and food that wasn’t gas station gum. He read books between gigs. Talked to venue owners like they were people. Wrote lists. Actual lists. In a band full of ghosts and firecrackers, he was the ledger.
When he told us he was leaving, he didn’t look back. That hurt more than I let on.
But I still get postcards from him sometimes — weird ones, always unsigned. Just a sketch, or a lyric we never finished.
I keep them in the tape box under my bed.
⚠️ Notes on Reliability
Dylan remembered everything — setlists, tunings, how much we owed each venue — but you’d never catch him bragging about it.
He just carried it. Quietly.
“You can love something and still outgrow it. That doesn’t mean it didn’t save your life for a while.”
— Dylan (scribbled on the back of a flyer, found in Luna’s record store stockroom)