When Can I Fly? by Michael Belfer
When Can I Fly? by Michael Belfer (The Sleepers, Tuxedomoon) is a memoir that can be broken down into two parts. One part focuses on Belfer’s career in music while the other recounts his struggles with substance abuse.
When Can I Fly? begins in late 1970s Palo Alto, California, a suburb of San Francisco. Belfer discusses the formation of The Sleepers with Ricky Williams (ex-Crime)—to this day a deeply underappreciated band—and the SF punk scene. For a while Belfer oscillated between the Sleepers and early Tuxedomoon, which is incredible seeing as joining either one of those groups would’ve been a career highpoint for any other musician. The book is understandably heavy on The Sleepers and Tuxedomoon, although his time in Black Lab—a late 1990s major label act being groomed for success in the dying days of the biz—is covered briefly as well. You can actually see the trajectory of the music industry through Belfer’s career: starting in a seminal late ‘70s punk band, touring Europe in the ‘80s, and catching the last gasps of the record biz as they tried to find the next Nirvana.
The other part of Belfer’s book covers his battles with substance abuse and all of the accompanying struggles (alienating friends, homelessness, blown opportunities) and health impacts (overdosing, destroying one’s body) that comes with addiction. When Can I Fly? tells the stories of talented people who are gone—some for decades now—due to heroin: Michael Kowalsky, Ricky Williams, etc.
When Can I Fly? is well worth picking up for any fan of West Coast punk rock. Belfer did a good job recounting his adult life (roughly the years 1977-2000) and the people he knew and worked with. The book is well edited. It includes a foreword by Jon Savage, who’s one of the best historians working today (see Teenage: The Creation of Youth Culture). If anything, it should inspire you to pick up The Sleepers’ debut EP Seventh World. It’s an absolute must have. -Ryan Leach (HoZac)
