Saturday night will see Matt Cash, bassist for Raleigh post-rock stalwarts Goodbye, Titan, play one last show with the band. It’s a friendly split, and he isn’t going far: he will remain active in his increasingly dance-oriented shoewave trio The White Cascade. And in a more literal way, he isn’t going anywhere – the two bands share a practice space. He won’t even have to move his amp.
“Like a lot of my friends that are active musicians in this area, we have jobs, families and other extracurricular activities to which we devote our time,” says Cash, who has played with Goodbye, Titan for two years. “I came to the point where there was not enough of myself to go around.”
New bassist John Pyburn has been a fan of the band since he saw it play a 2009 show at Jack Sprat, an East Franklin bar and coffee shop. He became close friends with the members, particularly Cash. But even when guitarist Allen Palmer recently texted Pyburn, asking him to come hang out at practice (“and bring beer”—an important request, considering Pyburn works as a cellerman for Big Boss), the bassist didn’t see the invitation coming.
“When they took a break, Cash turns to me and asks how I’d like to play in Goodbye, Titan,” he says. “My jaw hit the floor.” Pyburn quickly, excitedly said yes.
And Cash doesn’t view his own departure from the band as a farewell, necessarily, so much as a “see you later.” He says playing music in the Triangle has an open-ended quality to it, referring to local musicians’ proclivity to unlikely, fascinating recombinations.
“I would like to think that these guys know that even though I can’t play with them right now, there could be the most crushing doom project literally right around the corner that they nor anyone else could possibly imagine,” he says.
Yet Cash is taking one last time onstage with this instrumental quartet Saturday night at Slim’s before Pyburn, who has already been practicing with the band, takes over completely. “[There will be] lots of tears and smiles and uncomfortably long bro-hugs,” says Pyburn of the bittersweet, though exciting, transition. “It’ll be a party for sure!”
Estocada opens the 10 p.m. show, which is $5 at the door.
