Skip to main content

We're Allowed to Be Alive

Eleven hours to get there, ten to get back, and one car battery later, I'm back from Nashville. My summer vacation came and went in a flash, but I came back home with a greater sense of clarity. Much more than I thought I would, actually.

Instead of a day-by-day/hour-by-hour account, let me run down the highlights between Thursday night to Saturday night: ordered tacos and got a sandwich and hot wings instead, saw Michael Ian Black do standup and kill, watched Filmage again, went to four record stores, bought Jawbox's first album on vinyl, ate a couple of large plates of Indian vegetarian food, hit up a Guitar Center, got a new car battery, helped with setting up (and tearing down) a drum set, helped do merch inventory, visited Sun Studio again and went to Ardent Studio for the first time, and got home safely.

The main attraction of seeing Braid and Beach Slang was the pinnacle of my whirlwind visit. Both bands put on excellent sets, mixing old and new material well. I spent a lot of time with the Braid guys, hanging out and volunteering to help in any way that I could. They are good people that I have known for over ten years, and I look forward to seeing them again, whenever that is. Getting to know the Beach Slang guys was a major plus. I freely admitted to them about how much I like their sound, and I hope to see them again on tour later this year.







 Driving almost endlessly down I-40 on the way home, I didn't dread coming back to my regular routine. I realized this "vacation" was a way for me to take a break from mental doldrums swirling around in my head. Spending almost 24 hours of helping a band get from place to place and setting up and tearing down gave me the chance to not think too much about topics that have been on my mind lately. I now understand that I am an obsessive thinker, and have been for many years. Recognizing this as a problem can help me work on solutions for what I can do in the foreseeable future. 

Quite often, I hear people say their vacations are never long enough and they can't wait to go on another one. I'm not thinking that way, as I enjoy doing what I do in my regular routine, for the most part. I needed this trip, as perverse as it might sound to drive a long way for a show. But it wasn't just a show for me. Most shows aren't.

 















Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

It's a Long Way Down

There was a time when I listened to Ryan Adams' music practically all the time. Back in 2001, as I finished college and tried to navigate post-college life, the double dose of Whiskeytown’s Pneumonia and Adams’ Gold led me to everything else he had made before. It was countrified rock music that spoke to me in a deep way, mainly on the musical front. I don’t tend to really pay attention to lyrics, but I connected with Adams’ lyrics about being young and perpetually heartbroken. I thought some self-inflicted mental pain about awkward and failed attempts at relationships put me in the headspace to relate to songs by Adams, as well as Bright Eyes. There was so much time and energy spent on anger and sadness directed at myself for things not working out, so I found solace in songs like “Harder Now That It’s Over” and “The Rescue Blues.” As it turned out, there was a pattern in my life: if I had a little taste of a feeling of sadness or anger, I could relate to those who had it
Post a Comment
Read more

I ain't got no crystal ball

I've never been a big fan of Sublime's reggae-punk-ska, but I feel bad for their hardcore fans. Billboard reports that a four-disc box set featuring previously released and unreleased material is on the way. How is this a bad thing? Well, the number of posthumous vault-raiding collections greatly outnumber the band's proper releases. That usually isn't a problem, but the quality of them is very suspect. When they were together, the band recorded three proper albums, Robbin' the Hood , 40 Oz. to Freedom and Sublime . Sublime would be the band's breakthrough record with the mainstream, but that success was very bittersweet. Shortly before its release, frontman/guitarist/songwriter Bradley Nowell died of a heroin overdose. In the following years, the effects of apparently a bad record deal have yielded compilation after compilation. Here's the rundown so far: Second Hand Smoke (1997) Stand By Your Van -- Sublime Live in Concert (1998) Sublime Acoustic: Br
1 comment
Read more

Best of 2021

  Last year, my attention span was not wide enough to listen to a lot of LPs from start to finish. Too much went on in 2020 to focus on 10-15 albums, so I went with only a couple to spotlight. Well, 2021 was a little better, as I have a list of top four records, and a lot of individual tracks.  (I made a lengthy Spotify playlist ) So, without further ado, here’s my list of favorites of the year: Albums Deafheaven, Infinite Granite (listen) Hands down, my favorite album of the year. I was not sure where Deafheaven would go after another record that brought My Bloody Valentine and death metal fans together, but they beautifully rebooted their sound on Infinite Granite. The divisive goblin vocals are vastly pared-down here, as are the blast beats. Sounding more inspired by Slowdive, the band has discovered a new sonic palette that I hope they explore more of in the future. It’s a welcome revelation. I still love their older material, but this has renewed my love of what these guys do.  J
Post a Comment
Read more