lcrelyea
rebeccapatrick
ce.
Tommy Wilson
stephenkillion
amsettineriFiled under: Inspirational Anthems | Tags: Canterbury Effect, Dead of Winter, Not Forgotten, Since Forever, The Basement Collective, The Graveyard Heart, Under a Dying Sun
I miss a good basement show–the way we did it back in Brazil/Terre Haute, when we didn’t have much more than some beat up half cabs and beat up hearts.
It started with a small group of kids going to shows at The Basement Collective in Terre Haute, satelliting around a handful of bands: Canterbury Effect, Not Forgotten, Dead of Winter. It was at the Collective that our group met Under a Dying Sun on their way back to San Francisco, and started a friendship and tradition of summer shows, the last and most memorable of which happened the summer of 2002.
The Basement Collective had long since folded, and we were doing shows out of my friend Dustin’s basement; I had left Not Forgotten to play bass for Since Forever and Dustin had left Canterbury Effect and started another band, The Graveyard Heart.
It was the 3rd annual Summer’s Summary show, and what had once been 15-20 kids gathering at the Collective had become almost 100 trying to cram into Dustin’s small basement to see the all of the local mainstays and Under a Dying Sun as they passed through for the 3rd year running on the last leg of their summer tour back to SanFran.
There’s a smattering of images from the night I hope to never forget–the ceiling sweating, Shaye’s wonder at the quiet corn and the fireflies, everyone I loved so much at that time in my life in the same room shouting along to the same songs, the sting and shred in my throat, Konane a fuzz through the microphone speaking about how what we had there in that basement was something he’d never found anywhere else in all their touring.
It ended up being the last show Since Forever ever played, the last summer of Under a Dying Sun passing through, the last summer of a lot of things. It’s a strange sort of nostalgia looking back, one I could easily let myself grow sad over–wondering if I’ll ever feel anything like I felt in that basement again, thinking about how I still search for similar feelings–how I climb now to feel the rocks tear at the skin of my fingers like bass strings once did, how I still gather people around me who know and love the same anthems I used to shout, how I still sometimes go into my basement, simply because the smell, the way it smells like Dustin’s old basement.
ce.
*Photo compliments of John Joh.
Filed under: Time to Party Tunes | Tags: halloween, murder by death, who will survive and what will be left of them
Soundtrack of the day is “Who Will Survive, and What Will Be Left of Them?” by Murder By Death. I mean, come on. It’s a horror story of an album (scroll down to the additional info and Adam has the story written out song by song).
The music is brilliant and are matched in brilliance by lyrics like these:
there’s a girl with a flower pot full of dirt and bullet shells she puts it by her window gives it sunlight restores its health after a month or two the shells start to grow into branches of barbed wire they spread across the walls the windows and the floors and their grip never tires.
And:
old scratch has dealt us a dirty hand he had the look of a saint but the greed of a man and his face was worn and wrinkled like a leather book and if i put this revolver to my head will god turn against me instead of taking pity on a broken man?
And:
set the fields on fire let the devil come let him come I’ll be waitin’ for him this time I am stronger now and I can fight it I’ll be waitin’ at the end of the line.
Happy Hallows everyone!
-Christopher
Filed under: Night Drive Tunes, Rainy Day Songs, Songs for Contemplation | Tags: cursive, tim kasher, what have i done
It’s a strange phrase. “What have I done?” You read it, and think immediately, (I do. I’m guessing you probably do.) of the man with blood on his hands, maybe over a dead body that he killed in anger or stupidity or both, looking at them, muttering the words.
And, on the opposite side of the spectrum, you have Tim Kasher, muttering and screaming it about a man with no blood on his hands.
Weeks ago now, I saw Cursive live for the first time. I’ve loved Cursive since highschool–in fact, they’ve sat comfortably at no. 3 on my all-time top 5 since 2001–and I’ve always been afraid that they’d split up before I got to see them, as has happened with pretty much every other band on my top 5.
They ended their set with What Have I Done?, and the entire sentiment reverberated, and ever since has echoed and echoed.
I’m 26 now, and beg the question; I wonder what blood might be on my hands, whether from ending or saving a life; I wonder if there is any at all. What have I accomplished? Who have I helped? Have I made the world any better? I want the answer to be yes, and include a litany of people who feel improved by my actions or words.
Today, I asked my father where the point in life is that you harden against the world, where you decide you can’t change a damn thing? If there is one. I feel right in the void where the man in the song feels:
Stranded in Ann Arbor with a flat tire
I watched the sun sadly set
Any younger I may have wept
Much older I wouldn’t have noticed
I don’t ever want to get to the point where I don’t notice, but some days, I’m tired of weeping for it all.
Copper and stars,
christopher earl.
Filed under: Dance like no one is watching, Songs to start your day, Sunny Dispositions, sing like no one is listening | Tags: air drumming, Monon, Tallest Man on Earth
I suppose I could blame it on a good night’s sleep after a long stretch of not-so-good-nights’ sleeping. Or maybe on the coffee and croissant I had at the Monon Coffee Co. with Jeremy. Also, the possibility of it being a perfectly weathered morning, coasting (or not coasting, considering that I ride fixed, but it felt so effortless in the moment, that I felt as though I was coasting) up the Monon Greenway on my way to work yesterday. It was just one of those mornings, and I can’t describe it in any other way than simply “infectious joy.”
Don’t chide me. I ride my bike with headphones sometimes, when I know that it’s safe to ride with headphones. You see, I had The Tallest Man on Earth singing over the wind in my ears. The sun was like confetti through the trees. And, I was dancing as much as a person can dance on a bike, singing loud, at times playing air drums (though there are no drums backing The Tallest Man on Earth, I was playing them), and other times, when necessity necessitated that my hands should be on the handlebars, I strummed along on the bars. For some reason, The Tallest Man on Earth conveys to me an air and countenance of Beirut’s, Zach Condon, but yet dusty with the creaks and groans of say, an ancient wooden trade vessel or a ghost of a cabin deep in the woods of Georgia or Mississippi.
I passed people, and they smiled at me; some laughed. It’s probably hard to see a large, tattooed man riding his bike in this manner, singing and carrying on, and not take part in the joy he is feeling, to be affected by it. I felt as though lilting lines of music and notes were wafting away n my wake. It felt good to believe, to want to believe, that those people who saw me, who smiled and laughed, knew a day better than they would have otherwise, simply because I cared to sing.
christopher earl.
Filed under: Songs for Contemplation | Tags: majesty snowbird, sufjan stevens, wanderlust
It’s a strange feeling, really, for a guy who has spent a good 80-90% of his life if not wandering, wanting to wander–to have finally closed on my own house, to have moved my small apartment of belongings into a place that I plan to spend at least the next 5 to 10 years of my life.
Wanderlust of the sort that I and a good portion of my friends have (a couple of whom also write for this blog) is at once a wonder and a torment. It keeps us sharp and alert, always looking around to see the things around us, and most especially to see the things that most would see as trivial, we see as miracle.
But, it also keeps our minds loud, spinning, at times like a playful top, and others more like a whirlpool. We’ve ruined relationships with our whirling–at times, we’ve ruined ourselves. I’m not sure that you ever grow out of it; like I’ve written before, I think there are still hints of my wanderlust in the relative life of minimalism I lead. I used to be able to fit all that I own in a sedan, just in case I needed to make a break.
Sounds a bit overly dramatic, I suppose, and I suppose, it’s because it was. There was a time I never thought I’d settle in somewhere, and now I have a mortage payment, and I am marrying a wonder of a girl in just a few months. My mind still spins sometimes–I constantly beg for instances of good in the world, sometimes I ask Jesus or whoever to come back soon and fix everything, sometimes I just have a hard time with memories that I’d rather not carry so much weight.
The first chance I got to play music at the new house, all I could think of was the refrain of Sufjan’s “Majesty Snowbird”:
Don’t stop, don’t break
You can delight because you have a place
Quiet room, I need you now
I spun my finger around the dial of my iPod, and pressed play. I looked around, saw the dust of the remodeling still hanging in the sunlight, sat down on the floor, and listened to the house breathing around me, growing lungs, a beating heart, wrinkle upon wrinkle of new memories making a home. Something I was never sure I’d find.
-christopher earl.
Filed under: sing like no one is listening
It was summer, I was in highschool. As per the year before, a group of us had gone to Cornerstone Festival to camp out for the week, skate the new skatepark there, go to some shows, hear some sermons/seminars. I don’t remember whether it was the C-stone that Robin and I won the swing dance contest at C-stone Prom, or whether it was the same summer I arm wrestled the bassist from Dogwood. My memories of my two summers at Cornerstone are a hazy blend of fog and smiles.
Really, what I do remember is laying on a blanket in the middle of camp. I was probably eating chips or snacking on something, or just laying there talking to Jordan or Robin or Dustin or Nick or.. whoever.
It was customary for us to have a vehicle around the camp site with the doors open playing music. And, I remember that whatever I was doing, I found myself snagged by whatever was filtering from Nick’s car. When he told me what it was, I think I remember chuckling. The irony of an indie band naming themselves American Football just struck me as slightly comical.
And, maybe it wasn’t meant to be ironic. Maybe the Kinsella’s actually do love the NFL. Stranger things can happen, but generally, their fan base isn’t known to be fans of professional sports–especially football.
I think about things that don’t matter far too much. The thing is, the music was summer to me, and what I do remember is laying back on the blanket, feeling the grass poking me a bit through the fabric, and just listening to American Football with my eyes closed, falling asleep sweating and dirty and happy.
-christopher earl.
I get like this sometimes. I’m not sure why. Sometimes I think it’s because of sugar-crashing, particularly bothersome since diabetes runs in my family. Other times, I chalk it up to manstruation. Mostly, I just feel stubborn.
And how can so much good be going on in my life, so much around me, and even good that I am affecting, helping to bring into being (which should be encouraging, but today, isn’t), and yet, I sit here, glaze-eyed at the screen, unable to really pin down what I really want, if anything at all. And yet.
I am blessed with new music when I need it most.
There is a certain patience that comes along with any post-rock endeavor–a patience needed to listen as well as create. Back when I played with No Heroics, Please, we always joked about how our music sounded like having a broken microwave. Leftovers take a long time to warm in an oven. At any rate.
It’s nice to stand still a moment. To try to feel patience. To take inventory, maybe. To listen to something that simply.. is. Today, I don’t want any sweeping gestures to my music–just simple, humble beauty.
So, I listen to The American Dollar for the first time, and it’s perfect for today on a number of different levels that I can’t exactly describe, moreso because I don’t even understand them, let alone to try to explain or describe them.
Just know I hope you’re well. All of you.
Filed under: Inspirational Anthems, Rainy Day Songs, Songs for Contemplation | Tags: Cloud Cult, Good, The Meaning of 8
I’m going to write about Cloud Cult again, and you’re just going to have to deal. The truth is, I haven’t been able to stop listening to The Meaning of 8 for the past few weeks.
I go through fits. I go through fits where I need to be reminded that there is good in the world–not beauty–just good. Beauty is easy for me to see, it always has been, but beauty is not always good. What I mean is good, with a capital G, thus, Good. And, I don’t even mean the kind of good like a guy running into a burning house to save a child, though that is good–I don’t mean heroism. I mean the simple kind of good, the everyday kind of good.
I mean the kind of good that is a father’s heart breaking for his lost son, I mean the kind of good that is a husband and wife separating from the grief of that loss and coming back together because they need each other in grief more than they need themselves, I mean the kind of good that Cloud Cult displays not only in their songs, but in their lives as artists and as a band, that inspires others to be good and simple.
Just listen to The Meaning of 8–it might take you more than once, it might take looking up some of the lyrics–but you will see good there.
-christopher earl.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Anathallo, Anathallo Camp, Dokkoise House (With Face Covered)
I’m not processing anything today. Tomorrow morning, early, I leave on a flight to Denver to visit my dear friends that I’ve come to know through, as lame as it sounds, the Anathallo messageboard. This will be the 3rd time that we’ve all come together as a group. Here is a video that my good friend, Jeremy Albert, made of the last camp featuring Anathallo’s song “Dokkoise House (With Face Covered).”
anathallo camp, 2008 – millington, tn**dokkoise house (with face covered) by anathallorandom shots from an amazing weekend.
That a community like the one that has developed on Anathallo’s messageboard could develop should serve as something of a testimony to the heart of their music. It’s hard to even write about my friends, or the times we have gotten to spend together, so I’ll simply copy and paste what I wrote once to a friend after the first ‘Thallo Camp:
“this weekend…to describe it would be something of an injustice. the only thing i could really say, the only thing true that i know you’d easily understand, is that everyone is just as beautiful as you imagine them to be on the boards. i could say the things we did–shake face pictures, s’mores around a constantly vigiled campfire, sleeping bags beneath boundless stars, staring down an impending stormfront to make time to break camp, a perfectly timed Colour Revolt show at the Jackpot Saloon in downtown Lawrence, a single hotel room crammed to overfilling with hearts simultaneously laughing and breaking that they should have to leave again so soon–i could speak of these things as best I could, and hope that you could only know how much you were missed…”
if all the world could have seen us this weekend, an example of how it could be, instead of how it is, i don’t know that another war would ever be fought, or another stomach ever hungry.
So, I’m leaving tomorrow morning early, to experience that again. All of you enjoy your holiday weekends, and I will see you again on Tuesday.
