But I’m back. If you were wondering…

…but I doubt you were.

The new Cure single.
It’s everything I’ve ever loved about the Cure. I love it; especially Smith’s guitar.
Nifty.
But this makes me wonder two things:
1) exactly how old is Robert Smith nowadays?
2) what does he look like without all that makeup?
On second thought, perhaps it’s best I don’t know.

NarrowfuckingStairs
I don’t care what the hell anyone else says. I love this album something fierce. I think it is one of the greatest albums DCFC has ever put out.
And I love Ben Gibbard.

Flavors Of Entanglement
Oh, Alanis. You’ve got my head over feet, for cereal. Why won’t you be gay?

My Sixth Row Tickets To Death Cab in June
For cereal. When you get reviews like this, how could your fans NOT be excited within an inch of their lives?

I think I need to be restrained from accessing the site because it’s a money suck. Some people gamble. Others get shitfaced until they’re pockets are empty. I wait in an electronic queue, eager like a little child when they’ve just seen their parents come home with large bags a few weeks before Christmas, knowing that it means they’re going to get to snoop around the house till they’ve found their new gifts.

I have managed to refrain myself so far cos I have a bunch of gigs coming up in the next month to satisfy my gig hunger for now. But once they’re all over…it’s hard to tell. I live for that rush, that thrill of a live concert. There is nothing else in the world that I have experienced that is quite like it.

You can grow so close and intimate with an album in the weeks or years after you first buy hear it. It becomes a friend who you can go talk to when you’ve had a bad day at work, or when all your real friends have let you down. It’s that constant, unwaivering presence that will never, ever let you down. Some people prefer dogs or cats or other animals. I prefer music.

But when you see an artist live — one that you really, really love — those same songs that you thought you knew so well become something new and profoundly more affecting than you could have ever thought possible.

Sometimes it’s the way the artist performs them. Sometimes it the camaraderie you share with the people you go with – whether you know them or not. Sometimes it’s just the vibe. You just feel good in the time and place that the show is happening. Sometimes it’s the artist: they’re funnier/smarter/better/hotter/{insert adjective here} than you expected. Sometimes there is no reason. Sometimes it just is.

The thing I love the most is the way the music can fill you. It can start in your ears. It seeps into your veins and pulses through you until you can feel the drums and the guitar and the big motherfuckin’ bass throbbing in every last finger and toe, to the tip of your nose to the backs of your ankles. It fills you. Fills you everywhere.

It is more amazing than I could ever express.

It’s what I live for.

CLIP – “Suddenly I See”

It started out a mess. I was running late; I forgot my keys, missed a bus, missed a second bus, didn’t eat dinner, and got there are whopping ten minutes before curtain. As soon as I stepped inside the theater, I was immmediately impressed by the majesty of the State Theater. Everywhere you look there is something that’s been ornately painted or gilded. It could have been gaudy, but I think it worked quite well (FIG. 1).

(FIG. 1)

Everything in the theater is epic. Even the ushers are decked up and fancied up in uniforms with gold lapels and things. It’s a beautiful thing.

As we waited for the show to start, I glanced around at the crowd. The house was full and I was rather surprised by the turnout; I had been expecting a fair amount of lesbians (WAY more than at the Kate Nash show at First Ave last week) because KT has quite the gay following. But to my surprise, there were actually more men there than there were lesbians. I assume that most of the men were there with significant others, but there were a few flying solo.

The lights went down at 7:40. Paddy Casey was the opening act. He’s a funny little fellow from Dublin who’s been charming his way to the top of the Irish charts since the beginning of the noughties. The first thing I noticed about him was that he was adorable. See Fig. 2.

(FIG. 2)

It would be hard to resist those curls. For cereal. He came out and played a handful of his songs, including one that amused me greatly called “Not Out To Get You,” which Paddy described as being for anyone who’s ever gone out with a mental case. He also played a cover of the Purple One‘s “When Doves Cry,” which was unremarkable as far as Prince covers go (to be fair, it’s nothing against Paddy — once you’ve heard Shara Worden do WDC, it’s hard to go back).

I got to meet Paddy after the show. He remarked before his cover of “When Doves Cry” that he was actually taller than Prince. He looked pretty average sized to me, but from where I was sitting things were a trifle skewed. When he and his group (including Fiona Malady, the devilishly cute young Irish lass who plays piano for Paddy) came out, I was surprised at how wrong I was (but this could be attributed more the fact that I am always surprised when I am not significantly shorter than everyone else in the world). He had made a remark during his set comparing himself to a one Jason Mraz, a gent of whom I am a BIG fan. I commented to Paddy after the show that I’ve seen Jason several times and there is something quite different about the two men. Sure, they’re doing the same thing: writing songs, playing them on their guitars for scores of girls to hear and fall in love with them. But there is something quite different between the two, something I couldn’t exactly articulate at the time. Upon further reflection (and further research, as I wanted to find a review or two that compared him to Jason). But I just don’t see. Jason is from California. He lives on an avocado farm. His sound has a much more soft and sincere sound, where as Paddy has a very raw feeling to his music — as if he is actually moved by the things he is singing.

The thing about Paddy was not any thing about Paddy; it was the choice of Paddy to open for KT. From what I have heard of Paddy’s music (from tonight’s show and from his MySpace), he’d be a much better opening act for the likes of Mat Kearney or Oasis. According to the omniscient Wikipedia, he’s toured with the likes of R.E.M. and Ani DiFranco, which both seem much more fitted to his style of music, both melodically and lyrically. KT just seemed a little too mainstream for him.

I wasn’t expecting much of Paddy, as I’d had it on good authority that he wasn’t much to write home about (an authority which I am now dubious of). He proved me wrong, and I’m glad he did. He’s a doll and now that I’ve listened to some of his music online, I think I’d like it very much to see him again. I’m a little bit ashamed to admit it, but I am just another one of those poor American saps who are suckers for the gorgeous accents. If Paddy had asked me to jump in their tour “bus” (not that they’d have had room, mind you – I imagine they were all packed in there a little tight), I’d have probably not even thought twice. With a face like his and music like he plays, I can’t say that I’d be able to turn down an offer like that. In fact, you’d be hard pressed to find a girl around these parts who would say no to that sort of offer. Maybe Paddy should spend more time “discovering his roots” in the Midwest more often.

But finally, at 8:40, after an intermission and the standard mile-long restroom queues, the house lights dimmed again and a svelte brunette and a troupe of boys walked out on the stage. The crowd erupted in a furor that I’ve never heard at a gig before.

(FIG. 3)

There she was. KT in all her glory, standing before me on the stage with her posse of musicians (FIG 3). She was wearing this odd fitting t-shirt that was impossibly dishy. Her boots were hard to see, but once I did see them, I fell in love with them immediately. Her band was pretty flippin’ sweet, too. The lad on the far left was called Luke and the girls were crazy for him (he got a couple shout-outs — in unison — from some young-sounding girls). He had a pretty red drum set and a set of what I assume were bongo drums (though it was impossible to see from where I was). The bloke next to him was the one to blow my mind all evening. He’s called Arulf Linder and he’s from Vienna. He rocked that enormous bass (or contrabass, as one of my associates informs me) like nobody’s business. Not to mention the bloke’s got to be hitting the 7′ mark with no difficulty, as he made the cello he played later look like a mere toy. The chap on KT’s right is Sam Lewis, her fantastic guitar player. And the fellow on the far right is Kenny Dickinson, the trumpter/keyboardist/washboard-tiest/tambourine man extrodinare. He was pretty cool. But I’ll love a musician regardless of his talent if he can rock a hat right. And, oh, can Kenny rock a hat (FIG. 4)!

(FIG. 4)

As she danced around on the stage with her guitars, I was ready to throw caution to the wind and myself at the stage. Her voice is deeper in person than it is on record, which makes it THAT much more sexy. I had goosebumps of sexyness (also known as sexybumps). She’s that good.

(FIG. 5)

The peak of the show was when she performed “Under The Weather.” The song normally clocks in at just above three and a half, but their live version tonight was earth shattering. It was drawn out into a long, mystical performance that pretty much blew me to pieces. Arulf busted out with not only the humungous bass, but also his (toy) cello. Sam played this interesting instrument that looked like the neck of a guitar from what I could see. I have no idea what it was exactly, but it was stellar. If there was one thing I could take away from that performance to watch over and over again, it would without a doubt be “Under The Weather.”

Her encore included two more of her songs and a Chaka Khan cover (one that is familiar to any of her followers and something that is not really experienced until it’s experienced live). Though the audience wasn’t was I was expecting, I have to give them a lot of credit because they were a raucous bunch. The cheering for the encore was the biggest I’ve ever heard and the audience involvement during “Black Horse And The Cherry Tree” was phenomenonal.

(FIG. 6)

After the show, KT finally came out to get into her bus. A crowd of fans had gathered and thinned out considerably by the time she came out about an hour after the show ended. She was an absolute delight to meet. I was at first assaulted by the surprise that she is significantly shorter than I had previously assumed (perhaps that’s her confidence making her seem that much larger than life). She’s also significantly more beautiful in person, and her voice is lower. After she meet-and-greeted (FIG. 4) a bit, I realized that she’s not KT Tunstall, guitarist/musician/singer/hottie extrodinaire; no, she’s the poster child for the Sultry Vixens International (FIG. 5).

(FIG. 7)

n. 1: being in the right place at the right time for a delightful discovery by complete accident; 2: an incident in which all actions leading up to the event were intentional, but where the event itself was not the intention.

Today I ventured on to the St. Thomas campus for some poster whoring for a local non-profit event I had volunteered for. It was a largely uneventful adventure and it went exactly the way I had planned…until the last 15 minutes of my trip. As I was sitting at the bus stop outside of the St. Thomas library, I was letting my MP3 player take me on a delightful, chillaxed journey away from the ever growing concern that I would not make it back to my own campus for my 6 o’clock class with the Dean of Scholarly Detattchment.*

I was led through a progression of places and times, from the Southern porch of Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins down the sun-lit post-rain alley of Snow Patrol into the grassy backyard of Jason Mraz’s avocado farm, where I was led up to the familiar tree house of Death Cab For Cutie. As the KT Tunstall afternoon turned into a dark, star-filled Ryan Adams night, I slept through the darkness to finally awake to a beautiful, crystal clear Sufjan Stevens sunrise. As the breeze was tossing my hair about and the sun was shining down on recently rejuvinated lawns, Sufjan’s mild voice began to serenade me about his road trip to Chicago (all things go, all things go).**

The next thing to happen stunned me into silence. I looked up and the very first person I saw was a student who would have ordinarily never even hit my radar. He had the age-old, patented College Student look about him: t-shirt, shorts, near-bursting backpack and Apple ‘phones. But it was his bright emerald green T-Shirt that caught me off guard: in white lettering in the top-center of a white outline of the state of Illinois read the words:

COME ON! FEEL THE ILLINOISE!

It was a golden moment.

I am sure that the young wearer of this shirt thinks me a fool, as I was unable to do anything but stare and gleefully grin at him. By the time my Sufjan-induced stupor had worn off and I had regained my bloody sense and the use of my own vocal chords, he was too far away for me to approach him. Not that I would have said anything to him had I been in full possession of my own facilities. It doesn’t really matter anyway. Sometimes all you need is some beautiful weather and good tunes to make everything seem OK, even when it isn’t. I don’t know if it was my already acheived sense of contentment or a surprising alignment of the planets that caused this to occur; either way it was enough.

Enough.

**The playlist referred to above is as follows:
STEP BACK, CHILLAX
1. Jenny Lewis & the Watson Twins – Handle With Care
2. Jenny Lewis & the Watson Twins – The Charging Sky
3. Snow Patrol – How To Be Dead
4. Snow Patrol – You Could Be Happy
5. Jason Mraz – I’m Yours
6. Jason Mraz – Live High
7. Jason Mraz – After An Afternoon
8. Death Cab For Cutie – Title and Registration
9. Death Cab For Cutie – Crooked Teeth
10. Death Cab for Cutie – A Movie Script Ending
11. KT Tunstall – Stoppin’ The Love
12. KT Tunstall – Beauty of Uncertainty
13. Ryan Adams – When The Stars Go Blue
14. Ryan Adams – Wonderwall
15. Ryan Adams – La Cienega Just Smiled
16. Sufjan Stevens – The Dress Looks Nice On You
17. Sufjan Stevens – Chicago
18. Nickel Creek – When You Come Back Down
19. Nickel Creek – The Hand Song
20. Belle and Sebastian – Don’t Leave The Light On, Baby
21. Belle and Sebastian – Waiting For The Moon To Rise

Ben Gibbard + Regina Spektor x sweet, sweet love

THE RESULTS:

an epic love affair, as outlined below:

1. a critically-acclaimed collaboration effort, full of soulful lyrics and unique piano.

2. A sold-out-in-two-hours international tour. The two become millionaires, but stay humble.

3. Wedding bells! There is a small ceremony in Seattle, family and friends only. The music is mellow and elegant, and the vows are almost heartbreaking.

4. A love child (who will undoubtedly grow up to be the most innovative and talented muscian we’ve seen in years) is born. They name him John, after Regina’s favorite Beatle.

5. They buy a house in a small suburb of Seattle and settle down. No albums are made; fans are disappointed.

6. Infidelity! In a moment of ill-advised desperation, Ben has a one night stand with Jenny Lewis (of Rilo Kiley fame). Regina finds out and they have an angry sing-off. Regina wins and leaves with John.

7. Two solo albums are released: an album-long love poem to a lost soulmate that walks “the lyrical line between understanding and confusion, beauty and brokenness”, and a emotional, self-empowering, fish-without-a-bicycle with and underlying twinge of sadness beneath the electric piano riffs. Both albums are wildly successful.

8. The studios encourage a reunion tour in light of the wild success. Ben and Regina both begrudgingly agree. The tour sucks, but they reconcile at a Flaming Lips concert. 9 months later, John is a big brother.

9. Regina moves back into with Ben. The kids grow up: John drops out of college to be in a band, becomes a huge success, and goes back to school to teach music in New York City; Sarah goes on to write a book that dominates the New York Times Bestseller list for 3 consecutive years.

10. At the age of 98, Ben Gibbard dies from natural causes. Regina is heartbroken. Eight days later, she follows him into the dark.

I don’t know shit about music. I was under the impression that my musical knowledge was moderately vast, but in the past month or two I have come to realize that how very wrong I was. It’s an unfamiliar kind of startling. I have been thinking about it a lot and the best way I can describe it is as follows:

It’s like you’ve been looking out through a skylight for years and then one day, out of the blue, someone takes you outside and you suddenly realize how little you know about the sky. It doesn’t make what you already knew about the sky any less true or relevant, but it suddenly occurs to you that what you thought was a lot is really only very little, a mere fraction of the bigger picture.

And I guess that puts you at a crossroads: you can break-up with your skylight, promise to stay friend and go out into the world to study astronomy, or you can go back home to your skylight and pretend like nothing ever happened.

But….where does this leave me?