You know when you go to a rock show and you can feel the music reverberating in your body? When you can actually feel the bass line buzzing and throbbing in your bones? I love that. It can transport me into a kind of trance state, where I’m acutely focused on sound. I’m not just hearing it -- it feels like it’s surrounding me and somehow urging me into some kind of transformation.
I took a long break from going out to hear live music. It just wasn’t been a part of my life for the past decade or so. But this summer, it came back.
I went to see Tim Kasher (Cursive, The Good Life) at Great Scott in Allston. His latest album, The Game of Monogamy, chronicles the arc – and end -- of a romantic relationship. It’s not pretty. At times, it’s brutal -- and so, so vivid and true.
I’d listened to the album plenty of times in the months leading up to the show, and I thought I’d absorbed it for the most part. Plodding through the end of my own marriage, I could certainly relate to it. I wasn’t expecting any surprises. But then, standing there in the crowd in that tiny city club, I found myself clutching my hand to my mouth to hold back the sobs.
No you can’t come back.
I hate myself when you’re around.
The song is The Prodigal Husband and with its yellow nightgown and “our old queen bed,” and “your cheeks drained white like you’d seen a ghost,” it’s emotional enough. Dark, tricky, all hope gone but for the faintest glimmer that you know will flicker and go out.
I didn’t realize that’s what I’d been feeling for so long. Hating myself. I didn’t see it til I started to come out of it.
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On the flip side, on New Year’s Day, I joined some friends at Club Passim in Cambridge for a show by Love Canon, a fine bluegrass band that specializes in covers of 80s pop songs. The ones I loved when I was in middle school – Africa (Toto), Take On Me (A-ha), Don’t Stop Believin’ (Journey, duh). Pop confection elevated to artform by a simple change of context (and instrumentation). The delivery was so fun and upbeat – it didn’t matter that the songs were fairly meaningless. I just couldn’t stop smiling – even laughing at times. I felt gleeful. Even for the end-of-show sing-a—long of Girls Just Wanna Have Fun (I hate sing-a-longs).
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And then there was the Cracker/Camper Van Beethoven show at The Middle East – their annual appearance on MLK weekend. David Lowery fronts both bands. I knew (and loved) some of Cracker’s stuff but had heard a total of just one song by CvB. No matter. Those guys really know what they’re doing.
The Middle East is a much larger club, and they have plenty of speakers to fill the room with sound. I went in with a lingering chest cold and was grateful to find a spot at the railing, with a great view and something to lean on when I got tired. As usual, I could feel the bass resonating in my breastbone. Thump, thump, thump, thump – a steady throb that escalated to a buzz when the guitars got really loud. I just stood there, basking in the sensation . . . the music present not just in my ears, but throughout my body.
It was the coldest night of the year, and leaving the club after midnight, I could feel my muscles clenching in a misguided attempt to ward off the chill. I didn’t want to breathe deeply til I was back in the warmth of the car. I didn’t even realize it til I awoke the next morning. All that thumping and throbbing had beaten the congestion right out of my chest. My cold was gone.
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Coming up next, the Cowboy Junkies at the Somerville Theater in March. (Margo magic. OMG, I’m such a dork. But Margo! How can you not love her?)
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