With Lizzy Mercier Descloux’s “Sports Spootnicks’”cranked up, I glance to my left, toward the edge of one of Tri City’s handsome bridges, and discover that Juice’s driver side window is thumping. Yes. The glass is flexing outwardly as though its true center is being booted from the inside by a tiny musical elf. Every kick drum: “Boof!” The lowest note on the planet: “Boot!” The afternoon has started out like: “Boom!” And each complaint—every little bitch my negative side can muster, is getting boofed, booted, and boomed out into the fields of Easter Washington where, I can only imagine, they all lay down in a finely organized row and choke on the dust.

Not that every day needs a happy beginning. You come to live with that. Some days I wake up feeling like an unstoppable force, and sometimes I wake up feeling terrible for “wasting” so much time and energy on something clearly going nowhere economically. It’s like: “Hi. I’m 35 and I’m an artist” or it’s “Hi. I’m 35 and I’m too stubborn to give up my expensive hobby. In fact…I have no idea what else I would do; this is the only thing I really love doing. How sad for me, eh? Hehe.” One guy is fun…the other is hopefully fun to blog about. My fingers are crossed. Just sayin’!

So I think we should listen to the positive voices and share a laugh with the negative ones. They’ve all got a point, you know. Like when you’re passing a big rig in the Rocky Mountains and you think to yourself “Ok. This might be it. If this guy forces me to the rail…this is it.” Then you wonder about the sound of the metal—the gigantic squishing and twisting sound—and how that would be the most important sound you would ever hear and only you would ever hear it. And you wonder whether or not they would remove all of the little hunks of the steering column and such from your body before laying you down. Or would they just tuck them under your suit? You hope they don’t bother too much but…wait…maybe you secretly hope they bother QUITE A BIT with the removing of the flecks of the steering column and such. Hmmm. You would think that—you would—and I wouldn’t blame you. But is it worth obsessing over? No. No, it’s not. I mean, you pass the truck—you merge in front of it—you move onto thinking again of happier things.

We all move on. On the same road, even. We just look at something else. There are clouds at the tops of the Rocky Mountains with fingers, for instance. They’re the kind of fingers that curve into the slopes of each hill, tugging gently with a calm force. They start in their plump youth, they pull the hills from the roots, they keep quietly singing toward the highest part of the sky. And someday, after thousands and thousands of years—thousands and thousands of years of quiet tugging—the mountain reaches such a towering height that the clouds themselves start to lose physical form. They become thin and twisted in the high air. They become old. Then they seep into the leaves and rest.

So, back to the rear view mirror: It’s glass is definitely covered in dust. It has, after all, managed some 1,100 miles over the weekend. I played a couple fun shows in Spokane, eating tacos, sipping fine red wine, and sipping less-than-fine clear beer. I played a raucous show in Missoula, too. I was on the floor snapping pictures of No-Fi Soul Rebellion as they sent the circling crowd into a fanatical gaggle of waving arms and legs. That’s when Mark hopped on my back and I felt, with no uncertainty, that his crotch was completely soaked with what I can only assume was PBR. Someone grabbed the camera. I took a sip of beer. Mark kept wailing into the mic, and the rest of this story is viewable on this blog to this day. 1,000 words. Instantly. Just add PBR.

Over the last year, I’ve played Spokane more than any city not named “Portland.” Seven times, in fact. “Spokane doesn’t give it up easily. You have to come back. These bands from Seattle—they think they’re hot shit—they come through, and nothing happens.” That’s Bob from Spokane record store 4000 Holes. We’re talking about the music culture of the city and soon move onto talking about The Beatles’ “new” releases. “Sure…I love selling these albums to everyone again.” We also discuss digital files, which I feel are “the future.” “Maybe…but then you don’t own anything. I think people want to own ’something.’” Also, I let Bob know I think the industry would kill if it sold “everything” to “everyone” again by packaging it in an accessible, high quality digital format. “Well…you’re assuming the industry knows what people want. You’re assuming it cares. You’re assuming A LOT.”

As it stands, I have sold one piece of vinyl at 4000 Holes in the last year. “That’s actually pretty good,” says Bob. I must take that as a moral victory. The type of victory where you gently pull at something for a year and note that it has moved an inch toward the sky. But happiness is in the tugging itself. Yes—remember that: Tugging = Happiness. And the industry really is clueless. First squishing the single then twisting the digital format. The industry looks more like “The industry” every day. See? It even has a crappy name.

So you follow a semi-circle to the right that leads to the next state. And as I-84 drops down to the right at such an angle as to float over the river at the bottom of the gorge itself—as the Fall’s “Oh! Brother” blasts from a car stereo from the past. and the present, and the future—you notice something like a frame in your mind sinking in from all sides. You paint the moment. With several brushes you crudely capture the train sliding assuredly West on your left. A few more dabs and you’ve contained the river calmly running West on your right. And as trees begin sliding into view—tall green trees—and Oregon begins to look more like Oregon, you grasp the picture, put it on the wall, back up, and stare. As you slump slightly to the right your arm meets a firm elbow rest. You settle in. It’s a nice picture and you plan on looking for more than just a few minutes.

Link:
Boy Eats Drum MachineSpace

Photo courtesy of BEDM

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