Or maybe she does love me. I don't know. What I do know is that about a year ago, I reached the next destination of my ongoing vision quest. Or at least, it's sort of like a vision quest. But instead of depriving myself of all nutrients and waiting for spirituality to descend via malnutrition hallucinations, I drink copious amounts of shitty domestic beer and look for said spirituality in records that contain some righteous fucking drums. I want to put as much distance as possible between myself and other white people, and rhythm seems like a nice back-up plan, in the event that the winning combination of bad credit and admiration for NBA neck tattoos can't quite seal the deal together[1].
Anyway, as I reconnected to the internet, trying to make up for eighteen months of listening almost exclusively to vinyl, bar jukeboxes, and the music I put on my iPod right after Santa came, I stumbled upon a leak of the latest album by the National. So as not to further bore everyone that's heard me rave about that record endlessly, I'll simply reiterate that I think its the cat's ass[2]. So, being heavily enamored with them at the time, and reacquainting myself with frequent live music treks to Milwaukee, it was only a matter of time before I laid down some newspaper, and popped my National cherry. Unsurprisingly, they were fantastic. The arrangements were peculiar, but interesting. "Mr. November" was a great encore. I'd imagine this could all be read about in greater detail on a blog with actual standards, frequent updates, and an interest in content beyond "I simpwy wuuuuuv <3 UGK !!!!11!ONE!!!!" and "Keith Richards is the greatest guitar player ever"[3].
The National, though, were in no way, shape, or form the pinnacle. You just sort of knew they would be amazing, and thus you took them for granted, like the 23rd beer in the case. I am serious as a fucking AIDS test when I say that the high-water mark was St. Vincent. I had familiarized myself with the record and liked what I heard, but the trickles of insight actually came after reading the interview where she explained the background of her album title, and revealed herself as really funny and neurotic. So, when she took the stage with a single guitar and a sampling pedal, with no band in sight, I slumped into my seat, anticipating a shit sandwich on turd bread.
Then the freshly layered chord progressions started swirling, and it staggered the first thirty rows of people. Thoroughly stunned, I looked at at Ted and Dan [4] to verify it wasn't simply the PBR that was mystifying me. Then I uprighted myself, waiting for the heavy applause to subside. This rather lengthy wait also provided ample opportunity to begin shifting gears into serious artistic evaluation mode, since we undoubtedly spent the car ride over passionately discussing just how funny poop and pee really are. Yet, before I could turn off the juvenile part of my brain to keep up with the gravitas of her performance, a weird thing happened; she started telling jokes. Like, nervous one-liners, shit with punch lines, things that she clearly stammered accidentally in Omaha, but later molded into top-grade stage banter. She was hilarious. And she covered "Dig a Pony". Basically, the whole thing gave me a throbbing, purple, indierection for like 36 hours[5].
So all this time, as I've tried to be a somewhat realistic man in most facets of my life, there has remained my completely unrealistic pipe dream that St. Vincent and I will one day share spiral-shaped Kraft Macaroni & Cheese (one bowl, two spoons) in an oversized papasan chair, while watching a televised baseball game and listening to early Pavement records. That vision of domestic hipster bliss, however, has been shattered, however, as my beating heart has redirected it's focus, leaving sweet Annie Clark in the lurch[6].
Last weekend, as Ryan, Miles, and I journeyed to the center of our minds/pelvises/all points in between, events crescendoed until we arrived at some sort of an art mall, waiting to see Dan Deacon play at an avante-garde music festival at 4am. Irritatingly, the draconian alcohol policy required me to bribe a Starbucks employee for a sleeve of cups. Said cups proved worth their weight in gold, though, as they allowed us to take overpriced beers from the mall bar, and stroll around with them towards the stage area proper. As our grift sharpened, our consciousness expanded, and our hubris grew, we abandoned our brief stint behaving civilly in public, and returned to drunken cavorting at peak volume. In the midst of intoxicated Ryan and Anthony argument #2,739,202, I discussed the line-up of the event we were at, and cavalierly referred to guitar player Marnie Stern as "dope". That, friends, is where my path diverged into the yellow wood.
During the tirade, captured for posterity on Ryan's James Bond camera, a tiny voice peeps up in the background. "Really? You think I'm dope??" At this point, we are introduced to the genuine fucking article herself. I then proceed to mislead myself into thinking I was charming Marnie Stern, guitar virtuoso and foxy foxy lady, in an exchange thankfully recorded for the initial 90 seconds alone. The next twenty minutes can only be remembered in my head, where I was unbelievably debonair, and both artist and her flamboyant manager alike were knocked on their asses by my penetrating wit and insight. While this segment failed to make the now battery deprived camera, it's probably for the best, as legend has undoubtedly eclipsed stark, brutal reality.
The night went on, Dan Deacon rocked our faces off, and we left to drink past sunrise, listen to Juvenile, and track down Milos. But nothing lingers in my subconscious the way that Marnie Stern has[7].
*sigh*
St. Vincent, we'll always have Milwaukee. But the world is too cold for a delicate flower like you. All celebrity crushes from this point forward will all be gauged by their finger-tapping guitar solo ability, followed immediately by how adorable their voice is. I think its an air-tight plan.
Get familiar, dear readers. Get familiar.
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For a more nuanced take on the actual event we attended, direct your sweet ass to NameDropAcid. It's a trade-off, though, since he makes way less weiner jokes than I do. But, there's actual video of the performances, and various other bullshit I'm way to solipsistic to concern myself with. I know you all care far more about which brilliant musicians I've reduced to masturbation fuel. And I love you all for it. Hugs and Kisses, blog land!
EDIT: Also, I would be remiss if I didn't mention Marnie Stern and her manager's hilarious reaction to Ryan's business card. The business card is such a blend of genius and retarded that only Pootie Tang, and golden-era DipSet exist on the same ethereal plane. While they didn't seem to think anything was bizarre about a drunken sweaty guy with a bad beard fawning over her MySpace page, they asked about five questions in an attempt to clarify just what the fuck Ryan hoped to accomplish with his business cards. That, I would imagine, is the point of having such a brilliant fucking business card. Kudos.
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[1] The concept of a tandem that's worth far less than the sum of it's parts will forever be known as "The Mega-Maniacs Phenomenon", since it's rather astounding just how inferior they were as a tag team to my beloved "Money Inc".
[2] And as the king of the jungle reminds us, few things are as intoxicating as a cat's ass
[3] As many of you know, I know consider his bandmate Mick Taylor a better guitar player, but you know this because I'm long winded and redundant, which was the point of that aside.
[4] From this point forward, all supporting characters in boring stories I tell will be represented by the first result from a google image search of their name. Feel free to start an internet petition that I never meet anyone named Lance.
[5] Or 253 days. A horse a piece.
[6] Initially, I abbreviated that as "A.C.", until fear struck that lackadaisical readers may think I have dreams of entering an unholy sexual union with the members of Anal Cunt.
[7] Well, maybe the Patriot. But, that's only because I need to keep the legend in the pipeline until I can rally the troops for an epic trip to their almighty jukebox. "Jolene" doesn't play itself, mu'fucka.
