i am tired of playing defense

The last time I posted, it was to share my awesome rock & roll lifestyle report from 2011. I was like, 2012 is going to be even better for live music!

Then I moved.

I’m not going to say it was totally unexpected. I had been idly looking for a new place for a while, but it was definitely an impulse and it happened very quickly. I didn’t move because I was unhappy; I moved because it was time to move. Happily, I didn’t go very far. I’m maybe a 20-minute bike ride from work instead of a 7-minute bike ride. (But note that when I attempt to take public transportation a grand total of 2.5 miles, it takes HOURS. Fuck you, too, CTA.) I’m still pretty close to my friends. It’s a little weird, though. I now live alone, which is a thing I haven’t done in 15 years. Sometimes I get home after work and the silence is so deafening I want to scream.

I’ve moved many times in my life. I’d put a number on it, but I’m not sure how. Those weeks I lived in my car, do they count? That summer we went from fleabag motel to fleabag motel — is each hotel a move? Or is that just one big summer of suck? Beats me. I asked on twitter how many times people had moved, and the highest number I got back was 25. I’m definitely higher than that, even if I only count places where I got mail in my name (and there were more than a few where I didn’t, for various reasons). But the eventually relevant part of that story is that two moves ago, I went from a friend’s pull-out couch to a room in a Zen Buddhist temple. I was not much of a Zen Buddhist at the time, really, but the second I walked into that place, I knew it was the right place. That particular instinct is one I follow, and I followed it to the apartment I’m currently renting.

Instincts aside, when I moved to the temple, I got rid of almost everything I owned. When I moved from there to the townhouse, I bought some bedroom furniture, but everything else was my roommate’s. So for the most recent move, I basically started from scratch, meaning I dropped a lot of money in a short period of time on things like an antique icebox. Because everyone needs one of those! I also purchased what used to be the wine cabinet at the Mambo Grill, a couch from a dude on Craigslist who has a recording studio on the fourth floor of his house and offered to record my debut album for free (I’m not even kidding), and a turntable.

[True story about the turntable: I didn't know which one to buy, and every time I tried to research the question I got increasingly enraged by the pedantry of the internets, and so I wrote to Henry Rollins and asked him to tell me what to do. He told me, and I did it. I hope to continue solving my problems this way in the future.]

What that means is that I haven’t had the time, the energy, or the cash to get to many shows. Plus I have other considerations, like stalking Chuck Ragan, and the fIREHOSE reunion tour that might be the death of me, even if I only go to one show. But I digress. Thus far, in 2012, I have made it to three shows. I will now attempt to tell you about them, but I’m not going to do a very good job. You might want to just close the tab.

First up was The Lawrence Arms, at the Metro. Some band I didn’t like was the first opener, followed by the Holy Mess, except they were standing in the wings and I kept being like, “that looks like the dude from Elway” and being super confused, until he came out and said, “hi, I’m from Elway, and the Holy Mess don’t have enough songs to play a whole set, so I’m doing a few because they’re fucking unprofessional.” Or something to that effect. So he did some songs — I think there’s a split involved — and then the Holy Mess came on and the people around me started shaking me. Like, someone would grab my shoulders and jump up and down and be like OH MY GOD I LOVE THE HOLY MESS DO YOU LOVE THE HOLY MESS???!!! I felt duty-bound to say yes. And the woman next to me kept kissing my neck. Okay, then. Happily, the Holy Mess were good times and I would gladly go see them again and allow myself to be licked by their more attractive female fans.

the holy mess @ metro, 2012-01-07

As for the headliner, I spent a lot of the Lawrence Arms’ set wondering why the singer looked so familiar, and I finally googled him and it turns out we were at college together. Same years and everything, and I had a bunch of friends in his program. I don’t think I know him, because NU may not be a state school but it’s not tiny, either, and anyway, it’s not like I went to class. But still. Maybe I saw him at the BK. Who knows. That don’t-I-know-him distraction aside, I had a great time. It’s been more than a month, and so I can’t tell you anything about what they played, but I walked out more of a fan than I had been when I walked in, which is always a good sign. Then I found a shirt on the sidewalk, and now I wear it. A disturbing percentage of my wardrobe consists of clothes I found on the sidewalk.

Next up was Hannah Georgas and Kathleen Edwards at Lincoln Hall. I was familiar with Georgas after having seen her play during a live taping of Wiretap, a popular Canadian radio show that we can sometimes get south of the border. Or, you know, worldwide on the internets. But anyway, I liked her stuff a lot and I wanted to see her, but I ended up missing most of her set. I’d been unpacking and I was tired and aching and I considered skipping the show entirely, but twitter talked me into going. Twitter knows the answer is always to go to the show. So I did, and I’m so glad. I stood at the back, which is not a thing I usually do, and I don’t usually like it, but this time it was fine. It was more than fine. Edwards is charming and awkward and funny and a hell of a songwriter, and I clutched my beer and closed my eyes and thought of Canada.

in a dress to kill and a glass to fill / i wasn’t ready but i didn’t fight

Indeed.

Her new album, Voyageur, goes exceedingly well with a glass of wine and an empty apartment. I play it often.

This past Saturday, I decided it was time to get back on the horse, and so I went to Reggie’s to see Mad Bread, my friend’s bluegrass band. That was a long, weird night — at one point I ended an email I was writing with, “a stranger just sat on my lap. I guess I should deal with that.” — but I enjoyed myself thoroughly. And! I took my new camera and determined to use it. I’m weird about carrying that thing around because I have no idea what I’m doing but when you whip out a camera like that, there are suddenly expectations about who you are and what you’re doing. It’s a midrange camera, yes, but it’s still a big, fuck-off shiny one that looks pretty impressive. To me, anyway. And also to most people who go to shows in dive bars.

But anyway, I figured the bar side of Reggie’s with a band full of people I know was a good sandbox, since I hadn’t really ever used the camera before. I’d tried to read the manual, but I only got to the part where it said that portrait mode was good for pictures of women and children because you get “good skin tones.” So I have a lot of hilariously terrible shots of the ceiling or something, because I’m used to shooting through the screen instead of the viewfinder, and I can’t do that anymore, and my glasses are sort of pointy and kept getting in the way. I also have no idea how to use the lens, and so sometimes it would pick something totally random to focus on, and just. I will get better with practice, I know. And I can already tell the light is going to be so much better. I probably wouldn’t have even bothered trying to take pictures with the Lumix.

But whatever, experimental photography aside, it was actually a very good show! The first band, the Northside Ruckus, were excellent, some kind of garage.country band (I think garage.country is my new favorite thing) who played a lot of trashy country covers. The second band, the Hard Wood Boys (…) were fun and their singer was strangely compelling, probably because he was so into it.

hard wood boys @ reggie’s music joint, 2012-02-11

That is maybe the best picture I took all night.

The next band, the New Old Cavalry, are a bluegrass band from Bloomington, and there were actually a fair number of people there who’d driven into see them. Their set went over well. There may have even been some dancing. Mad Bread, the band I was actually there to see, didn’t go on until a few minutes after midnight, and I enjoyed them a lot, as I always do. They do a Pink Floyd cover! And a Velvet Underground cover! And if I remember to request it and they’ve had a lot to drink, a song about the Hulk! But mostly, they have a good time, and that’s my main requirement for a show. If the band’s loving it, I’m probably loving it.

Despite the slow start to the year, there are a fuckton of shows packed into the latter half of February that I’m planning to make it to, so here’s hoping I’ll get back to my less-infrequent posting schedule.