My boss told me today that he proposed to his wife at Charlie's Kitchen. For the non-locals, picture your local dive bar. When I exploded in a fit of uncontrollable laughter, his defense was that they had a decent liver dinner and it only cost $1.75. I asked him if he'd been in there since. And then I warned him against it. The locals would eat him and his liver alive.
Okay kids, today's assignment: Go to the Barsuk web site and buy Death Cab for Cutie's new album Transatlanticism. It came out last week and I've listened to little else since. It's full of ache. I've been aching a lot lately in an undefined way. Walking around overflowing with the human-ness of people in my life and wanting to connect with them. Music's all about connecting. Last night I sat at my piano for hours figuring out the songs on the new album, which surprisingly is filled with piano and acoustic guitar. I lit amber candles and sat at my piano, heart-aching in my fleece pajamas drinking chai. I don't know what's going on with me.The Frames show on Thursday night left me breathless and full of desire. I love the Paradise. Shea and I got there before the doors opened so I could run in and claim my spot stage right and watch Colm MacConIomaire play electric violin like he's making sweet love to it.
When the Frames play, they create this little world. I realized it's the same world that Jump, Little Children used to create for me that made me love them so much -- especially live. It makes me say, "I want to be that happy." It makes me unwilling to compromise on so many levels. The live Frames shows are so dynamic -- they suck you in, and you become a part of them, and they are never the same and never like the albums. Their following is quietly rabid. During some parts of the songs, Glen Hansard looked out over the audience and smiled at us, trying to judge whether we'd pick up where he left off if he stopped singing. So he did, and the audience held the tune in such a soft recall. It was not the loud beer slogging back and forth that goes on at Dashboard Confessional shows or similar. It was muted and beautiful. "Star, star, teach me how to shine…" and everyone was singing to him, and he loved it.
Then he told the story behind the song "Lay Me Down." He was in love with this girl and so he bought them gravesites next to one another as a token to say, "I want to spend the rest of my life with you." But she took it all wrong, called him a psycho and ran away. I don't know. I'd be pretty psyched to get buried next to Glen Hansard.
For the encore, Glen stood between Shea and I to sing an acapella old Irish song, getting everyone to snap for the beat. It was the kind of show that made me want to climb into that world and live there. Like when you're hanging out with some amazing person, and you don't want to leave them because they create such a wonderland for you to exist in. And you wonder what they do as a part of that world alone -- and you could never picture them washing dishes or being depressed or fighting with their roommate. I didn't want it to end.
Last time I saw them at the Paradise, I felt the same way, and I was so unwilling to go back to my own world that I drove to Connecticut at 2:30 in the morning in a snow storm with my oatmeal wool scarf listening to Coldplay just so I wouldn't have to surrender to my small Somerville existence.
There was more aching following the show. There was a turbulent re-entry into my own world. But there was also the inspiration that comes with such a transition.
I haven't taken the subway commute in a long time -- a month probably -- and this morning in the pouring rain I hopped on the T and realized how awful and dark it is in there without my buskers. And how much I miss the Rotunda at Quincy Market where Daniel and Mike played last fall and winter -- miss leaving work to go sit and drink coffee and listen. They're down South and now I'm in Cambridge. I'm getting nostalgic for last year, but at the same time I want to create a new year. Like I said, I'm all achey. It's not a bad thing. It gives me a break from the sarcasm and irony that is perpetually spewing out of my mouth.I'm going to go cry now.
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