Boys Can Tell

It's 3:30AM, and I'm listening to Spoon's Girls Can Tell. Came back less than an hour ago and felt that this was the only album that would do. Hard to believe this album is 7 years old. Spoon have gotten a lot bigger in recent years, but Girls Can Tell was the first album of theirs I came into possession of, and the one that hit the hardest; I sort of listened to Kill the Moonlight and liked "The Way We Get By" from that record, but after that I drifted away entirely. Two reasons for my preference for this album, I think: one, the starkness, and two, the darkness. I remember fall of 2003, when I heard this album, and it clicked: I remember being stunned by this record that was simultaneously sonically raw and technically precise, all reverb-less guitars and every single instrumental track distinguishable from the others, the faintest slapback echo on Britt Daniels' hoarse voice. The word "krautrock" wasn't in my vocabulary yet, but something about the way lines like "I go to sleep but think that you're next to me" and "I'll bring you cover when you're cold, you'll bring me youth when I grow old" were delivered in such an unflinching, deadpan manner connected. It's ballads for an abandoned room.

Much like this room I'm sitting in right now. The posters are already off the walls. The small chest of drawers next to the desk has been cleaned out. I'm moving on Tuesday, technically--we'll see if I can actually finish hauling ass that day. I'm leaving a lot of stuff behind to dispose of before my lease here expires at the end of the month. Among them is my current desk, which is far too wide to fit into my new room--so much for the luxurious speakers-and-computer-to-the-front, interface-and-mixer-to-the-left control-center setup I've had for the last two years. Whatever, I waste too much space as is, anyway.

I had a gig at the Lo-Fi tonight with Diamond. We decided to call our "band" Parity; we ruled out "Hezbollocks" after deciding that might not be the best dirt for the INS to dig up about me in the future. It was improvised, as usual, with some more pre-rendered loops on my part and pre-set synth tones on his, and it was pretty good and loud. We set up a small square table on the floor in front of the stage, turned the monitors behind us to face the audience, and made everyone get as up close as possible. (They later backed away.) Everything sounds much lusher live, but that also means sound piles up really quickly, and even the most discrete of tones blur into a buzzing wall of noise. Which we can work with, but still, definitely none of the nuances or balance a studio--I use the term loosely--recording can have.

It strikes me that the Parity "project" is sort of the artistic equivalent of a no-strings-attached relationship. Diamond and I never really "formed a band"; we just played what was supposed to be a one-off "gig," then we played again, and then again, and finally realized that we were basically a "band" and slapped a moniker on it. We never rehearsed; all we would do was meet up for an hour before the performance to make sure everything was running smoothly. We never write songs; if we ever record anything, it will be another improvised session. We're both more interested in working on solo material, and neither of us is particularly committed to doing stuff as Parity, especially since Diamond is moving back to NJ...and yet we keep playing shows. Surely that can't last long, if the analogy holds?

The audience was almost entirely comprised of people I knew. John and Maura came up from DC, Mitra and Naiara were there, Steve L. came because Steve L. never has anything important to do, Monica and Steve (of that other "band" I'm "in") and Jason were there, and so were Sarahs K. and M. Sarah T. with Kyle F. in tow brought the number of Sarahs at the Lo-Fi to a grand total of 3, which is probably more Sarahs than I should be allowed in a room with at a time. (Something about Sarahs. Maybe I should start interpreting that "sarah" tag I made more generally?)

Afterwards, Sarah T. drove Kyle, John, and I back to our pads. She assured us she could drive even though she'd had some beer, and then proceeded to run over a median just before hitting 83. No one was hurt, and neither was the car, as far as we could tell. Without the prejudices of college, she's actually a very kind person. If only I were content with things like that and didn't hear things in the half-second of silence before someone speaks.

Apparently when I was drunk in DC on Friday night I loudly proclaimed to all present my favorite Sonic Youth lyric was, "I can't get laid 'cause everyone is dead" from "Stereo Sanctity." It's up there.