Black Rebel Motorcycle Club is from San Francisco. The three piece plays real, dirty rock and roll (if the “Black”, “Rebel”, and “Motorcycle” didn’t tip you off already). They are an endangered species. I can’t get enough of it. It’s simple, raw, timeless music. Watch this.
So… Here goes nothing.
The inaugural artist of the week goes to the Brit band The Subways. I may be a little late on this train but there are concrete reasons for the tardiness, those reasons mostly center around the fact that I wasn’t really a fan on the first listen. However, the band continued popping up on my radar so when I came across a used copy of Young for Eternity at a record store I took the plunge into Subwayland.
The trio has been making edgy punk/garage noise since the year 2000 and built quite a following on both sides of the pond. I definitely dig the idea but wasn’t quite sure I was feeling the execution. To be honest, I didn’t really get it. Their music comes across as juvenile and (dare I say it) formulaic. Fairly typical fare. The record definitely seemed inconsistent with the cultish following they have accrued. So I consulted the almighty Youtube to check out their live show. I watched The Subways bop around onstage at one of those huge British festivals that you see every time you turn your television to Palladia (I wish I was hip enough to know the names of them). There was a lot of energy coming out of three people and the crowd was way into it. After some reflection I realized the band IS rather juvenile and formulaic, in fact not only in theory, and considering their tenure as a band has stretched over a decade, the majority of their fans no doubt were juvenile when they first got into them. Thus they remain good in a nostalgic sense such as New Found Glory and MXPX may remain good to us Yankees. That was kind of the key that unlocked my enjoyment of The Subways. And in a juvenile state of mind is probably the best way to enjoy them.
Boom. Artist of the week.
Starting next Friday I’m going to be highlighting an artist I am digging. Once a week. It will be called Artist of the Week. I’ll do my very best to try to make it interesting, original and creative. I don’t want it to be just another music blog. So I’ll need your feedback and ideas too!
Stay tuned…
I’m not sure that a lot of people have heard of these guys. I’ve liked the song for a little bit. It’s really catchy in a sort of comatose, non-assuming sort of way.
Anyway, I stumble across this video and really enjoyed it. I really appreciate the uncomfortableness of fat guys in briefs surrounding the singer. Yay.
It was several years ago, when I was quite a bit younger in more terms than chronology, that I was first introduced to the following idea: that we enjoy the memory of an event substantially more than we enjoy that event while experiencing it. The idea that a moment that I look back on as very meaningful was seen as and (more importantly) “felt” like a very commonplace occurrence while I passed through and experienced it.
Wrap your head around that real quick.
Okay, got it?
This idea did not sit well with me at all. I really didn’t want it to be true. I was fairly sure that every waking hour of the rest of my life would contain the following: excitement, fulfillment, happiness, and an intense enjoyment of the things I loved. We only have one life to live after all, so why waste a single moment? I wanted a completely awakened sense of the total awesomeness of what I was doing in the exact moment I was experiencing whatever awesome things it was that I came up with doing. At the time I was full of all the ambition and optimism that individuals usually have their first few years of adult hood. With all the new freedom we see nothing but new opportunity. The world is ours for the taking.
We quickly learn better.
I don’t learn so quickly. And I fought supposed reality every step of the way, which made it even slower. But every once in awhile this idea would come back and haunt me, usually while I was in the middle of fondly remembering something. I was completely disheartened when I woke up one day and realized, “man, I remember all these things and realize how awesome they are, but I didn’t even give them a second glance at the time.”
That stupid idea won. Almost.
I struggled with this for a while but ended up conceding to it. It seemed that all signs pointing to moments being better remembered than experience. It sucked to admit it. Fundamentally this meant that I would be doomed to never enjoy my life living it as much as I would looking back on it. I would always be living in retrospect.
However, I’ve discovered there’s a fatal flaw in the argument for the idea. This retrospective philosophy assumes that the battle is experience vs. memories. I found that’s not the real issue. The real issue is that we aren’t taking the time to enjoy the experience, or the now. The real battle is the experience vs. future. This revelation opened my eyes to the true error in the situation. We’re enjoying the memory more not because it’s better than the experience. We only enjoy it more because we are royally screwing up the the experience by worrying about the future. We are so caught up in the next step that it detaches us from the moment. We’re either thinking of (or worrying about) places far away, things we must go to, people to meet, things to do! And the worst sin of all: we are analyzing how this moment could be better. How if this little bit was different, or if this was taken care of, or if I was happier about this and more comfortable here…
The problem isn’t that the memory is better; the problem is that we are so preoccupied with the future that we don’t take the time to savor the present until it’s the past. Until it’s a memory.
I’m changing that.
My goal is to treat every moment like it’s a memory. To take the time to focus on how perfect the right now is. Not get distracted with what it could be or what I must do. I’m looking at what it is, taking it as face value, and loving it with a thankfulness that I get to be a part of it. That’s what we do with our memories and that’s why we cherish and enjoy them so much. And honestly, it makes the experience better than the memory.
I’m living in retrospect. Right now.
I’ll be participating in this. For January I not the whole year. You’ll have to follow me on instigram: evandree
Evan Andree Lyrics
“Flags” EP
Track 1: Flags
You don’t have to tell me twice, everything you say I already know
I know I should trust you and it frustrates me that I still don’t
Every time I try I get lost somewhere later on
Doubting you again, it’s my own fear of failure
I’m sorry I forgot how my own fears caused us to argue
And how I made you cry and hurt your heart that I did not trust you
Track 2: Trondheim
What a thing that we have now, that out of millions I found you and it’s only you I love. What a thing that we have now, but millions before us found it but only with their loves, but only with their loves
What a thing that we have found, and as the world keeps spinning ‘round here we’ll find more of these stories yet to be told about a love that is so old that it’s been there all along, it’s been there all along
I’d do better to forget you and me and all of this
Avoid the pain that comes with it but it wouldn’t be right to
Not be standing by you when this whole world ends
What a thing that we have now, that all my sorrows are drowned in the most intense of joys. But with it’s full meaning in frame I see my fears are looming nearer now that I have something to lose, now that I have something to lose.
Track 3: Thanksgiving
Take this red pattern down, the plaid on your love seats gown is all I know
Head laying on your chest, in your arms I find my rest, it’s all I know
And could you hold me more then you’ve already done?
Our friends are interstates, we bicker and complain when we can’t be together today
It’s now changed from blue to red, pretty soon we’ll trade it for our bed, it’s all our own.
A thousand times I have rehearsed us vowing for better or for worse, it’s all our own
We’re not just malcontents we just want more then this and they can’t tell us it’s any other way, they can’t tell us it’s any other way
If ever there’s a time to fight it’s now for the whole world seems to be losing it’s faith in life and love
Track 4: Momentum
There’s an open wound in the median, we left it there when we were bleeding it
It’s been a lost cause from the beginning, we’ve been trying to stop remembering
Don’t ever stop, don’t ever let it come down love
Don’t ever stop, don’t, don’t ever let it come down love
I’ve found it hard to begin again it’s better just to never stop
I’m trying just to hold it all together and never let it fall apart
We’ll make it work but it’s hardening and my heart is quickly tiring
There’s blood and dirt on my hands, I’ve harmed this more than helped it
To broken of a man to carry this further
There’s comfort in the end that it was never my burden
The gift that’s been given back to carry it further
