Dear Friends,
I’m a bit scattered, to be honest. It seems like today has a lot on the ol’ plate. I’m not quite recovered from the trip to Maine and the prospect of our lives being what they are going to be now in the ‘after’ part.
It seems like the last month has been anything but real.
This weekend is just more of the unreal stuff. I have to pinch myself that I have this amazing distraction. I get to go and do something I have never done, which is play music in Denver and Colorado Springs. It doesn’t seem real.
It’s also great that I get to play music I actually like that I had nothing to do with writing. I have become a real fan of The Freeze, and I get to be in the band. It’s kind of wild. When I did it back in 2018, part of me was just doing my job at Slope Records when I agreed to play with The Freeze, but I learned to really like it.
It’s been almost seven years, though. I have no idea what to expect when it comes to people showing up. Other than the shows we did in Phoenix, all the other shows we did were pretty great. People really get into it.
I don’t particularly like the idea of being away from home for another weekend, and it is my birthday. It doesn’t really seem like it, but maybe that is just because I won’t be with any of my loved ones. I am going to miss being with Rhondi and the kids and my family of friends.
We shall see what happens, I suppose. I might get to see cousin Bear and his lovely wife, Jenn. I may also see my old buddy, Esta. My fingers are crossed so it can work out.
*****
The kids could not stop talking yesterday to save their lives, but we had a really good day. I had fun with them, and they did some good work. They were just crazy. It was either the moon or the cinnamon rolls they were served for breakfast. It could have been both things and I wasn’t helping the matter. I kept winding them up.
Mainly the energy in the room was excellent. I wish I could bottle up days like that and have a little nip of that good stuff when the days are dragging. Wouldn’t that be rad? Maybe someday they will have something that allows you to tap into those favorite moments emotionally. Science may still save us all.
*****
In the early 90s I was reading all the magazines that everyone else was reading and this dude, Daniel Johnston, kept getting reviewed and written about. As a champion for the weird and off-center, I had to check him out, so I bought a CD called Artistic Vice. I really liked it.
Admittedly, I haven’t listened to Daniel Johnston for a very long time, but when I was thinking about records I love, I thought of Artistic Vice. It was time to dust this sucker off and when the first lyrics of “My Life is Starting Over” came out of the speaker, I was instantly reminded of why it was perfectly correct of my brain to want to write about Artistic Vice.
What a fitting song to hear when you are grieving, too. When someone significant in your life dies, your life does kind of start over again. It’s a new world and hearing Johnston sing about this type of feeling was both comforting and thought provoking.
Johnston shed this mortal coil back in 2019, which I had forgotten about. I was moved to see if he had anything new to listen to, but alas, he does not. There is a lot of unexplored territory about there with Johnston for me, though, so I can work my way backwards and forwards from Artistic Vice if I am so inclined.
I remember thinking that Johnston was a brave, wickedly introspective guy back when I first heard Artistic Vice. He reminded me, in a way, of a friend of mine who wrote similar songs and was a little unhinged. I am not poking fun of mental illness here, but I probably shouldn’t say “unhinged.”
Anyway, there is an anxiousness to Johnston’s work that I can certainly identify with both personally and with regard to music of friends of mine, too. Johnston’s struggles were definitely documented in the articles I was reading about him, so I knew what to expect, sort of, from his music, but it was so much better than I thought it was going to be.
I didn’t expect to like Artistic Vice so much. Many of the songs really paint the type of struggle he faced very eloquently and, in an innocent, almost pre-adolescent way. I don’t know enough about what he faced when he was away from a recording studio to comment further, but I really feel like he was just looking for love and for his love to be recognized.
“I Feel so High” is a great example of this. Such a cool song and so full of hope. Then it goes into the odd, quirky, but kinda cool “A Ghostly Story” where the words are barely there. I dig the juxtaposition of the two feelings.
“Tell Me Now” is one that I put on a many a mixed tape back in the day, too. It’s sappy but great and I probably tipped my hand a bit in some instances that never really went where I thought they might, but that’s another story. “Easy Listening” is super fun, too, and it comes right after “Tell Me Now.”
When I heard “I Know Casper” again after twenty plus years of not listening to this record, it kinda weirded me out. It’s definitely a person who needs help saying, “hey, I’m not joking around.”
I really like “The Startling Facts,” though. The words are killer. “Hoping” is great song about hoping that your faith will come through. ‘It’s Got to be Good” is just pretty and cute.
A lot of these songs on Artistic Vice are pretty short and sweet, so you can digest this record pretty quickly. I’d love to have a copy on vinyl. I’m guessing they aren’t cheap.
Yikes…looked it up and $50 is a cheap one.
“Happy Soul” would be so fun to play during a DJ set. Maybe it will get reissued on vinyl soon.
***** holy shit ***** A double LP remaster is coming out on my birthday! That’s tomorrow!
*****
See you tomorrow.
Sometimes AI gets it so wrong that it's right.
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