A Show is a Baseball Game

Music is an art. It's invisible. Can’t be touched. It can be felt, though. If you stand too close to the speakers at a show, the vibration will zap your brain. If you stand anywhere at that Black Dice show that happened at the Palace a few years ago, the vibration will zap your brain (“melt your face off"). Of course, music is also felt in that intangible way. Listen to "Medicine Bottle" by Red House Painters for an example.

Bands with three words for a name are the only bands I listened to last week. Red House Painters. Magic City Boys. Sun Kil Moon. Those three-word bands provided an intermittent score to what was a miserable, reclusive 7 consecutive days. How many great shows vagazzled Missoula’s event schedule last week? A bunch, and I missed them all because I chose to nurse my stress-induced anxiety and depression with loneliness and dairy products. From July 6^th to July 11^th I was underwater, in a haze, irritable. I googled things like “why can’t I stop sneezing.” I google satellite map-explored neighborhoods in NYC. I took walks through Alphabet City as well as the Meatpacking District. 

5 Ninth Avenue, where Nelson Sullivan lived

This story has no ending, but it wanders away from the beginning right now. Around 7pm last evening I resolved to attend the show at The Lab rather than continue to lounge on a mint-colored, vintage couch, bathed in the gold light of a low summer sun, refreshing my twitter account every 10 minutes (that’s right, I have a Twitter account - I opened it yesterday). Instead, I changed my clothes 4 or 5 times, settled on a pair of shorts and a Fag Cop t-shirt, super glued my sunglasses back together, and pedaled over to The Lab.

The Lab is dirty. Everything is dirty there. The furniture, the people, the dogs. Even the dirt on the ground is dirtier than average dirt. I arrived early, sat on the porch, and complained to anyone within earshot about my terrible week, feeling sick, etcetera.

Death Moth played first. This is where the show made it to first base in a baseball metaphor. Death Moth is June West, an amicable person who possesses a natural external beauty that is a reflection of her inner beauty. She also has a beautiful voice and an ability to write beautiful, mesmerizing songs. June played a beautiful electric guitar.  I don’t know if she has recorded under Death Moth yet, but her previous work in Julie and the Wolves and Magic City Boys is breathtaking.

Julie and the Wolves c. 2010

The athleticism of Better Tennis nailed second base: one handsome young man with an electric guitar and a voice that is at once firm, confident, hesitant, and uncertain. Riley is his "name" name. He is behind Germ Hunk-fever, too. Riley is a fascinating musician. He writes music that he hasn't even written yet. Hana MT sat next to me, sipped her Cook's champagne, and together we watched in hands-on-cheeks-horror as a hobo spider crawled inches from Riley's metronomic foot. The courteous spider waited until the end of the song to climb under (possibly into) Riley's messenger bag. 

After Better Tennis I noticed that my contacts were in my eyes. All the squinting, winking, and rubbing became tiresome. It would be best to drive home and put some glasses on. Dane said, “you’re gonna miss The Mallard, bro,” but I was all, “I’m old now, nearly 30, and life-moments have become replaceable and interchangeable. Driving home to peel the contacts off of my eyeballs seems equally fulfilling as watching some band that I have never heard before.” When I returned to the Lab, the basement door was a carafe's mouth pouring glistening cups of hot happiness all over the yard. Yes, The Mallard killed it and I missed out. Alas, I have seen billions of bands at little shows in Missoula and I am now incapable of feeling any regret about missing out. I am desensitized, or a husk, or something empty like that. 

I still felt horrible. Maybe I had an ulcer, or diabetes, or anemia, or a thyroid problem. Whatever was wrong, the symptoms were as follows: dizziness, fatigue, and a stomach ache. At that point in the night, my blood felt as carbonated as Hana's bottle of Cooks. Carbonated blood and then  WAP!  Bad Naked staggered outside, whipped his failure ball with his belt and PUSH OUT THE BABIES PUT ‘EM IN THE FACTORIES drove me away indoors. Foul ball.

The Lab’s book-ridden living room was my retreat until I heard the familiar noodlings of Needlecraft noodling up from the basement. I
                                                      s
                                                        l
                                                         i
                                                           d downstairs and found a sturdy place to sit in order to sit-dance. I am unhealthy and sometimes unhealthy people are lazy and can’t bother to stand up. I sat-danced until the cosmic, banging beat squiggled into my brain. Needlecraft gave me Toxoplasmosis. The jams wormed into my control center. I danced, standing on my own wobbly feet. By the time they finished their set I was cured! Music heals. I would use some kind of third base related joke but I can't think of one.

This whole baseball metaphor doesn’t make any sense anyway.