Awkward Conversations About Music part 5
Note: I have so many bands to blog about I don’t know where to start. The Effigies show, The Dears, even some bands from jazz fest and I’m hoping to take some pictures from the audience at the Hideout Block Party. I’ll get to editing and posting these pictures in due time, but for the meantime, here’s my awkward conversation for the week:
I was at a show a couple of weeks ago, which was of course in this rundown neighborhood bar on the NW side of the city. Cinchel and I were already a little uncomfortable there (the fact that some guy who looked and acted like Daniel Johnston tried to pick me up rather lewdly probably didn’t help matters) when we ran across another couple who was there to see the band in question, which shall remain nameless. Like us, they had come early without realizing they would have to sit through three local bands that were completely different first.
After the second band played, they came over and introduced themselves and I started talking to the boyfriend, who said he was not only familiar with the band in question but that he knew them as people, having lived for awhile in Nebraska. He told me about side projects and we talked about Saddle Creek for a bit and I thought, “Wow this guy really knows what he’s talking about.” But the conversation quickly became awkward in the way those conversations can when you really feel like you’re hitting it off then you feel like you’re talking to someone part hipster. (Everyone is aware that hipster is a totally different language, right? And I’d rather speak French.)
him: Yeah, you know, in Nebraska, we have neighborhood bars like these twice the size and they are always completely packed and we get the best bands there all the time.
me: Yeah I really like quite a few bands on Saddle Creek.
him: You know, back when I turned 21 (note: he’s my age at this time), I used to go into a bar in Nebraska and try to impress all these girls, you know, and so I’d tell them that I was in a band. They’d just look at me and say, “So what. I’m in one too.”
me: Ah….I have to say I do find it interesting that people from Nebraska don’t seem to like some of the bands on Saddle Creek. I have a friend from Omaha for example that scowls every time she sees my Cursive bumper sticker.
him: yeah. Well, after a band gets “big” people would just rather not listen to them anymore.
me: (Feeling this was kind of a shame in some ways) But you know, bands like that…they still don’t have health care or anything. I mean, when Tim Kasher had that spontaneous pneumothorax, they had to take up a collection to pay his medical bills.
him: Well, I didn’t know about that. (note: we also got sidetracked for a little bit when he was glorifying the idea of a great band playing small run down clubs to ten people and I was glorifying the idea of being able to have health care and pay your rent. I guess I’m a bit too practical)
me: Yeah and you know I was really sad that I didn’t get to see Simon Joyner play when he came here last because he’s really amazing (note: Simon Joyner is from Omaha, Nebraska and writes songs that were favorites of John Peel)
him: Who?
me: You know, Simon Joyner. My friend from Omaha…what she says is that she doesn’t like Cursive and Bright Eyes because all of those bands ever did was rip Simon Joyner off.
Thankfully, the next band went on pretty quickly after that. But, it made me think and wonder-am I just expecting too much from people? I mean, do I honestly expect that every time I talk about music with someone, great seraphimed angels are going to fly out of the sky playing harp accompaniment to Heavy Blinkers songs? Maybe, there’s something wrong with me!