Awkward Conversations About Music
Ah it’s been awhile…and I am a day late.
This awkward conversation took place at one of my favorite clubs, Schubas, on Thursday night when I went to see Dean and Britta of Luna fame (Dean Wareham was also in Galaxie 500 prior to Luna) Note: I will be posting a setlist, pictures and a review of the Dean and Britta show this Tuesday. The bulk of the pictures have been done for their set and can be found on flickr
Now, I want to be clear about the fact that I do believe women love music just as much as men. It’s just that typically we really experience it, taking it into ourselves like an envelope does to a letter, instead of memorize facts about it. We might even get a little emotional, filled to the brim with a heightened response whenever one of our favorite singers coughNick Urata cough opens his vocal chords to pour out sweet release like honey oh yes I’m getting sidetracked..
What I mean to say here is not that men don’t experience music (and some men I believe do just as some women) or that women can’t be geeks about knowing the chronological order of when every Kinks song was released. But generally speaking, I find that women don’t analyze all of the details just as men don’t want to talk about crying all night while taking a bath in the dark and listening to Souvlaki. Only the really special ones will do that with you.
Before Dean and Britta went on, I was listening to an awkward conversation occurring behind me in which a guy was clearly trying to pick up a girl by impressing her with the fact that he knew who Bill Callahan of Smog was and that his band had opened for Luna back in the day. This same person also completely ruined one of my favorite covers of Gainsbourg’s “Bonnie and Clyde” with his incessant howling “yee haw-ish” hoots but let’s not get into that as it’s a real sore spot for me.
I met a couple of nice guys while I was saving my spot for getting good photos, one of which had written to me previously about liking my photos (it’s always nice when people actually look at them, you know?). The other guy was holding his own talking about Chan Marshall of Cat Power and various Damon Albarn (Blur) side projects. We started talking about singers like Damon who just had this beautiful voice you can’t help but swooning over (even if it’s not classically trained). First, I gushed for awhile over how much I swoon when Murray of The Dears opens his mouth. He didn’t know of The Dears but that was ok. I figured maybe he would like them. Then, I talked about how much I also really loved Cass McCombs and his unique voice and what lovely pop songs he could compose. He wasn’t familiar with Cass either so that had me feeling like I had to explain or give an additional reference point. I said, “Oh Cass his great. He’s really on the level of a underrated genius like Jason Falkner is to me.” And, of course, by this time I’m starting to feel a little pretentious because he didn’t know Falkner either. Yet, I was really ready to go out of this one with a bang. What did I say next? “Oh you know…he was in the band The Grays with Jon Brion.” Then I started telling him about how he should really check out the Yellow Pills compilation to hear early Jon Brion in “The Bats.”
You know when you go to a bookstore reading and there’s some annoying person who won’t stop talking about all the things he or she knows long enough to ask the right question to your absolutely favorite author? Yeah, I felt sort of like that.