I've always thought that things that can be done in a group can be done just as well solo, which is why I don't mind shopping on my own, or singing on my own, or drinking on my own, or dancing on my own etc etc. You don't have to worry about anyone else's enjoyment but your own which is kind of nice, if you ignore the fact that it's also kind of selfish in a roundabout way. So yeah anyway I went to this gig today (in the middle of the day, yes being unemployed DOES have some benefits) - THE VASCO ERA - flying solo as they say. Also the picture above is from when I woke up at 7AM on new year's day a few days ago - alone on a tiny itchy outside couch, this was glorious.
I've seen The Vasco Era before, several times, and their three albums are always on high rotation on my iTunes. As a side note I've realised this strange behavioural pattern of mine which finds me listening to the same songs, watching the same movies, reading the same books over and over and over again. I have seen Charlie and The Chocolate Factory with Gene Wilder an impossible amount of times but I've never seen Star Wars. I've listened to Bon Iver's For Emma, Forever Ago pretty much every night for the past year or so but I've never listened to Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures EVEN THOUGH I've been meaning to for years. I guess there's something comfortable in routine that I get so frightened of losing and I feel like if I hold onto some token of this content time to crawl back to then everything will be alright.
But the point of this post is to reiterate how rad The Vasco Era are, because every single time I crawl back to them they are so great. Lead singer/guitarist Sid O'Neil is that wonderful cocktail of playful carelessness, witty articulation and raw talent and every time I see them play I always want to express how GOOD I think they are but it always ends up like it did today:
Me: (loitering awkwardly on the outskirts of another group near him after the gig biting my lip in that way we do when we'd prefer to gag at our own social ineptness)
Sid O'Neil: Hey.
M: Hey! Thanks so much!
S: Hey, no worries. So what are you up to today?
M: (Can't believe conversation has progressed as far as him taking superficial interest in my activities. I am so boring. I do nothing. Today I watched Toddlers and Tiaras in my undies and then I came here. I want to talk about how rad he is. What do I do. Help) Uh. Sorry?
S: What've you been up to?
M: (Forget the Toddlers and Tiaras thing. You're a cool chick. Think of something cool.) Uh, not much, you know. Just chilling. (...) (...chilling?...chilling? When did I forget that I only said 'chilling' in an ironic way? 'Chilling'???). Uh. I just wanted to say thanks so much for the gig today. It was rad. You're always rad.
S: That's cool. No worries.
M: Thanks heaps.
S: No worries.
M: Thanks.
S: ...
M: Thanks again.
End dialogue, queue me exiting the premises as swiftly but as 'chill' as possible.
When the truth is, all I really want to do is to somehow let these people in on how important their work is to me without coming across as pathetic (which I am) obsessive (tick) or mentally unstable (what ELSE would I write songs about). And mainly I guess I want to know how and why their lyrics are as they are because to me they are largely underrated. But asking someone why their lyrics are a certain way is always a complicated business because the nature of lyrics is different for every artist. For me and my subpar lyricism all I know is what I know from my own experiences, and so I write about that in an unfortunately non-cryptic manner. My close friends like to guess which love interest my songs are about and they are usually spot on and I just end up feeling stupid and like a crappier and less hot version of Taylor Swift.
Which is why I've always admired good lyrics even when they get lost sometimes in the music. We all live for that one little lyric that means so much to us that if it were alive and breathing, we would wrap it up in a little blanket and give it warm milk and flowers because that's what I do to the living things I love. Well the human ones I guess.
Anyway I guess I should flog The Vasco Era some more because I JUST DON'T THINK YOU UNDERSTAND.
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