The Sweet Lowdown

I'm not sure that Chris Carraba got a whole lot of things right. He pioneered the emo movement in rock music, which ensured that the Warped Tour and Alternative Press would be able to ensure financial solvency for many years to come. It's not to say that emo is without merit, without it we wouldn't have the bands that most people I know spent their late teens and early twenties rocking out to in an seemingly endless effort to explain all the feelings we had. Teenagers are pretty fucked up to begin with, but knowing that there were seemingly "cooler" people that had the same feelings as us definitely made it easier. Which brings my to my point, "Dashboard Confessional" is a great name for a band. In all reality it's a great name idea in general, and one that I can personally relate to very well. Driving home at the end of the night I don't take the long way. I take laps. There's a lot of pressure that goes into working in a restaurant, and while more often than not, most of us handle the release of that pressure with some sort of chemical enhancement, my preferred method has always been to roll the windows down and crank the stereo. There have been a lot of moments in my life where I didn't have anywhere to turn to. As a pre-teen (God I hate that expression), I was picked on, beat up, ridiculed and all of the other things that kids do to torture each other. Headphones became a way to drown out the jeers and take myself to another place. I was raised on Kenny Loggins blaring through the house on a Sunday morning while dressing for church. We listened to the Who and the Beatles on road trips and I always have had an appreciation for what that music meant, but as an eleven year old my mother bought me a TAPE of Green Day's album "Insomniac." They used the word fuck in their lyrics and had more than their fair share of punk rock cliche metaphors, but what struck me was the sound of the distorted guitar that would gouge into my ears through my walk-man headphones. If you've never listened to the album, but enjoy "American Idiot" take a listen, they were laying the groundwork. Songs can tell a story and Green Day was always very adept at that. Punk rock is very one note, and the message is usually clear if you're willing to scratch the surface. And yes it's punk rock, anyone that wants to disagree with me can kiss my ass, I've been around enough to know it when I see it. The problem I so often see with three chord snarl and wail is that the sound isn't complex and music is about an experience. I've got Zach Brown Band's intro to the song "Free" playing right now, and the lonely yet hopeful sound of the violin is complex. It haunts the heart, like the long distant cannon fire of a battle that was fought but never won. That's the power of the complex sound of music, it can define our lives and harken us back to a place that we haven't been for years but make us feel like we were just there. There have been many times in my life that the only way I feel like I can communicate is through the words and sound of someone else. To further muddle my point I'll refer to "the Legend of Bagger Vance." The caddy refers his forlorn golfer to watch the swing of perhaps the greatest golfer to ever live Bobby Jones. His swing is described as grace in motion and each practice swing is searching for that one perfect alignment, to allow the very complicated physics involved to meet in one moment to release into the perfect swing. I never really understood that until I watched Rich Robinson play by himself during a farewell tour for the Black Crowes. He had a basic open tuning riff that he was slowly playing over and over and as he went deeper into it the pace increased as did the syncopation and eventually the little five note riff turned into a snarling monstrosity that assaulted the senses in the way that only a Gibson Les Paul through an over distorted Marshall amp can. His eyes closed tighter as he got to his sweet spot, and just as you could feel the room getting to explode with the build up he released his hands off the fret board and slid smoothly into one of the sweetest intros to a song I've ever heard, "Thorn in My Pride." Baseball coaches talk about pitchers who struggle with their command and speed, waiting to be able to connect A to B. Quarterbacks who can't see two steps ahead. I remember watching "For Love of the Game" (yes it's a Kevin Costner movie, and yes it's cheesy if you have smartass comment, I understand) and hearing "and one day it all just arrives." Which leads me to my long forgotten and over complicated point. To be good in this business, you're stuff has to arrive. Two to three steps ahead is a must. Each move in the kitchen must be calculated, because wasted motion hinders those around you, the ebb and flow of four men working in a hot confined space is a complicated and at times beautiful mess. Controlled chaos and ballet holding hands. The focal point the chef. Being able to direct cooks to funnel their mess into a clean concise plate is like searching for that one note to bring you back round the bend, to find that sweet spot and settle into a groove. When it works, the high I have is enough to take me almost straight home, at least it's only one cigarette in the truck. When it slaps you in the face, it's more like three or four, but the good new is we can always wake up and try again tomorrow. I'll tie music in again one more time. Allison Krauss and Union Station have been burning up the live music scene for as long as I've cared for that kind of music. The dobro player is playing the same riff over and over until he finds what he's looking for. That one moment where the sound aligns and he can launch off to the next level. That's what I'm looking for, that next level, or as Social Distortion says "the sweet lowdown..."