Sun's out.
Went for a walk during my lunch break today. Felt good to have sunshine and warmth. I barely even needed my jacket. Had headphones in while I strolled aimlessly around the city, letting my mind wander. A song came on that got me thinking about bit players, the people that step into our lives to do something important and then disappear back into the eaves with little or no warning. Such a thing has happened to me as much as anyone else, but there is a specific time I think of that always makes me wonder - about how much we know ourselves or how we come across to others.
I hated living in the dorms in college. Anyone who has met me can attest to the fact that I am a neurotic creature who needs an inordinate amount of solitude. Part of the reason my better half and I work so well is that we know when to give each other time to be ourselves and not feel crowded. A dormitory crammed with dudes, though? Drove me insane. Almost insane. But darn close. Not everything about it was bad, just the relentless social atmosphere that constantly threatened to overload my brain. I met almost all of my friends during this time, including the friend who introduced me to my better half. But while I was connecting with these people, trying to not lose my mind in the new-found freedom/strife of dorm life, there was one person who I not only clicked with but drew a bead on me that was remarkably accurate for how little we hung out. I guess he just got a good read on me in that short time, because I never really saw him after freshman year - I moved into an apartment and I think he transferred. How sad is that, that I don't even know what became of this guy? Maybe I'm selfish. I know there were a lot of loose associations due to confined living spaces, but I wish I had possessed stronger character enough to reconnect. Regardless of my own shortcomings, every time I listen to this album he gave me, I think "how did he know I would love this album so much?"
The album came with no notice or fanfare, just him stopping by on his way to class and tossing me a burned CD (again, just before the proliferation of iPods and flash drives). I think he just said "Hey man, thought you'd like this" when he handed me the CD, on which he had hand-drawn some artwork and all the tracks. It was dredg's album El Cielo. Surprised by the spontaneous gesture, I thanked him and said I'd give it a listen, and promised to burn him a reciprocal CD. Nothing more, he just headed off and I set the disk on my desk. Here's the dumb thing: I didn't listen to it right away. I totally should have. I don't remember how long it was that I waited, but when I did it seemed okay, but not anything crazy. So in return I burned him a disk of stuff I was into at the time, I think there was a lot of the Get Up Kids on there. Anyway, some time later, after we had parted ways, I listened to the album, really listened to it.
It blew me away.
While I struggle to pull out specific reasons that would elucidate just what it is that resonates with me so much, I can tell you it felt like this CD was hitting closer to home than anything I was listening to at the time. I was on a long, contemplative drive when I first heard the album and I vividly remember thinking "Oh man, you were a genius! How did I never listen to this!? I wish I could tell him how good this is!" It was eerie, haunting, somber. Conversely it was an album with churning guitars and gorgeously written piano and string arrangements. Honestly, I can't tell you why I love this album so much, it just reverberates with something in my head. There's a darkness but it exists side by side with a melancholic joie de vivre - does that make any sense? It's a kind of joy in sorrow. Dredg created something amazing here, and I had sat on it for too long before realizing it. It even had an effect on others, proving to me there was something powerful about this album. Playing it for the same friend who introduced me to Lagwagon, he remarked that it was weird and "trippy" yet at the same time conventional. Maybe that's what fascinates me about 'El Cielo' - on the surface it's a fairly normal alterna-prog album but the trained ear can sense unconventional chord patterns and slightly uncanny melodies. There is something just slightly askew here, and it's amazing.
I've never had a chance to reconnect with this friend from my freshman year of college. I've heard from other people that he's well, but that's all I know. Just friending him on Facebook would feel cheap and hollow, and I don't even use it (which is a whole other arguement that I'm not delving into here). But every time I hear a track from this album by dredge I think back to how either he must have really loved to advocate for it or he just knew it was up my alley. Hey, for all I know it was a shot in the dark and he thought I might just dig it. I wish I had listened to it sooner. The guy was right. It is fantastic.
Went for a walk during my lunch break today. Felt good to have sunshine and warmth. I barely even needed my jacket. Had headphones in while I strolled aimlessly around the city, letting my mind wander. A song came on that got me thinking about bit players, the people that step into our lives to do something important and then disappear back into the eaves with little or no warning. Such a thing has happened to me as much as anyone else, but there is a specific time I think of that always makes me wonder - about how much we know ourselves or how we come across to others.
I hated living in the dorms in college. Anyone who has met me can attest to the fact that I am a neurotic creature who needs an inordinate amount of solitude. Part of the reason my better half and I work so well is that we know when to give each other time to be ourselves and not feel crowded. A dormitory crammed with dudes, though? Drove me insane. Almost insane. But darn close. Not everything about it was bad, just the relentless social atmosphere that constantly threatened to overload my brain. I met almost all of my friends during this time, including the friend who introduced me to my better half. But while I was connecting with these people, trying to not lose my mind in the new-found freedom/strife of dorm life, there was one person who I not only clicked with but drew a bead on me that was remarkably accurate for how little we hung out. I guess he just got a good read on me in that short time, because I never really saw him after freshman year - I moved into an apartment and I think he transferred. How sad is that, that I don't even know what became of this guy? Maybe I'm selfish. I know there were a lot of loose associations due to confined living spaces, but I wish I had possessed stronger character enough to reconnect. Regardless of my own shortcomings, every time I listen to this album he gave me, I think "how did he know I would love this album so much?"
It blew me away.
While I struggle to pull out specific reasons that would elucidate just what it is that resonates with me so much, I can tell you it felt like this CD was hitting closer to home than anything I was listening to at the time. I was on a long, contemplative drive when I first heard the album and I vividly remember thinking "Oh man, you were a genius! How did I never listen to this!? I wish I could tell him how good this is!" It was eerie, haunting, somber. Conversely it was an album with churning guitars and gorgeously written piano and string arrangements. Honestly, I can't tell you why I love this album so much, it just reverberates with something in my head. There's a darkness but it exists side by side with a melancholic joie de vivre - does that make any sense? It's a kind of joy in sorrow. Dredg created something amazing here, and I had sat on it for too long before realizing it. It even had an effect on others, proving to me there was something powerful about this album. Playing it for the same friend who introduced me to Lagwagon, he remarked that it was weird and "trippy" yet at the same time conventional. Maybe that's what fascinates me about 'El Cielo' - on the surface it's a fairly normal alterna-prog album but the trained ear can sense unconventional chord patterns and slightly uncanny melodies. There is something just slightly askew here, and it's amazing.
