Wherein Sara Leah's music geekness rises to a new level...

I wasn't sure if I was supposed to be singing. It seemed to be a sing-a-long type of moment. We were crowded in the center of the room. Crowded in the dark, circling John Vanderslice and his guitar, David and the bass drum, St. Vincent and her crystal clear harmonies. John pulled his arm up from his side and waved it in the air. Was it a sing-a-long? No one else was singing with them, but Will and I, but at that moment there could have been choirs behind us. The whole room was filled with sound. As John opened his mouth and wagged his blonde head, the whole world seemed to be singing along:

"You know that guy who
stole your girlfriend
away from you
in the summer
of '95
he's going to die

you know her name
sits in your brain
like a tumor
eyes still shine in your memory
she's going to die

well you can carry that grudge
or you can let it go
but as sure as I'm singing this song, you know
she's going to die, she's going to die

five'll get you ten so just let it go
that she and he and i will hear the final chord
just let it go, let it go, we're going to die"

-Nikki Oh Nikki, Life and Death of an American Four Tracker



The room was still. The lights were very low, casting an orange and golden glow upon the faces of my friends, standing just across the way. Rebecca stood, elevated on a bar stool, camera pulled up to her small serious face. Amber stood below her, hands clasped, eyes warm, smiling in my direction. This was it. A perfect moment.

I sat at the bar earlier, trying to tell Ben way I love John's music, telling what scattered history that I knew, what my nervous brain could remember. I kept saying the word perfect. Scott Solter's production, perfect. John's lyrics, perfect. I know that these statements are not true. The lyrics, the clicks and whirrs, the piano, the guitar...not perfect. They are odd and interesting, off putting and inviting at the same time. There is an earnestness in every measure that I can't shake off, that seems perfect when it hits my ear, like that moment when you slip into a warm bath and you sigh and smile. It's a good moment and to you, it is perfect because it's what you've longed for. I long for music that speaks to me. More than that, I long for music that makes me think, drives my day. I long for music that will make me tilt my head as I start my car, exhausted from a long day of work. I turn through the intersection, underneath the overpass and forget everything. I lose myself in his voice and what he has to say, every clear strum of the guitar. Every distorted chord transports...

John had walked quickly to me once he had found that I was there. We chatted about the music scene, the Bottletree, Chris Ward and Pattern is Movement, the SDRE/Mk Ultra show in St. Louis. He smiled so easily and spoke with an honest warmth. Why was I so nervous? I felt nauseous still and the meeting was already over. I knelt down by Hamric, who was sitting at a table on the patio, his green "Wes McDonald and the Fizz" t-shirt, his smirking, wonderful eyes. I told Jason Hamric and Brandon that maybe it was because as a listener, you build this image of, this meaning behind what you hear. This is the freedom that you are given, to create a persona, a history from which the stories and the songs are born. To finally meet the person behind all of this can be devastating or transcendent

I remember meeting Mark Kozelek a couple years ago at the Nick. I had seen him in Nashville the night before and had decided not to talk to him as he stood beside me quietly during Warren Gently's opening set. Having seen him on stage a few times in my life and knowing his cloudy and sometimes downright mean disposition, I did not want to actually talk to him, for fear that his stage persona would leak into his true self, a self that I so honestly wanted to be the yearning, sad hearted, quiet lover of his voice. In other words, I did not want him to punch me in the face for asking him about a particular song or album. When I finally got up the nerve to approach him at the Nick, after much pushing and prodding by my friends, he was genuinely...well...sweet. "Hi. Hey. I remember you. Pink scarf girl." It was a great moment.

I've been listening to John Vanderslice for ten years. His music has been a great part of my life soundtrack. I do not know him, but I know his climbing voice. His voice has been a friend to me. His music has gotten me through dark days and accompanied me on great adventures. When he walked up to me after his set and hugged me and thanked me for smiling and singing along...I thought to that moment, sitting at a table at the back of the room, when he had traveled from the stage to the organ by the bathrooms to sing a number. I sat at that table and smiled as he lifted his head and sang out. It was a perfect moment. Worth all of the nervousness, worth all of this quiet hope.

check out tour dates and news of John Vanderslice at www.johnvanderslice.com

Dearest Tuscaloosa

Thank you for a pretty awesome weekend.
I like your beer.
And the rock of Egan's.

Vulture Whale played there on Friday night.


Wes the McDonald

John Snowden's MOOOSTACHE (Kradackledack)

The NUBY

Dutch, my brother, fresh off the boat.


Tim Ros seriously hearts the Robots

Seriously.

Pictures of Ham Bagby's amazing Balloon Balancing Act:


Ham Bagby is Amazing



Ham Bagby is Tall



All the Balloons love Ham Bagby

Saturday:
Dutch stayed comatose all day (which is understandable, I'd want to spend 24 hours in a state of slumber too if I'd just spent 20 days swabbing decks). I did laundry, went grocery shopping, explored his house. All of my furniture, including my piano, are stored there for the time being. I've missed my stuff. It's funny, though, to see that my brother and I decorate the same. We have a mutual love for vintage pictures and fixtures and antique furniture. In his little house in Northport, he's even gone so far as to restore and install vintage appliances in his kitchen. The Frigidaire is positively lovely. That's an odd thing to say, but so so true.

I met Tim at around 9 for drinks at the Downtown Pub. He had promised beer and bad music. He delivered.

My friend Dan stopped by the booth where we were sitting. Dan played drums for Ralph Jackson at the Birmingham Sound show last August. As I was trying to explain Ralph to Tim, the story of Ralph and the Black Kat 45, Dan stopped me midway and said, "let me put it to you this way, if there hadn't been James Brown, there would have been Ralph 'Soul' Jackson." I smiled. At that moment I wanted to show Tim the Birmingham Sound DVD, I wanted him to see Ralph and his soul scream so he could know that Dan was telling the truth. Dan pulled out his cell phone and played a track for me from a band he discovered while on tour in England. He said that he could hear Ralph in their music. He could hear Ralph singing something like that. He fumbled with his phone and motioned to it and said that it was basically so awesome that he could strap himself to it and it would take him to the moon.

Sitting across from Tim in the booth, listening to Stroke 9 and Tal Bachman, watching the level of the beer in our pitcher fall and magically be renewed, I lost myself for a bit in the midst of conversation. We talked about school and music and family and working in record stores. All of the sudden, the lights went bright and I realized it was almost 2am.

Sunday:

In a dirty parking lot, within your fair city's limits, lies a treasure trove of musicness.

I bought a new CD organizer.
And I dropped it somewhere whilst running errands with Dutch.

So if you've been fiending some of Eddie Hinton's Southern Soul or have always wanted to own a copy of Will Johnston of Centro-matic's solo album, be on the lookout for a small burgundy nylon case. It should be glowing from the beauty of it's contents. (Check: Walmart, Target, Full Moon Barbecue, OZ Music)

All the best,

Sara Leah

"I never wanted just one thing..."

"...I always figured there was something else..." - Land it, Wes McDonald




"This is no acoustic show," I wrote in the brown book, standing back between the dressing room door and the door to the office, leaning against the chewing-gum- purple walls and scribbling like mad. "This is a sit-a-man-down, electric, rock'n' roll river of dreams....I never had heard them sound so good. Too bad there's only 13 people here."

I looked over to the other side of the room, St. Louis, Jody, and Thomas sat perched, high on stools, buds in hand and faces glowing. Les sat low and knealt over his guitar, flipping every little dance above the Fizz's solid floor of song.

Wes McDonald and the Fizz