Pulled Out of the Haze

For awhile there I was feeling uninspired by music. It's not that I stopped liking it or something, it's just that nothing was grabbing my attention. Maybe there were too many distractions. I'm a baseball fan, so I watched in utter disgust as my team, the Chicago Cubs were abruptly eliminated from the playoffs, further confirming their status as the most cruel, laughable, inept sports franchise of all time. Oh I'll be back next year, though.





Then there's the economy, which is looking about as good right now as Amy Winehouse after a night of being Amy Winehouse. Yep, we're in trouble. Start hiding away your money in shoeboxes and hording canned goods. Luckily I have no life savings to lose so I'm good. Actually it'll be kind of fun to watch former Wall Street big shots be lowered into my tax bracket. Ha, ha! How do you like the service industry fool!!





Oh yeah then there's the election. There's Muslim terrorist Barack Obama versus Old Man McCain who wants you to get off his lawn right now. All the while, cougar hockey mom Sarah Palin is riling the conservative base with her good looks and barely coherent sentences. The stupid are hypnotized by her. "Yes Governor Palin, kill the terrorist Obama. Whatever you say. You betcha!"





To make a musical comparison, if we were going to give this little chapter in American history an album title, we'd call it "Further, Further, Further Down the Downward Spiral". All of this has left me in a bit of a haze. Not the fun purple one that Jimi Hendrix spoke of. No it's kind of a bile-yellow haze. The stuff of dry heaving.





But the other night I was pulled out of it. At least for the briefest of moments. I was flipping through the cable channels, looking for more signs that we are living in the end times, when I found Sigur Ros at MoMA.



I'm a little late to Sigur Ros. I just found out about them from reading a review of their latest album, which was just released within the past few months. The Icelandic rockers have been around for quite sometime, though. I have definitely lost some cool points for that admission. It was a good review and I was intrigued, but didn't follow up. Then a co-worker who saw them live said it was the best live show she'd seen. My interest was piqued and so I had to turn on the show.



I wasn't pulled in right away. Maybe I was just in a bad mood, but I didn't get it at first. But gradually, it clicked. Before too long, I was hooked. Call it the Radiohead Effect. It's not instant gratification music. You kind of have to sit with it awhile. And so I did. And maybe it was the ethereal vocals. Maybe it was the interesting rhythmic structure. Maybe it was the combination of xylophone and horns. Maybe it was all of the layers. But as time went on I got it and wanted to hear more. There was a droning quality to it that was hypnotic. There was a certain ebb and flow to the music. These guys are good. I had no idea what any of the words meant, but it didn't matter. The songs had a certain life of their own and made me feel like everything was going to be all right. To me that's what music is about. Comfort, emotion, reassurance. The whole experience left me feeling a lot better about people living in the northern latitudes of our world, as well.

When it was over, way too quickly I might add, I wanted to reconnect with music. I went and got out my old cd's and started putting them into my iTunes collection. I wanted to revisit those songs and albums that got me through the tough times and inspired me. I listened to Nirvana and Soundgarden for the first time in years. I turned up some Neutral Milk Hotel. I rediscovered The Kinks and Eric Clapton. The project serves a practical purpose as well. Once the Great Depression II rolls around and we're all living on the street, it'll be easier to have mp3's than having all of those cd's to cart around. Music makes anything better, though. We'll be ok after all.