Fuck Yeah. Part Two.

Last night we went to see Sparklehorse. But the opener stole the show for me. I walked in while he was half way through his first song but when I heard that resonator a-playing I was hooked. His finger picking was extraordinary, his singing was impassioned, his demeanor was relaxed and his lyrics were dead-on. All of this smashed together in one tight package made for the most moving live music experience I’ve ever felt. I saw Shellac at the same venue about two weeks ago and they rocked sure, and 400 Blows kicked some ass, the Blood Brothers did “Under Pressure,” X sounded like they’d stepped right out of 1980, Big Business slayed but none of them came close to what Tyler Ramsey did last night: he created music that could only be summed up with one word. “Beautiful.” I got teary eyed at one point. Straight up emotional shit. He was fighting against the barroom crowd and the clinking of empty beer bottles and assholes talking; he’d just sing louder and more passionately to get his point across which was falling upon mostly deaf ears. He was totally bumming people out (mostly kids who only heard of Sparklehorse on a NIRVANA chat room.) Which leads to my theory you can bum out scensters (you know the kids who are emotionally detached from everything except maybe some fashion trends and their favorite coffee shop) two ways. One is to be super fucking heavy (and no Underoath is not heavy), which I saw on full display at the aforementioned Big Business/Blood Brothers show. All the hipsters waiting to see Blood Brothers were bummed the fuck out and kept yelling stupid shit like “MAIDEN” and “PLAY SOME SABBATH.” Neither of which are funny or even clever. The other way to be a buzz kill musically is to be super fucking pussy, which is what Tyler Ramsey was doing last night. Songs about lost girls and time machines and finger pickin’ instrumentals are not what a guy who just showed up to drink a beer with his buddies wants to hear but that’s what they got and so did I. And thank god for that since this ranks as one of the best weekends in recorded history…for any one… ever. And I didn’t even mention Sparklehorse’s set or record shopping for three hours, or great pizza and terrible tea, or countless cigarettes or the night before or keggers or the road trip it took to get there or being sick or everyone actually being happy at the same time for once or listening to Meat Puppets and Radiohead on the trip up or port-a-johns or Asheville in general or some guy wanting to fight me because I disagreed with him or singing “Happy Birthday” or…OH Fuck I don’t remember anything else. Oh man, what a plan.