sad, bitter, and jaded

the depression continues (maybe I'm stewing but this is my world) but so does the healing--this acoustic show featured our brave return to the backyard (damn the mosquitoes) and our first fireside show in many a moon (at least 2)--again songs of love, loss, and regret make me feel right at home (well, I am home but that's not the point)--like I said before, sometimes it is just enough to know that everybody hurts--Devil's Hollow Band (really just 1 dude but you know how these punk folkster types are) starts off with solidly written songs--storytelling songs--that may have been the theme of the night--I think that is one of the reasons I like the acoustic stuff so much, I find myself feeling more for music when I can understand the words--when I know what the songs are about--and all night this was true--D.H.B. had this amazingly funny and yet sad song about a kid who tried to get into a private school, didn't make the cut, and had to repeat the 4th grade, "the work is pretty easy but I miss kids my age" as well as song about that path not taken, the big regret that he keeps reliving over and over as he goes to sleep every night--sounds like a real bummer but brother, I can totally relate--next is Joe Magnum, maybe the most punk rock ukelali player I know--this kid is a veritable well of creativity--I'm not sure I've seen him play a show where he didn't have another new song--and they all rock--songs about high school, about seeing his best friend while on a walk, and my personal favorite a song about how he's not going to worry about the future because he plans on living a life that is right by him--no exaggeration (what me exaggerate) but I am becoming a big Joe Magnum fan (and we can say we knew him back when he was still in high school)--but my favorite of the night was Mr. Matt K.--I've been rocking his split, Childhood Friends, ever since the show--this dude is one jaded M.F.er (this is a PG13 blog sorry)--takes one to know one right--very simple percussion (truly a one man band) and a powerful sad but strong, vaguely celtic voice, and anthemic guitar chords--a great song about creativity called originality, where he admits and discusses how nothing is new--we are our influences, maybe it's impossible to achieve but he bravely insists on trying to be an original--but the break out single of the night for me personally was his The Worst Song, which I literally can't get out of my head, sung it a million times riding my bike around trying to feel better--"oh Rosara I just wanted you to know that I wrote this shitty song because I never want to talk to you again-because I still hate myself for loving you-and there is nothing you can do to make amends-and I don't want to sing this song again-but I probably will-and I don't want to see your face again-but I know that I might" moved me so much I was actually kind of glad there weren't many people at the show so they didn't see me absolutely wallowing in bitterness--but sometimes that is how we get better, by taking a second to wallow--oh, and we all got to draw on Matt's guitar, his talisman of the road--then Them Damn Kids--the first Damn Kid did a fantastic set on top of the kids play slide, he had his buddies do the part of his electronic repeating parrot (what are friends for) and he had a sort of Jonathon Richman light heartedness about him--a welcome comedic relief on a night featuring so many bitter love songs--one song in particular that I think is going to be a sleeper hit--he started with this Hindi folk chant, tried to learn Hindi, failed, and made up his own english version of the chant--about (of all things) rotating crops, you have to change to grow, you know--then the other 2 Damn Kids played their set, by now the sun has set, it is dark so we move around the fire--so pretty--like a celtic Cat Stevens--sad I suppose (or maybe thats just me), but too beautiful to be sad, the great sadness that is the world--I step back from the fire circle and lay in the shade of the tree, watching the stars move beyond the branches and think of all the beautiful people that I have known, each suffering in their own way--this kind of music that faces this great grief straight on--I never want it to end, but of course it does, the world moves on