Today's Music Ain't Got the Same Soul

I don't know what it is about soul music, but it always puts me in a better mood.  It makes me feel like I should be wearing black Wayfarers and a fedora, maybe have a cigarette just resting on my lips.  It's almost like it's the cool thing for me to do.  Just thinking about soul music puts me in a good mood.  In fact, I'm listening to Wilson Pickett's "I'm a Midnight Mover" as I type this.

I'm not sure how I came to like soul music.  If anything, I'd have to say my dad introduced me to it.  He introduced me to a lot of different kinds of music when I was younger.  He's the reason I'm such a big fan of music in general.  He's kind of like me with the way he likes a certain band or style of music.  He'll listen to it in waves.  He'll get really interested in one specific thing for a while, and then he'll find another thing to peak his interest and then move on.  But soul music was always something I could get down with.

First of all, soul music is one of the founding genres that rock music is based from.  Rock is a mixture of a lot of different things: blues, country, rhythm & blues (which includes soul), and jazz.  But there's something different about soul music that makes it appealing to me.  Maybe it's the raw emotion that is conveyed in some of the songs.  Seriously, if you want to talk about some raw emotion in the way an artist sings a song, the perfect example is Otis Redding's "Try a Little Tenderness."  Give Otis three minutes of your time and he could make you feel exactly what he's feeling just by singing to you.  The man was a wonder on the mic and he knew how to work a stage.  He's the original Soul Man (actually a song by Sam & Dave).

The Blues Brothers had nothing on the pioneers of soul music.  Sure they'd perform a pretty damn good rendition of some of the older stuff, but much like covers nowadays, nothing can hold a candle to the originals.  I don't even know why they called themselves the Blues Brothers.  They rarely played any blues.  At least not how I know blues.  I know Smokestack Lightnin' and Howlin' Wolf.  They were playing songs from King Floyd, Johnnie Taylor, Willie Mabon, and Sam & Dave.  These are all soul singers.  They're not blues.

There's just something about soul music that gets to me and I don't know what it is.  I feel like it's got a song or artist for every occasion:

Feeling sad?  "If You Don't Know Me by Now" by Harold Melvin & the Bluenotes
Feeling lonely?  "These Arms of Mine" by Otis Redding.
Feeling empowered?  "Hold On! I'm Coming" by Sam and Dave.
Feel like partying?  "Soul Finger" by the Bar-Kays.
Feel like dancing?  "Get Up Offa That Thing (Release the Pressure)" by James Brown
And my personal favorite...
Feel like a little sexy time?  "Here I Am (Come and Take Me)" by the Reverend Al Green

Won't you let Al Green "Explore Your Mind?"

Unfortunately, we live in an era where "fucking bitches" has more relevance than "making love to your woman."  It's about what they say and how they say it.  Soul musicians say it with conviction.  Like they actually mean it.  It puts a bit of themselves into the songs.  Rappers who "fuck bitches" just perpetuate the idea that our culture is dumbing itself down, emotionally as well as intellectually.  Maybe I'm an old-fashioned twenty-something.  Maybe old fashioned twenty-somethings don't exist.  But there's something to be said about raw emotion in music, and I don't see that much anymore.  That's why I turn to the roots of my favorite songs and artists at times and feed the soul.

Random Mind Wanderings of a Not-So-Tortured Soul

You ever just let your mind wander?  I do.  It's unfortunate when it decides to wander independently.  When my mind has wandered too far for me to control and I have no idea where it's going.  It wanders as if it's controlled by someone who isn't me.  I am no longer in control of where my mind wanders.  After a while it fixes itself to something, and won't let go.  It's almost as if it's trying to tell me something that I'm not exactly getting.

Tonight it did just this.  I sat in my bed, trying to get some sleep before my big job interview tomorrow afternoon, and my mind wandered.  Whenever it wanders like it did, I can't sleep.  My brain is just too active and I can't seem to calm down.  First, I tried to concentrate on the music I had playing from my stereo, but that reminded me of a girl from college that I had a thing for.  I tried to think of something else, but I couldn't.  My mind kept coming back to her.  She was/is a writer.  So that got me thinking about my interview, which is for a position as a reporter for a local newspaper.  If I get the job, I won't be able to play rugby as much as I used to.  This fact made me think about how I've recently wanted to start a rugby club at my old high school.

After about 20 minutes of my mind wandering, I thought I'd flip through my high school yearbook.  I flipped through, and it only depressed me.  I realized that my high school career was a miserable one for me.  I had bad hygiene, I was fat, I had few friends, and I never did anything on the weekends.  Sports... I wrestled in high school.  Looking back, though, just reminded me of what a douchebag I used to be and how I wasn't well liked.

Speaking of health and bad hygiene, I used to weigh 270 pounds.  I love to eat.  That's no crime, but after a while of looking at myself in the mirror, I got disgusted by how I looked.  Not only that, but diabetes runs in my family, and I wanted no part of that.  I was heavy for a good portion of my life.  I'm still a bit heavy, but I frequent the gym now.  Not just for myself, but for my teammates.  I have to bulk up, otherwise, I'm no use on the rugby pitch.  But I digress.  I had bad hygiene, too.  I never brushed my teeth, I showered like twice a week, and I finally got disgusted with myself.  When I lost the first 40 pounds, I found myself dressing better, showering more, just all around caring about myself a little more.

That was a big transition for me.  Getting down to less than 200 pounds.  I'm not skinny, but at least my risk for heart disease and diabetes went down exponentially.

I that with being thinner and not being a douchebag anymore, I'd have a little more luck with the ladies.  That thought just makes me laugh now.  It's not really about looks, I'm starting to realize.  It's how you conduct yourself around them.  Being heavy for so long has fucked with my confidence.  And confidence is important in everything I do.  In rugby, I need to be more confident that I can catch a pass instead of worrying about dropping it.  In songwriting, I need to be more confident that my songs are well-written (well... some of them).  Mostly, I need to stop thinking I'm never good enough, which, unfortunately is what I've been told many times).  And I need to stay confident about this job interview.  I deserve this position and I need to let these people know it.

These things plague my mind and I just think about some of the most random things.  Some of my friends say I'm an overthinker, and I try to analyze some things a little too much.  This would be an understatement.  I try to analyze EVERYTHING.  This is probably why I can't get to sleep right now.  Three in the fucking morning.  Ugh!

Job interview... What do I wear?... Navy suit... The navy... My grandfather was in the navy... I wonder how grandma is doing... Uncle Frank lives next door to her... I wonder how he's doing... That time we saw Steely Dan at the Beacon... I love New York City... I miss New York City... The Walk the Moon concert last month... And there it is.  Everything comes back to a woman.  I can't even move on from there.  My mind wanders until it settles on that.  Then I can't control it and it wanders for more.

We've Got No Money, But We've Got Heart

Every now and then, I'll grab a random band t-shirt from my closet, put on a nice pair of jeans, dust of my Sambas, and catch a train into New York City.  Sometimes I go without any reason.  I go in, I explore, I find a cool bar, I make a new friend, I go home.  Most times I venture into "the City," though, there is a mission at hand that I am looking to accomplish.  This usually means that I have bought tickets to some kind of event and have been planning something for a few months.  (A few times, I've gotten tickets to shows the day that the band was playing.  I love those moments when I decide to go to a show on a whim.)

I had been hearing great things about this band called Walk the Moon for a few weeks and decided to check them out.  At first listen, I didn't think there was anything special about them.  But with some albums, you need to give them more than one listen.  It took me about three or four before I started catching onto the rhythms and interesting instrumentation.  After that fourth listen, I was hooked.  Naturally, I was compelled to look up when they were coming around my area next on a tour.  I waited another few weeks for them to announce a tour of the Northeastern United States.  Finally, they announced the tour and I took note of the date and time the tickets went on sale.  Unfortunately, when I went to buy tickets, the show was sold out in 2 minutes.  Fortunately, they added an extra date in New York.  The tickets were bought.

Sometimes, I'm an optimist.  This was one of those cases.  I bought two tickets in the hopes that I'd have been dating someone by the time the show rolled around.  I bought the tickets in early October and the concert was in late January, giving me about 3 and a half months to find someone with whom to go to the show.

My friend, Greg, invited me to a Halloween party at his apartment in Springfield, Massachusetts.  (I swear this relates.)  As I stood there among a couple of people I knew and a whole hell of a lot that I didn't, dressed in a stupid costume and sipping on a crappy Bud Light, I was tapped on the shoulder by an old friend that I hadn't seen in a while.  It was nice to see Jenna and catch up.  I ended up spending the night on a very comfortable convertible sofa-bed, and the next morning, while all of my friends were sitting on the porch and talking about days past, she mentioned a band I'd never heard of before and told me that I should check them out.  Well, I did.  And they were good.  (The band was I Fight Dragons, if you're interested.)  After listening to the band for a week, I sent her a message on Facebook to tell her they would be playing in the area.  Long story short, she, a couple of her friends, and I went to see them play at the end of November.

It was getting closer and closer to the day of the concert and I still didn't have anyone I wanted to take.  ...until I thought of her.  She'd never really listened to Walk the Moon, but after a few tracks, she was hooked on the band as well and decided to accept the invitation to see the show with me.

What a damn good show!  We arrived at the Bowery Ballroom after desert at Serendipity 3 just a few minutes before the doors opened and waited in the bar downstairs.  Jenna stepped into the bathroom and they announced that another door (closer to the stage) would open in addition to the main door, so I jumped in that line.  Luckily for her, my position in line was right next to the ladies' room, so she found me with ease.  Our position in front of the stage was prime, although it was behind a couple of tall girls (Jenna and I are a little on the short side).  Jenna saved my spot in the crowd while I went down to the restroom and painted my face like some kind of white urban Native American ready to wage war on the crowd.  Just a streak of light blue over a streak of white on my face.  Not much.  I didn't want it to be overkill.

After a quick set by Pacific Air, who was actually a pretty good band from Southern California, Walk the Moon took to the stage and played with some of the most energy I have ever seen radiate from a band.  While it was great to hear all of their songs played in a live setting, the thing that I enjoyed most about the band wasn't the music (Well, it was partially the music), or their wardrobe, or even their connection with the fans (which was also nice).  It was the fact that with every song they played, they looked as if they were having an insanely good time on stage.  Almost as if there was some kind of inside joke amongst all four of them that never got old.  In fact, it was like the joke gained more momentum as the show went on.

Also, there was a keytar...

I was notified via her twitter feed that the sold out Walk the Moon concert was enough to leave a great impression on Jenna.  It definitely left one on me.  I wish I could play music like that night after night and still have that kind of energy and fun on stage.  It definitely makes life a little more fun and bearable when things aren't going the way you planned.  I needed that night for myself.