My love for music is pure
In another life, I may have ended up in an instrumental trio as a string bass player
I love music. My enjoyment of music forms a core part of my identity, equal if not greater to my love of bicycles or winter weather. And yet, I rarely acknowledge this love, even as I download another hundred mp3 files for my latest soundtrack: “March 2024 Adventures” (and curmudgeonly refuse to use Spotify or any program that’s going to let an algorithm tell me what I should listen to.) I enjoy or at least respect most genres of music, but as a child of the 90s, most of my albums fall in the “indie” or “alternative” categories.
As a youth, I was wholly dedicated to live music. These days I never go to concerts, mainly because of a growing battle with agoraphobia, or however one might categorize a deep discomfort in crowds that spikes anxiety and threatens panic attacks. Still, whenever I stumble across people playing music in public spaces, my heart swells with love and appreciation, all of the good serotonin that anxiety denies me. During the 2020 lockdown, I was unloading a once-every-two-weeks haul of groceries in a Safeway parking lot when I caught the distant sound of a woman singing “Ava Maria” with violin accompaniment. Tears filled my eyes, and the feeling was so unexpected that I slammed my hatchback shut with groceries still in the cart and darted across the parking lot to find the source of the music. A Hispanic woman stood in a median with a small speaker and a microphone, and a man stood beside her playing the violin. A cardboard sign read “Please help” so I gave them what I had — about $18 in small bills that remained in my wallet from the Before Times, when people still used cash. The rendition was so beautiful, so heartfelt, that I wished I had $100 to give them. The haunting sound of Ava Maria across the mostly empty parking lot is still one of my most vivid memories of the Lockdown.
Last Friday, I was in the Seattle Airport for a three-hour layover between my flight from Fairbanks and my flight home to Denver. The return flight after a physically punishing race is never fun. The adventure is over, and all that’s left is stiff muscles and sore backs begging for a place to just collapse already. I had just wolfed down a $25 bowl of vegetable pho, but I was still hungry so I acquired a $9 yogurt parfait and took it to the central area of N Gates to enjoy while playing Words With Friends on my laptop. Next to the only free table was a makeshift stage and a woman playing an electric cello. For the next hour, I was swept up in the cellist’s beautiful world of fog-shrouded coastlines and Pacific Northwest rainforests. Her original compositions were so enchanting that I forgot I was in an airport, so much so that I jumped with surprise when my phone buzzed to alert me that boarding was about to begin. I again only had $20 cash on me, but I was able to buy one of her CDs even though I possess almost no means of listening to a CD. The musician is Gretchen Yanover and this is her YouTube Channel.
Speaking of incredible instrumental music, last month while I was visiting my Mom in Utah, I accompanied my friend Raj to a casual show at a coffee shop in Provo. Raj was a friend of my father and often joined Dad and me for hikes in the Wasatch. Since my Dad’s death, Raj and I started connecting whenever I’m in town, usually for hikes or runs on local trails, or delicious dinners at Royal India. I have also attended a couple of his live shows now that he’s the drummer for two or three different projects. Although he’s been a percussionist since he was young, playing with bands seems to be something Raj picked up in recent years. He’s close to my age, which makes me wonder — could I just up and decide to start playing music in midlife? But then I hear Raj’s music and think — no, that takes talent. Even if I take the time to become an active participant, music might just become something else I beat myself up over and I don’t want to ruin this. My love for music is still pure.
Raj’s show in Provo was with his friend Will. The two of them form an instrumental duo on guitar and drums. The coffee shop audience was comprised of bored-looking 20-somethings who were either BYU students studying for tests or there to see friends playing an earlier gig. Then Will and Raj came up on stage — two middle-aged men with acoustic instruments and no singer — and started playing after minimal introductions. They called themselves “Raj & Will” and introduced each song as “This is the second song we wrote … this is the first song we wrote.” Their music was unconventional, imaginative, soaring. As they played, the room lit up — all of these Gen Z kids clapping, cheering, and throwing dollars into the coffee-shop-provided jar. I was enthralled — swept away in the magic of a night that held any and every possibility. (A link to a recent live show Raj & Will played is here.)
Then the set was over and it was time for the middle-aged folks to go home and go to bed. As we drove back to Draper, Will asked me how I might describe their music. I was stumped. I replied that a word that came to mind was “cinematic,” because each piece sounded like it could belong in a movie score. But I also thought “industrial” because I had my teenage self in the 90s on my mind. Indeed, another person in the YouTube comments must have thought the same because he wrote, “When you’re into Tool but also like to chill a bit.” Raj and Will dropped me off at my Mom’s house, and I admit, I was laughing with the nostalgia of it all as I sprinted toward the front door like a teenager rushing to meet my curfew.
How many nights did a friend or secret crush drive me through the darkened streets of my neighborhood, rushing to meet my curfew after another magical night of music? My music tastes when I was a teenager did leave something to be desired. I was a teenage girl in the 90s after all, so I was into ska and pop punk, along with jam bands like Phish. I also carried my favorite grunge bands from the early 90s — Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots, Jane’s Addiction — and of course, the anthem rock of my generation, The Smashing Pumpkins. As long as I could get clearance from my parents and enough money saved from my minimum wage job at Einstein’s Bagels, I would pour my free time and cash into concerts.
Some of these memories can still carry me away, all these decades later, with my brain seemingly so thoroughly rewired that I can’t fathom how that fearless teenager evolved into me. I see the X96 Big Ass Festival in October 1996, a scorching autumn day when temperatures climbed into the mid-90s. My friend Tarrah and I pushed into the crowd to score a prime spot for Gravity Kills. Tarrah had already removed her shirt to cope with the heat, but I was still draped in an oversized Korn T-shirt over a long-sleeved cotton shirt and thrift store corduroys. We were wedged chin-to-scalp in a sea of sweaty humans when Gravity Kills started playing their hit, “Guilty.” The crowd erupted and something primal sparked in Tarrah and me. We surged forward, shoving, screaming, and plunging into the heart of the mosh pit. I’d never before gone into one — they always looked so gross and violent, and they were. Shoulders and elbows flew toward my face; everything else was a blur of blue sky and darkness. The chaos was so encompassing that a strange sort of peace enveloped me. It was a frenzy of rage and adrenaline and passion, and I was one with the chaos. We emerged from that crowd drenched in sweat and gasping, having given all of ourselves to anarchy. Tarrah said, “That was crazy,” and I could only nod in agreement.
Have you ever been so carried away by music that you lose yourself, and in losing yourself, you gain the purest sense of freedom? I smile when I remember there was a time when I gained that freedom from violently thrashing to an industrial rock band, and now find it from buskers in the Safeway parking lot or pleasant cello music at Sea-Tac. But I am grateful music is a passion so simple and universal that I can Google “Clover music Utah” and be whisked away all over again.
Some years ago you mentioned Modest Mouse a couple of times. I was in a second hand music store (here in the UK) and I noticed one of there albums and thought of you and decided yo purchase. I also saw an album by artist I got to see two weeks ago as it happens and just picked up a third for the 3 for £10 deal. I liked it. Some time later, early 2016 I had just finished the Tour Aotearoa in NZ and was in a cafe near Christchurch on my way home. The cafe clientele was mostly middleaged but then a young man, early twenties(?), walked in wearing a Modest Mouse tee-shirt. I smiled to myself and did think of you, thanks for the recommendation - even if herself did once say to me WTF at one of there tracks.
Nonetheless I enjoy music off all kinds more than most people.