Third times the charm to get back to writing…
Widespread Panic – Diner (live in Alpharetta, GA) (October 16, 2016)
Genre: jam band you’ve never heard of that can sell out arenas nationwide
Feeling: the South’s answer to California’s and Vermont’s jam band greats
I have only met one self-avowed “Widespread” fan in my life. We were at a small party in an Allston apartment and he was wearing a Grateful Dead dancing teddy bear shirt; I naturally struck up a music conversation. Now I do not remember the contents of the conversation but I do remember he had a lot of (performance enhanced?) energy, a lot of genuine enthusiasm, and didn’t bat a lash when I admitted my knowledge of WSP was surface level at best. After promising each other we’d hit a Widespread show in the near future, we parted ways and never saw each other again.
Compare my Widespread missed connection with a college acquaintance, a rather self-un-effacing Phish head. Conversations with this fellow involved fair amounts of condescension and brags about raw numbers of shows attended. I’m still recovering from when he told me one of my favorite Phish tunes, “Character Zero,” was a “bathroom break song.”
Widespread 1, Phish 0
Given time, Lord I’d build her a mountain for a room.
Given an hour, an hour, I’d build a rocket to the moon.
Might take at least a week to find the strongest tool
Might take the rest of this lifetime to find the strongest fuel
Esbe – Darling
Genre: the last chill beat anyone needs to make
Feeling: sitar and feathered
Lofi beats all sound the same. Until they don’t. LA-based Esbe found the secret sauce to separate his 2015 Bloomsday from the crowded ~lofi beats to study to~ pack. And I unironically love that album title plus its complementary artwork.
How can you be soo… How can you be soo… How can you be soo (unintelligble)
New Madrid – Like a Flash
Genre: southern indie-rock
Feeling: laid-back comings-and-goings
Georgia is on my mind. Athens, GA indie-rockers New Madrid brought it all together for their self-titled 2021 release: catchy tunes, psychedelic excursions, southern drawl, and a chilled-out, doesn’t-mind-if-you-can’t-hear-it organ. When you do hear that organ, pay attention. It’s got something to tell you.
And out of nowhere,
Like a flash,
They never thought,
She’d last
And out of nowhere,
Like a dash,
She was smiling,
Atop the pack
Mystic Braves – Trippin’ Like I Do
Feeling: the fungi are coming
In honor of my first surf lesson (stood up on a wave for 0.7 seconds; you gotta start somewhere) and my current reading selection, Michael Pollen’s How to Change Your Mind (listening on Audible; reading is a generous term when I’ve nodded off for a third of the book) here is a psychedelic slapper from Mystic Braves’ self-titled debut.
For a psych-rock song, it’s quite cocky. The Braves’ front man is flaunting his ability to experience altered consciousness. He is the unparalleled psychonaut, so he claims. Maybe Michael Pollen should have interviewed him.
Nobody trips like,
Nobody trips like I do,
I can hardly see
I can hardly see it through
But I’ll swim right through
