{"id":491,"date":"2011-12-23T15:10:30","date_gmt":"2011-12-23T15:10:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.obsidiannoise.com\/blog\/?p=491"},"modified":"2011-12-25T04:15:29","modified_gmt":"2011-12-25T04:15:29","slug":"491","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.obsidiannoise.com\/blog\/2011\/12\/23\/491\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Last night I went to watch a jazz set at a restaurant. The singer is an old friend and I try to catch her a couple times a year. She gigs out all over town. Her voice is nice. She’s German and when she speaks the accent is thick. But when she sings you’d think she was a bebop American all the way.<\/p>\n

I always forget to check the dress requirements before heading to events like these. I dressed normally, but my big black boots, ripped jeans and tshirt didn’t really jive with the place. Here’s a secret shot:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I’d been there before but it was over a year ago. No one said anything, but the old women in their Christmas outfits sure looked my way a lot.<\/p>\n

Her set last night was great and she came to sit with me during breaks. Her pianist came over and we chatted for quite a while too and that was great. Grabbed a little of that.<\/p>\n

<\/object> Jazz<\/a> by duck-1
\n<\/a><\/span>At the end you can hear him ask if I was a bodybuilder. I hate that shit.<\/p>\n

Back to the vocalist, I was at her first public performance, up at the Berklee College of Music in Boston almost exactly 10 years ago.\u00a0 Back then she was in a relationship with a friend of mine from high school. She was a vocals major, he was a jazz guitar major and metal head. For an entire summer I went into their neighborhood almost every weekend. Their other friends, many of whom were gigging musicians, would come over and we’d drink beer and chain smoke and listen to rock and metal and talk in their apartment or out on the stoop. It was raw and true and perfect for that time.<\/p>\n

We’d stay up late, often till dawn. Their building was pretty much a dormitory for musicians and\u00a0I’d crash in their place or in the basement. Nights in the basement were a trip. They had an obscenely powerful stereo system down there and cases and cases of beer and giant bags of pot. It was rat infested and probably an illegal dwelling, making it even better. We’d get brunch late in the afternoon and order Bloody Marys to help with the hangovers. I was counting every penny back then– we all were–and it made it all special. 6-packs from the nearest gas station and the cheapest food we could find.<\/p>\n

Art was happening all around and a lot of great stuff came out of it, with kids selling their stuff on the sidewalk. \u00a0Drawings, CDs, posters, homemade comics and graphic novels. I’d choose that whole scene over NYC’s “art scene” any time. Pretention makes real art impossible, at least as far as I can tell, and that’s all I see around here. A bunch of wannabes who just don’t get it. They like the “scene” for its sake, and they don’t realize it’s made of people trying to make it and fake it. Cool scenes grow the other way around, out of people doing authentic things, expressing themselves, not trying to be seen, but just doing their thing. \u00a0The problem with NYC and its people is that huge parts–whole communities–are completely artificial.<\/p>\n

Anyway, back to the Boston days. I ended up starting a relationship with their third roommate, a pianist, daughter of a jazz piano instructor at the same school. She was pretty and outrageous and when I met her she had spiked hair. She taught me everything I know about sex. She worked part time at a restaurant and would bring us food when she worked weekend nights. On one of those weekends that summer my old college roommate came to town for a visit, and by coincidence another friend was passing through town as well, a girl I knew from a trip to Japan. They both came over to hang out with us and because of the lack of space, they crashed on the roof. They barely knew each other before that night but were together for 4 years afterwards.<\/p>\n

Back to the vocalist, every time I catch one of her sets here in the city, I get intense memories from that summer, my last young summer in America. A few months later I left for the developing world and didn’t come back until I had learned a few things.<\/p>\n

My friend, the singer’s ex, is now the lead guitarist in a great metal band based in Denver. He’s married to a rocker and they have the cutest baby girl I’ve ever seen. Their third roommate (the person I was with for a while) went on to work at Interscope Records and she got me tickets to some shows that would of have been impossible to see otherwise– like VIP passes to the Life of Agony reunion show. I flew all the way back from China in 2003 just to see it, totally worth it. She later became a counseling psychologist, moved to the south and got married and had a baby and now she’s a triathlete doctor mom. Not what I would have guessed but good for her. The jazz vocalist, the one I went to see last night, came to NYC straight from Boston and took a waitress job while gigging when possible. She’s been doing that for 7 years now, a fixture in jazz clubs around town. About 5 years ago she was diagnosed with blood cancer and she survived it and it’s been in remission since. She tours the EU occasionally. I never know if I should talk about our mutual friend, her ex, when I see her. I talk to him about every other week on the phone.<\/p>\n

Last night I mentioned that and it seemed OK, but those things can be tricky.
\n——————————————<\/p>\n

I’m in the lab and no one’s around. Everyone took vacation today to lead into the holiday and I’m the only one who failed to plan anything but a work trip for next week.<\/p>\n

I have PT tonight and then I’ll be taking off and probably won’t be able to update for a little while. I’ll be back and will keep it going. Thanks to all of you for following along when you feel like it. This is really for you guys (hi there, mom) and it’s really a simple and beneficial thing for me to keep up with, so I hope you’re enjoying it. When I resume things in a week or two you should find an update every morning and a Noise piece every week. I’m really looking forward to working on it all.<\/p>\n

Safe travels to the travelers among you, see you in a week or two.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last night I went to watch a jazz set at a restaurant. The singer is an old friend and I try to catch her a couple times a year. She gigs out all over town. Her voice is nice. She’s … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journal","category-personal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.obsidiannoise.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.obsidiannoise.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.obsidiannoise.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.obsidiannoise.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.obsidiannoise.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=491"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/www.obsidiannoise.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":516,"href":"https:\/\/www.obsidiannoise.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491\/revisions\/516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.obsidiannoise.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.obsidiannoise.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.obsidiannoise.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}