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BRAIN TUBA: As The Scene Turns
by Jesse Jarnow - jesse.jarnow@oberlin.eduI got into music because it felt natural, and that's where everything roots. There was never a choice. For a time, silence came to bother me in a profound way. I slowly came to grips with the fact that music was an extremely subtle part of my emotional psyche. It was completely unconscious for the first years of my life. I didn't notice it until I began to become conscious of my actions. Like many, I suppose, this came when I moved into a vaguely foreign environment for the first time -- in other words, outside of the womb of my house. In this case, it was thanks to the ever helpful jury of one's peers that one experiences in the formative years of elementary school.
Apparently, I sang. In public. I did this out of habit -- when I was happy, which was pretty much most of the time, I sang songs. I sure as hell didn't know what the lyrics meant, I'm sure. As a youthful Pete Seeger fan, I sang many a socialist work song completely unconscious of the loaded lyrics. It was always the vibe of the tune that was the attraction. I didn't stop when I was made aware of it. I still do it. Regardless of any of that, it was the emotional quality of the music that did it. This may be totally obvious, but that's the reaction I still judge things by. Throughout my life, various bands and musicians have done this for me. Phish, for example, made me very happy in a way I couldn't quite explain... at least not in summary. In short, though, it was completely and wholly joyful -- at least, at first. Besides the Spin Doctors, Phish was the first band that made really want to dance. It's a common reaction to their music. Learning to dance un-self-consciously in public, I think, is a result of finally deprogramming some of the same conditioning that frowns upon public singing.
For a variety of reasons, moe. did it for me. I did what it is so easy to do with a young band: I made them the soundtrack to my life. I went and saw them quite often. I listened to them constantly -- at home, in my walkman, anywhere with a working tape deck. More importantly, they became the implied soundtrack as well, something that ran through my head in school or other places where I couldn't listen. Even when there was other music playing, it was moe.'s pulse that I was reacting to. And, as I listened, my emotional response grew even more. The reason I listened to them in the first place - like with just about any music that's in my stereo for an extended period of time - was because they flipped my mental "is good" switch. That switch, essentially just an emotional reaction, is connected to the mental decree "Music A is good because it makes feel X, which is subconsciously connected to experiences Y, Z, and 32" (to suck the emotion out of the emotion).
The time in which moe. occupied this sphere in my life spanned from roughly my sophomore year in high school through my sophomore year in college. In that time, I changed a lot as a person. moe. came into my life around the same time that teen angst did. That's not to dismiss teen angst entirely. It's an interesting phenomenon. Sure, I overreacted to a lot of the usual crap - stupid people, melodramatic situations, and bullshit social pressures - but it was also the first time I can remember clearly identifying and vaguely understanding any emotions other than happiness; especially in connection to the music I was listening to. (Oddly enough, before listening to hippie music and the like, I was way into Nirvana... but it was never about being angsty, for me. Rather, it was about the sheer exhilaration of three chords and a distortion box.)
At the same time, though, moe.'s music began to take on new properties as they became more and more part of the way I experienced my day to day life. They became associated with specific events -- whereas, when I started listening to them, they could only trigger previous memories and feelings. That was their original draw. Increasingly, they became somehow connected - either internally or externally - to events in my life. They built on each other. For example, an all night drive from a place of no consequence to a point of no particular meaning augmented by a moe. tape might become a very specific event with certain emotions connected to it rooted in the factual occurrences of that night. From that moment on, the music played that night could cue up what I felt then.
Songs like Bring You Down, Me and Pat and Bill and You, Queen Of The Rodeo, Nebraska, and others gained a bevy of associations for me, both through their natural qualities - both lyrical and musical - but because they became the ambient noise for conversations and thoughts -- all of which are insignificant now other than the general vibe, feel, and even smell of them... which are recalled when I hear certain bits of moe.. Not that I ever came close to resembling a depressed-at-my-fate-in-the-universe fool... The important part was that the variable of emotions other than happiness was entered into the music/experience equation.
Enter the Disco Biscuits.
For what moe. was then, the Disco Biscuits have become now. They are the soundtrack to my life of the past several months and I see no sign of it fizzing out anytime in the near future. Likewise, my life has entered several new stages. It's just a process of aging and getting older in general. Part of that process is coming to new levels of experience and emotions. Things do tend to get deeper, or so it seems. With more context in one's life, things hold larger more varied meanings (if one lets them). In short, my life seems to have taken on a variety of new shades. Perhaps coincidentally, this has been reflected in the music of the Disco Biscuits. This isn't to say that a plethora of impressions aren't embodied in moe.'s music. It just means that, for me, the Disco Biscuits now occupy the role of being the unofficial spokespeople for my hangups.
That's where the trouble comes in. moe., for a long time, was my life in many ways. I made friends through the moe. scene whom I consider some of my best in the world. I still love moe.'s music and, if anything, they're better and tighter than they were at the peak of my listening. However, it doesn't have same emotional vitality to me as an individual. It's almost as if they've worn out their ability to forge new connections to my neural systems. It's not anybody's fault -- it just happened. I'm left in a weird position as a consequence, just another duality of life. Where should I put my favor?
In almost imperceptible ways, I've gotten vibes of betrayal from friends in the moe. scene who see the Biscuits as some sort evil entity ("the dark side", as they are referred to on the moe-L). At the same time, many of my other friends from the moe. coagulation have made a similar transition into the world of the Biscuits. At first glance, there would almost appear to be a small exodus at work between the moe-L and discussbiscuits. Looked at individually, it's a lot more complex. The short version is that everybody has moved over for his or her own reasons. In some senses, it is a trend... but only because it has happened more than twice. I can't speak for anybody else, but while moe. does get at my angsty side in ways that few can, it feels a little bit dated. The act of listening to moe. almost feels like an act of nostalgia because it puts my mind back into high school -- which isn't always the best place in the world to be.
In some ways, I do feel bad about it all. But, to get disturbingly meta, my feeling bad is somehow expressed in the Biscuits' music. Again, that's a more a product of where I am than where the Biscuits are at, but it's remarkable nonetheless. For me, never before has a band accessed so directly such a wide variety of personal colors and feelings. If listening to Phish carries with it the pure joy of childhood, and moe. brings teen angst, then the Biscuits bring the next step... however that step may ultimately be defined. There has never been music that has triggered so many different things. It's weird, but the Biscuits have produced in me everything ranging from floating joy to teen angst... to utter self-loathing and disgust. In many cases, it's not entertainment, but the very stuff that life is made of.
Jesse Jarnow can see he.
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