Personal

The February Funk cannot be stopped.

That’s what it feels like, anyway, I managed to drop my lung-crushing cold in time for my Garbage covers set at the end of January, but the funk had already arrived. I was worn out and behind schedule on everything at home, setting me up perfectly for my oft-lamented month of funk.

And not the George Clinton kind.

One of those things I fell behind on was a Filmstar demo EP. We recorded all of songs live several months ago, and E and I had slowly been re-recording the vocals of the best handful in my studio. I had to promote the process to take up every minute of my non-working waking life for the past two weeks to finish up on time for our gig on Friday.

It involved many, many takes, and those four songs seem to be embedded in both of our brains now in a different way than they were before. We agreed they were four of the best of our show on Friday – at a ressurected Dobbs on South Street.

I feel like I’ve spent my entire life walking by the place – mostly as Pontiac Grille, and there I was in the green room, trading suggestions of fantasy novels with the lead singer of Young Circles.

Circles. Did I write about getting my Learner’s Permit? I don’t recall, but the internet knows. We went for another drive yesterday on roads suddenly free of their snowy margins. It went pretty well – I was promoted from the confines of our own neighborhood to roam the surrounding area, with its traffic lights and 35mph speed limits. My only close call was nearly mowing down some people and cars in an Acme parking lot, but let’s be honest – an Acme parking lot at 2pm on a Sunday is a little high in difficulty for someone on their second driving lesson.

I got into the spot with no problem, though.

I listened to all of Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs on my way to the DMV that day in December, but yesterday I could have covered the same distance in six minutes – one song, maybe two.

This is the paen of the driver – why walk it and waste the time? I felt that way trudging up the hill to the trolley this morning, but then I thought about Arcade Fire, and how I didn’t really get their album until that day, walking through the suburbs in sub-freezing cold to earn the right to drive, a story practically illustrated by the cover of their record.

Now it is Album of the Year. It’s not my Album of the Year, but it might have been the album OF my year, if that makes any sense.