Reflections after The Silent Years' Magic Bag show...: maybe it belongs to everyone

We are on fire now.

Locally......Songs are coming almost too fast. Albums are piling up. Shows are starting to blur...

It's always at the end of the night, in the thick of the loud quiet. You catch that small fit of mad laughter, maybe it's just a shy awkward chuckle that you let yourself exert behind the sheild of your open closet door as you hang your coat up at the end of the night, when the amps are turned off and the guitars unplugged and the last beer bottle clanked and shuffled into the trash. The fun. The escape. The exertion. Togetherness.

It took a while - but we are all coming together. Cliques are crumbling, music fans are intermingling. We all buy the same gas and wait in line at the same CVS for gum and vitamin water, we all take Woodward when I-75 is too god-damned clogged with orange barrells, we all know Pontiac is a drive but it always ends up worth it, we all get up to bide our time through the same shit day jobs so that we can get home and put our heads between the headphones and turn the volume up to excessive levels in some shoulder-shaking jitter-spasm, or we get home and drop the papers and the bag and the keys and write, be it songs (or a bothersome rant like this) or to make music. A stage may be elevated, but performer and audience are all coming from the same place, dealing with the same stuff - all seeking the same release.

I hear it often - one set ends and we gather in the back of the venue to converse as the next band sets up....we share the same sentiments of these freaky, bewildering souls we call our co-workers, the ones we only have to see on monday mornings when we're still returning with the internal sun-burn of the pounding weekend tear; nice enough, yes they are, but you wonder about them - what is their life outside of talking to you by the water cooler - do they just go home and stop to get McFish sandwiches, watch some numbing distraction on CBS, hit the hay early and wake up the next day without a need for coffee....

That's neither here nor there....

Meanwhile - we're all here - drawn to the sound. We're all in love with the same thing. We all can't stay away. And more and more of us keep getting up on those stages.

More bands. More songs. More albums. More fire - bask in the heat while it's starting to blaze bright.

Shots from the Silent Years CD Release party - (with Manna and Quail opening up - photographer mike milo arrived a bit late and just-missed their set - check them out here.)

(These United States)

(Deastro)

(The Silent Years)

more local albums:

Friendly Foes - 9 / 26

Mason Proper - 9 / 25

Farewell Republic - 9 / 11

My Dear Disco - October/Autumn

in the works:

Zoos of Berlin

Carjack

Red China

Dutch Pink

Freer

Deastro

and more!!!!!

we must come together! musically, socially, politically, generationally, casually, intensely - and hopefully................................................................................