Beach House

This week I hadn't listened to almost any music. For the first time in my recallable memory, I just had no desire. It went so far that I listened to a podcast hosted by Adam Carolla's wife about parenthood (with Adam as a guest) while jogging the other night. A podcast aimed at young mothers! While working out! A new low.

I think there are two reasons why I wasn't listening to music this week (or playing any guitar for that matter). First, over the last week I've felt a tremendous emotional detachment from my surroundings. I think it all relates to an existential mini-crisis I've been feeling about choices I've made, which choices I should make, where I am, where I should go, what I should be doing, and how old I am. Music is usually the fuel for my comically emotional reactions and reflections on life, but given complete, self-inflicted uncertainty about life, even I apparently had a hard time feeling definite emotions. No fire, no fuel needed.

The second reason is because, seemingly triggered by this confusion, I've felt kind of homesick. I don't know if California is a place I will ever fit in ever again, but it is somewhat paradoxically the place I still feel the most home and at ease. Without even realizing it, I was listening to nothing but podcasts from home - mainly Adam Carolla and Kevin & Bean. Listening to K&B on my way to work in the morning almost created the illusion that I was commuting to school or to Nordstrom back when I was in my late teens. It was refreshing and familiar.

Something broke last night though. A Japanese friend's cover band was playing a gig at a little bar near Farringdon. It was heavy on the Japanese pop and Japanese kids, and during the last song, the young salarymen in the front were dancing around wildly pumping their fists and singing. I felt completely old and disconnected, and I twinged with sadness. A few years ago, I would have been there with them. The bubblegum sound of the song they were playing took me back to Japan and to everything I left when I came back to earth as a 23 year-old 社会人. I could feel the memories of all the places I've left behind - the OC, Philly, Tokyo, Sendai, Chicago - reverbate through my heart, but only as memories. As dead leaves on the ground, not as living things. And all this while this little band was playing a japanese cover song and dudes were dancing around with their ties tied around their heads. So one thing's for sure - I got back my ability to over-emote!

So after a few beers, I walked out the door into the fresh night air listening to "World Sick" by Broken Social Scene, which is one of my favorite tracks of the year and I think will end up being one of those "soundtrack of my life when..." songs. But right now I'm listening to Beach House, and this, I believe, will be THE soundtrack of now. It breathes with a sadly assured relegation to fate crossed with the faintest hope that something is still hiding in the mysterious unknown. It unfolds with a smoky, cinematic mystery. It makes me a twisting, blooming emotional kaleidoscope. Basically it just makes shit feel real dramatic and pivotal. Thing is called "Teen Dream" for chrissakes!

It feels right to listen to today.