I’ve you’ve been a regular reader since the beginning, you are well aware that I have an unabashed love for David Bazan. To me, he is the last of the great songwriters- I know that’s a bold statement, but he’s managed to pierce the hearts of me and so many of my friends (mostly grown men) over the years in a very visceral way. Speaking to our doubts, our fallibility, our collective introspection and have given us hours of heavy, and welcomed time spent in the depths of our darker selves. In a cathartic way. I’ve been watching this mini-doc filmed and edited by Sean Leonard, and I wanted to share with you all. Happy America Weekend.

Bazan + Band: Bellingham, WA 2010 from Undertow on Vimeo.

David Bazan- Transcontinental

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I need to get caught up! Cool stuff happening on the back end of FWBA, I’m getting glimpses of what this space will soon look like and it looks rad so far. I’ve been a bit occupied with other exciting life stuff, but music is getting me really amped. There is so much good new stuff out there. This past week I checked out David Bazan at Alex’s Bar in Long Beach AND my friends in Manchester Orchestra- below is an account of: the week of good music.

David Bazan- Alex’s Bar: Long Beach

Let it be known that this is the same venue where they film True Blood. I’ve actually never seen that show, but it was a really cool place. The lineup kicked off with my friend Amanda’s band- called ‘Kissing Cousins‘. They’re an awesome all-girl band, and they rule. Next up was Headlights, I’d heard them first sometime last year, they kind of remind me a little of Mates of State. The couple beside me were being obnoxious, mostly because they were drunk and obscenely touchy. They also smelled like Abercrombie and were generally really lame people. What? They were.

Let me explain- I have a profound respect for the nature of shows, especially shows like David Bazan. Not only have I been anticipating this one for sometime, but his music requires a necessary ambience, that means no heckling, no stupid questions, and general enjoyment from the crowd. By the time David got up there, it was rowdy as expected, it was late enough for everyone to be sufficiently drunk. Regardless, his performance was stunning, I always like watching him with a full band- probably more than his acoustic stuff. He played songs like ‘The Man in Me’ and ‘I Never Wanted You’. And to the utter disappointment of the drunken platinum blonde girl in the back with tribal tattoos- he did not play ‘Hallelujah’ a request she repeated several dozen times, to which she emphasized by yelling, ‘play fucken hallelujah’. Not the best approach. Otherwise, David can do no wrong, therefore it was perfect. Weird, creepy post-script, he definitely did touch my arm. Okay, I’ll stop.

David Bazan- When We Fell

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Manchester Orchestra- The Troubadour

I hope my friend Christopher [Lightning] Freeman reads this. I haven’t seen this band play in nearly a year, I’ve always really loved them. I think they are becoming exceedingly good at what they do, and it’s starting to pay off. They played Kimmel last week, and they’re getting the next cover of AP. The show was one of two consecutive shows that were sold out- O’Brother, The Features and Biffy Clyro opened up. It’s crazy to think that Biffy Clyro can generate stadium-filled crowds in the UK and they’re nowhere near as popular in the US. Maybe that’ll soon change, they had one of the most energetic and intense performances I’d seen in a while.

Manchester’s set was gorgeous, they played a new song that sounded a bit more Southern, and a bit more aggressive- along with a song about being friends with 50 cent. I see a lot of Bazan in Andy Hull, I’m excited to see what they put out next. They’re all-around sweet dudes, and Chris is an incredible artist- some of his stuff [drawings] are for sale at the shows, you should buy it to help feed him. He’s getting too skinny. While you’re there, say hello to my dear friend Alex, who is on the road with them representing Invisible Children. You really can’t miss their bus- it has giant picture of child soldiers on the back of it. I hope the best for these dudes!

Manchester Orchestra- My Friend Marcus

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Should’ve gone to..

Dawes- The Troubadour

I missed the Dawes show the other night. Do you know what kind of week that would’ve made it? They are seriously one of my favorite bands. Check out this video of them playing for The Voice Project. My super babe-ly friend Luke showed me this, and I hit up Kenny (IC) and asked him if he knew about this project- they do work in northern Uganda, and it looks something like Takeaway shows. Kenny told me that this was started by Peter Gabriel’s daughter. Rad!

Dawes » Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros from The Voice Project on Vimeo.

I love my friend Andrew (Jamdrew) for so many reasons. We’re friends mostly because we both really love music, all kinds of music. And most often our loves align, and we find outselves loving most of the same stuff. In comes David Bazan- an artist that’s something sacred to us, to even talk about him would require full attention from the other, knowing that there is some good news on the way, or just how soul crushing his lyrics really are. We nerd out pretty hard over it. Well, in a few days I’ll be seeing him play, and will be bringing a giant poster of him to sign, “To Jamdrew, catch those dreams, my dreamcatcher”.

So Andrew reveals to me that Bazan had released David Bazan: Live At Electrical Audio a couple weeks ago that includes 10 new versions of the following songs. Magazine is available for download, and How I Remember and I Never Wanted You are streaming HERE. 

1. I Do
2. How I Remember
3. When We Fell
4. Magazine
5. Never Wanted You
6. Cold Beer & Cigarettes
7. Heavy Breath
8. Keep Swinging
9. Fewer Broken Pieces
10. In Stitches

Oh, and I found this cover of Julie Doiron’s ‘Will You Still Love Me in December’ on donewaiting.com

My friend Alex Collins is such a brat. Our friendship exists mostly because of our mutual love for Dave Bazan- we are both aware of the required nerd-ness it takes to love this man’s music, and much like most of my friends, will spend a long while dissecting and understanding his lyrics. Somehow, Collins was able to convince Barsuk to host one of his house shows at his house. I couldn’t believe it! So we all got together and watch Bazan in his living room. Watching something like that with some of your best friends makes you really happy that life is so wondeful, and you come up with all sorts of metaphors as to why God exists and a gage for how much you really love something. Imagine my hands outstretched- while I say, ‘THIS MUCH’. 

Apologies for the poor quality- it was filmed on my little camera by Cameron Woodward, who is quite comfortable taking the role of creepy filmer dude, as the camera sat on his lap the whole time- he didn’t budge. He’s done this before. Enjoy!

David Bazan- Hard To Be from nada alic on Vimeo.

David Bazan- Slow and Steady Wins the Race from nada alic on Vimeo.

Enduring all the unpleasantries of suffocated libraries and their quiet shuffles of the walking dead is enough to break anyone’s heart and just slip, slip away into the abyss of fluffy snow piled outside it’s small windows. It took me seven months to finish my university thesis. I spent three days a week at the library. The entire seven months was devoted to meditations on emergent christian movements, the kind of stuff to evoke a spiritual awakening if you read a few more chapters, I was sure. I was on a search, a search for both my soul- and the faint finish line of one of some of the most tiresome and tedious years of my life.

Not a minute was quiet during those times while both ears filled with a steady and consistent few albums. Pedro the Lion’s Control, It’s Hard To Find a Friend and whatever solo stuff David Bazan had out at that point. Cold Beer and Cigarettes will remain in the vaults of my memory as the sounds and tastes and touch of rough text books. That was the season when music grew it’s own legs and waltzed straight into the depths of my young  mind and told me stories, answered questions, asked some more that I’d always wanted to ask but was too afraid. It had a hand at more than helping me write a paper- David Bazan’s voice was about as comforting and frightening as the idea of eternity itself. I strayed from Christianity a while after that, as he surely has as well- but I find my way back following all his laments on the original sin, the validity of medieval promises and the irrationality of something he can’t seem to fully shake. 

As much as I’d like to believe that my relationship with his music is something of a unique occurrence, there are many more that follow the gospel according to Bazan, because he is just as lost as the rest of us. There’s a certain solidarity that feels as though- if we all wade in the doubt long enough, and keep asking questions, we’ll be satisfied. That’s the thing about faith- it wouldn’t be faith without the possibility of doubt. 

Last night, Bazan took the stage at Lee’s Palace and it was one of those shows that was collectively nodded among strangers, with the knowledge that this performance- beyond all others, was rather special- and with no proof, no history or evidence to prove otherwise, we were content with that idea. There is a soothing sound to his voice, amplified by a full band mixing Pedro with newer songs of Curse Your Branches, with his version of The Man in Me, and a Headphones’ song called ‘I Never Wanted You’- a song first heard on a mix my friend David made me last Christmas as I drove around San Diego in his beloved Skeletal Lightning, and we would talk about cheap meals to hold me over for the six unpaid months ahead. I tried explaining the night to friends who weren’t there, and one of them said- you know that’s cool, it’s a bummer I wouldn’t have experienced it the same way as you even if I were there. I thought that was interesting.

Maybe I’m putting too much pressure on the man ‘in him’, because you’ve got to believe that it’s more than that. It’s about yourself- projected on the music. It’s your beautiful or painful interpretation and connection to something independent from yourself. It’s about exercising all the muscles in your heart to make sure you can still feel. Even if it’s just during a three-minute song. If you can feel something for music, you can feeling something for anything. That’s a needed reminder for all of us who feel like we already gave up, and our apathy has brushed off whatever remains of enthusiasm our childhood selves held onto. And that’s all that matters. 

David’s Q/A is always evidence of his own awkward, relative normalcy. That he is just a dude that plays music, and he wants you to remember that. To me, that only further solidifies music as it’s own magical elements that cannot be owned by even the hands that play them.

David Bazan- Please Baby Please

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David Bazan- I Never Wanted You

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David Bazan- Cold Beer and Cigarettes

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David Bazan- Bless This Mess

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This is from last night’s David Bazan House show in Brooklyn, streaming via Brooklyn Vegan. (I had to take this)

Please Baby Please was only a glimpse well over a year ago, of Bazan’s now fully- furnished solo record Curse Your Branches out this September on Barsuk. Familiar and safe somewhere inside my brain where the subtle nuances of these stripped down alone-at-the-microphone tracks, along with the countless versions of Harmless Sparks, and the Live at the Grey Eagle God Bless (now entitled Bless this Mess). The prolific Bazan has achieved the highest badge of bias in my books, that regardless of what I truly thought, I knew I’d enjoy it, or at least learn. A darling reputation like that is perhaps the ultimate mark of artistic freedom. To create authentically, without the obtrusives worries that your fans will like it, because they will. Admittedly, it took me a few listens to get this album, mostly because all of the extra layers really took away from the lyrics. Case in point: Please Baby Please- there’s an island feel, a definite sense of cheese that Bazan is unapologetic about. Otherwise, lyrically it is golden, it seems he’s returned to his Pedro the Lion days of Control, where doubt in the Lord seeps from every song and characteristic pessimism alludes to the idea that however self-aware, age doesn’t make the big questions any easier. This was especially clear in When We Fell where he begins with a damning question, “with the threat of hell hanging over my head like a halo, I was made to believe in a couple of beautiful truths, that eventually had the effect of completely unraveling a powerful curse put on me by you. When you set the table, when you chose the scale did you write a riddle that you knew they would fail?”

I can only hope that his next release won’t take quite as long as three years. However Curse Your Branches will hold me over for at least another year or so.

David Bazan- Curse Your Branches

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David Bazan- When We Fell

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David Bazan- Harmless Sparks

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