Despite the differences in writing style and the fact that we’ve designed these entries so that, like a Seinfeld episode, you can read and enjoy one without worrying what came before or after, I do think there are a few themes running straight through everything we’ve said so far. One, obviously, is that there is great music out there, you just have to be willing to find it (and hopefully in some small way, this blog can help you with that). The other Mike mentioned last week, this idea that we enjoy the road less traveled and possess an eager sense of discovery. But there is no need to be different just for the sake of being different. No need to try to be contrary to be cool. No need to pretend to be something you aren’t.
When we moved to Boston, it was for a job I got with the Dept. of Defense. On my very first day I spent the entire time with the HR folks filling out forms and attending training sessions. Towards the end of the day, the woman in charge, who was a little shocked to have a small-town Idaho boy in her office, finally asked me if I knew anyone in Boston. I told her not a soul. She said, well, then, you can be whoever you want to be and no one will be the wiser. I had never thought of it that way but it was true. At work I could pretend to be anyone I wanted because no one knew me from Adam. Fast forward a couple of years and I’m back in school, in my PhD program, getting ready to face a class full of college sophomores in a required business class all on my own. I wasn’t sure how I would approach the first five minutes, let alone the entire semester. How would I lecture? How would I grade? How would I get students to interact? I spoke to a senior professor I knew, a great teacher, who told me when he started he tried to be just like his favorite professor…and fell flat on his face. He said the best advice he could give me was to be myself and not pretend to be somebody else or copy someone else’s style.
It’s not that I’ve ever had a problem with pretending. As my friends used to say – you really are your own man. I didn’t become someone new for my new coworkers and I didn’t try to teach the class in a way that was foreign to me. But sometimes we all are a little guilty of going one way or the other – of pretending to like the popular TV show that we’ve never actually seen or denying our love of a certain big-budget Hollywood movie because it is so much cooler to act like we are above it. I hope in the New Year we can just be happy with owning up to who and what we are and what it is we enjoy – to appreciate what we share in common and yet be curious to learn what makes us different.
Which leads me to the next band and the next album on our list...
# 16, The Avett Brothers – I and Love and You
I love this band. And I’ve enjoyed pretty much everything they’ve put out. The first thing I heard from them was Emotionalism and I worked backwards from there. Then, in 2009 they released I and Love and You – with much critical and popular acclaim. This album has been on, and is probably going to continue to be on, a lot of ‘best of’ albums. And I am not afraid to say that I think they deserve all the positive attention that they get. This is an album the whole family can love. I know mine does (my daughters request ‘Kick Drum’ at least seven times a day and my wife, who I think may have a crush on Scott and Seth Avett, has the album on constant rotation). This album is outstanding. The boo-birds will say they’ve sold out on this major-record label release. They’ll moan because the sound is slightly less blue-grass and more radio-friendly. They’ll argue the merits of some obscure bootleg, back when the band was ‘real’. All I know is that I can’t stop listening to this album. There are upbeat, catchy tunes, ballads; you name it, all built on their trademark harmonies and songwriting. To me it seems honest and positive. It’s where the boys are at – progressing as a band and attracting new fans while trying to bring the old ones along for the ride. They aren’t pretending to be anything other than what they are and it seems to me they are asking us to do the same. If you haven’t already (and some of you know who you are) give this album, and this band, a try. I dare you to honestly say you don’t like it. But if you don’t, well that’s fine too. We’ll still be friends. I’ll close with the final lyrics from one of my favorite songs on the album – The Perfect Space.
I wanna have pride like my mother has,
And not like the kind in the bible that turns you bad.
And I wanna have friends that I can trust,
That love me for the man I’ve become and not the man that I was.
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