from happyrobot - updated 6/9/2026 3:43:50 AM https://www.happyrobot.net/words/close_listener.asp en-us https://www.happyrobot.net/words/close_listener.asp?id=4317 New Wind Blowing by Dino Valente
By: The Girl with the Super-Sensitive Ears
File Under: Obscure Treasures


Folk-acid enigma Dino Valente released his only album, Dino Valente, in 1968. The title may seem straightforward enough, though when you consider that Dino had changed his name from Chester A. Powers years earlier, a more slant portrait emerges. With a sound like it was recorded in a wind tunnel, expansive song structures, and dark, end-of-the-Age-of-Aquarius-hippie-suicide lyrics, the album is just strange enough for it to have been entirely overlooked at the time of its release.

Busted for drugs and in jail for the years that the band he is associated with, Quicksilver Messenger Service, formed and began to play around the Bay Area, Dino Valente seemed to be a legend in his own time. While other SF bands - Jefferson Airplane, The Grateful Dead, etc -- signed album deals, Quicksilver, certain that they'd found their man, waited to sign a recording contract until Dino was released from jail, at which time he rejected his waiting band and recorded his solo album. Following this, he stole one of Quicksilver's members and fled to New York to form a group that seems not to have turned out. By '71, he was back in San Francisco where he finally joined his loyal Messengers, completely altering their sound - from acid jam to folk jam.

Common among rock-n-roll banter is the lament of the dead, insane, or otherwise departed early member: those who love Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd, Bon Scott-era AC/DC... In Quicksilver we find a strange negative of this, with many early fans longing for the days before Dino joined up.

An album for dark-horse loners, for those who love others but love themselves more, Dino Valente is a record that sounds like many things you've heard without sounding exactly like anything you've heard.

New Wind Blowing is a long song, which doesn't progress so much as unwind. Dino takes his time with everything, spooling out his flat vowels over the course of as many as, at times, 5 beats, in a nasally Brooklynese, though he's from Connecticut, committing atrocities of pronunciation such as ty-yime (time), laow-wong (long), and co-oold(cold).
Dino uses his voice (which seems to mirror the open-chord folk strumming of the guitars with an open tuning of its own) as an instrument of emotional expression more than a conveyer of lyrical meaning, though the lyrics, impressionistic and beautiful in places (such as "every other now and then"), are not throw-away. He glides around in search of his note like a shore bird, always seeming to find it, and hovers there, quavering. His voice is not sweet, but gravelly and spent.

As if all this isn't strange enough, it is the song's structure that may be most unconventional. It begins usually enough in a verse. The chorus, however, is difficult to locate, and seems to be just one line tagged onto the verse's end "There's a new wind blowing in my mind." This figure repeats, but this time, following the demi-chorus, a new section crops up. A bridge? It shows up at the right time for one, though it lacks the feel of a bridge, and seems more like a continuation of the chorus: there is no melodic shift for one; Dino seems simply to have had more to say. Following this section, a real change occurs; I'll call it a bridge. It feels like one, though a displaced one, there's a key change and everything. After this, Dino lowers himself into the verse, making one marvel at how he's found his way. This is followed by the "chorus," on which he ends, gliding up to the song's highest note, the pinnacle from which his voice echoes, making it sound like he's jumped off the side of a mountain.]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/close_listener.asp?id=4235 In this week’s column our intrepid listener takes a second spin at “Everything I Own,” by Bread.

Late in Bread’s career, “Everything I Own” was released in 1972. To be found on the “Baby I’m-A Want You” (huh?) album, their fourth, it marks the departure of Robb Royer, and the addition of West Coast session man Larry Knechtel on bass and keyboards. Knowing this is of little significance, as Bread was a sound, not an outfit led by memorable personalities. Sensing the cultural move beyond acid, Bread had set about establishing themselves as kings of “the great new soft trend” over the course of the previous two years with hits such as “Make It With You,” and “If.”

Bread contained a songwriting team in James Griffin and Robb Royer. Add to this, crack song-maker David Gates, and you have, well, let’s just say, generation of material was not among Bread’s troubles. And in fact, it is difficult to uncover a dark side to Bread. Drugs don’t seem to have played a major role. Neither do internecine battling and smoldering resentments. No punch-ups, no affairs. Indeed, Bread seemed to exude no personality at all. Ditto for posturing and arrogance, direction, sexuality.

There was some dissention, though, within the group, with James Griffin trying for a rockier sound, while lead singer David Gates seemed to have an easier time accepting who he was. Listening to them now, one has to side with Gates, as the “rock numbers” tend to be songs that don’t actually rock at all and make you uncomfortable at the straight-laced effort to get a groove. Bread was so soft they didn’t even have a drummer for their first album.

“Everything I Own,” which made it all the way to #5 in January of 1972, begins in trebly acoustic plangent-sounding chords, with a repeating root note played by what sounds like a second guitar imitating a bass, which adds to the atmosphere of top-end lightness, until Gates’ high vibratoey vocal touches down. It’s not feminine-sounding so much as tentative. A change within the actual verse, just as it approaches the chorus, provides evidence of Gates’ nuanced, advanced song-styling, and here is where he drops an octave into a more stable range.

By the chorus, the drums kick in, and the band doesn’t quite rock, but bounces, with that light West-coast feel brought about somewhat by Gates’ California-by-way-of Tulsa vocal inflections. The particular keyboard and percussion combinations found in the chorus give the impression that you’ve heard a harpsichord.

The orchestra comes in at verse two -- sloping and swelling violins.

At the 2nd chorus, the descending bass notes paired with the ascending strings spread the sound in opposing directions, with the result of a mid-line feel, that familiar, conservative, hugged-in soft-rock sound.

The bridge is a lovely moment, doing exactly what a bridge used to know how to do, bridge the gap between choruses by way of real departure, actual musical change, without straying so far from the melody as to sound like it’s part of another song. Here Gates makes a lyrical switch too, addressing the listener in a proviso against regret, whereas he has spent the earlier minutes of the song expressing his loss. The guitar is plucked-sounding, like a harp.

“Everything I Own” manages to capture the feel of voices and sounds if not descending from the clouds then at least hovering above us -- which is quite an accomplishment, and an act of coincidence of form and content, given what we learned in the 70’s, much to our moved surprise, the song to be about: lost romantic love? My ass!! It was about his dead dad!!

Bread had, from 1970-1972, ten top fifteen hits, with one (“Baby I’m-A Want You”) making it to number one. They had a sound and an approach that, because of musical hybridization and the tyranny of the ironic tone, it is probably impossible to manage now. Many probably feel this is progress.

In Bread’s day, there was some talk over what their name meant, some pointing to the group’s middle-of-the-road sound as evidence of their blatant attempt to make money, though there can be no doubt in my mind that the name is perfectly expressive of their sound – soft, and in this case, white, very white.
]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/close_listener.asp?id=4210 LABEL Rational Records 73210
PRODUCED BY Mitch Easter
RELEASED 1986
MUSICIANS Scott Miller (guitar, vocals); Shelley La Freniere (keyboards); Gil Ray (drums); Suzi Ziegler (bass).
TRACKS
Side One: Here It Is Tomorrow * Where You Going Northern * I've Tried Subtlety * Erica.s Word * Make Any Vows * Regenisraen
Side Two: Crash Into June * Book Of Millionaires * The Only Lesson Learned * Too Closely * Never Mind * Like A Girl Jesus


The late 80's is not generally considered a great time for music; would anybody count Whitesnake's A Slip of the Tongue among their favorite LPs? Genesis Invisible Touch anyone? The Lady in Red soundtrack? And yet 1986 spawned Game Theory's The Big Shot Chronicles - an album of strange impressionistic little sculptures. Led by Scott Miller's inquisitive voice -- a wet-sounding instrument whose predilection to swerve into high notes is an incredibly charming habit - Game Theory was a literate pop band, not so much an art band as a smart band. From 1981 through 1988, they put out six records. The Big Shot Chronicles was number four.


If you've never heard of this band, it's not surprising. The record got some college radio play and was coveted for a time by the secret society of pop music lovers - an exclusive set -- mostly guys in like bands not as good as Game Theory.


There were a couple of reasons Game Theory was not a popular band: bad production and bad hair. But really the record is probably just a bit too personal, just a bit too individual; maybe Miller's voice is too high and strange, and maybe all the other usual reasons of timing, promotion, distribution, management, and band dynamics that determine the reception and success of an album.


Among those who know this record, poor production is a standard complaint. It's a complaint that could be leveled at almost any album recorded in the 1980's, and it's one I don't much care for, as it seems to establish the whole decade as defective. Looking back, we think it could have been a whole lot cooler. It just so happens, though, that it wasn't.


In any decade, recording principles, technologies, and their results tend to reflect the surrounding climate. In the 80's the sounds were, in general, thin and distant. But try to imagine any 80's record as a 60's record (for instance, Bon Jovi's Slippery When Wet as The Beatles' White Album) and it becomes a much more serious endeavor. The cheap cold sounds of the 80's are expressive, as though no one were interested in creating anything deep or lasting. Remember: they were preparing us for today.


But for those who can't get beyond the production, I offer this piece of advice: do what you'd do for any dear friend - overlook his faults and respond to his heart. And if you can't do that, listen with headphones, it gathers the sound.

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The album opens with a track called Here it is Tomorrow. It's a fast song that my guess is the band thought 'rocked'.. The truth is, Game Theory never quite rocked. The synthesizer seems to insure this, as does the tenor of Miller's voice. They're a pop band - which is nothing to hold against them. The bass acts as counterpoint to the vocal line, and there are quirky subtly-blended harmonies. The lead vocal seems to be answering itself, and the song ends in phase-shifted guitars.


The second track, Where You Going Northern, is lush-sounding, underpinned by tinkling acoustic guitars, like mandolins or water. The chords slide into place and the flutey keyboards mirror the vocal.



I've Tried Subtlety tells the story of an outdoor rock show, and has one of the worst drum sounds in memory. As accommodating as the production of the previous track is, Subtlety gets lost. Mitch Easter, the producer, seems not to know what to do with drums, because whenever they appear, the track gets cluttered. Yet it's a beautiful song, the heart of the album. It has one of Miller's characteristic verses - melodically varied before the chorus has even shown up.


On Erica's Word, the drums echo in triplets with a beat reminiscent of The Go Go's. It's a jumping jack track. The guitar solo is something Nick Lowe could've come up with, and perhaps did.


Make Any Vows is a crowded-sounding frenetic track. It has metal-tinged guitars and remorseful-sounding background oh's. The melodic line ends on a characteristic reach to a throw-away high note - no point is being made, nothing show-offy, just another piece of the melody.



Side One is a beautiful act of creation -- like a time-elapsed film of a flower, blooming and gently closing back down. It ends in an acoustic song, with REMish strummed-up guitar and the vocals in a modified round. At song's end, Flock of Seagulls keyboards hover over the vocal like ghosts. It's title, Regenisraen, a dipthong!! is, I think it's safe to say, a pop first.


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Side Two opens with Crash into June. The keyboards sound like an accordion, there are bells and echoed hammer-on guitar flourishes. A buried second guitar part actually sounds a lot like a real guitar.


The second track, Book of Millionaires, is a moody song with a deliberate walking pace and arpeggiated guitar. It features a Come Sail Away keyboard solo, a beautiful strummed under-guitar part, and a de-tuned ending.


The Only Lesson Learned is a happy-sounding song that, owing to the drum pattern, feels as though it's ever-anticipating itself. Miller runs up and down the melody, utilizing the scale. The hollow metal sheath sound of the guitar on the solo is strictly 80's.


Too Closely is a break-up song, featuring a meaty treble guitar sound offset by the weightless reedy-sounding keyboards, as though LaFreniere is depressing doves. There is a glorious ascension of the guitar line that accompanies Miller's change and climax to the song - the words Matthew, Mark, and John - in speaking of all who've abandoned him.



Like a Girl Jesus closes the album. The ethereal vocal seems to keep getting higher and higher, lighter and lighter, and a guitar chord is depressed and descends as though losing pressure. Here the band uses pre-recorded tape to an apocalyptic end, and there is the sense that all that's missing is Miller's last gasp for air.



I've heard Scott Miller is re-recording the songs at Aimee Mann's behest - acoustically-- a move that, though I love the songs and would wish for them a larger audience and greater acclaim, I'm against. I'm against it because I'm against all revision from the standpoint of maturity. Of course he'd be trying to make the songs better. But part of what's to love about the record, part of what's to love about any record, is the particular spirit that accompanied it, the ideas, the mistakes, the character of the time - not what he thinks about it now.



The Big Shot Chronicles is a friend. It is an ephemeral pleasure. Just in case that.s the only kind there is, listen.
[pb]]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/close_listener.asp?id=4096 They worship simplicity. Even their names are monosyllabic - Meg and Jack White of The White Stripes - and repetitive. They are cultural minimalists, fond of setting limits. If they were poets, they’d be New Formalists, though they’d likely resent the company. They avoid instruments other than drums and guitar.
Computers cannot touch them. They mourn the death of the gentleman. I mourn the death of rock-and-roll. Bring on The White Stripes. To call The White Stripes a band is to be missing something -- not only because the word means more than two, but also because there is something isolationist about them. The White Stripes seem more like a club than a band -- like a clique in high school, defining themselves by what they are not, by what they will not do. They are, however, made up of several parts: roughly, one part Meg White, the drummer, and four parts Jack White -- everything else.


The imbalance in the relationship is critical. Meg has been mostly maligned or ignored in the press. Jack jumps to her defense. She's the heart of the band, he claims. What this means, I think, is that she's spiritually significant. Musically, however, she's replaceable. When one speaks of The White Stripes then, it is a matter of convention; what is meant by this is Jack.


In 2001, I saw them play at Pier 54 on Fourteenth street. I knew little about them. Descriptions of their sound kept me from listening to their records. "Stripped down" is the prevailing phrase. I've heard many bands described this way -- musically it's supposed to conjure fundamentalism; psychologically, honesty -- from Jon Spencer Blues Explosion (who use a theremin in their act, as if this were part of the rudiments of rock), to any of a number of guys and gals with acoustic guitars and tuneful voices you hear so much of these days.


"Garage" was another descriptive term. Oh God. Let me explain. Probably if I heard another early Kinks imitation, I'd start to hate the early Kinks -- the equivalent of religious conversion for me.

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My friend called me late the day of the show to see if I wanted to go. I was at my job at a record store. I said okay; I also would have said okay to staring together at a wall. I had a sense, though, that live was the way to hear this band. And "stripped down" and "garage" sounded more promising than "painstakingly-produced" or "meticulously-executed," in any case. Also, I should mention, the show was free -- a serious inducement.


We went that night to the pier. It was summer. There was a crowd, but it wasn't debilitating. The show was sponsored by Snapple and there was iced tea all around -- for a fee. It didn't feel cool or adult. It didn't feel like New York.

We saw a five-piece "garage" act open up for The White Stripes, a band I've seen a number of times. I can't remember their name. The White Stripes came out and shriveled them; I wondered if the opening band had been playing into a tin can.

The White Stripes sound was monstrous, complete. It saturated the open air. I looked around; some people were smiling, some were moving -- rarities at rock shows these days. Jack was possessed by something ineffable, though I will try to eff it later. It felt like something was happening. People -- young people -- looked around at one another, to see if anyone else knew.
Walking back from the show I felt lucky.


My familiarity with The White Stripes music since this show makes me think I can refer to them from here on as The Stripes, though it may be a presumption. In any case, The Stripes emerged from Detroit's dirt-rock tradition. The music there has ever been gritty and locomotive. It has something to do with industry and the pressure from the surrounding states; the results have always sounded cracked and eruptive -- think of The MC5, or, more recently, The Gories. What The White Stripes do could hardly be considered new. Even their bass-less two-piece approach isn't an innovation; I am reminded of The Cheater Slicks, Flat Duo Jets, Mr. Airplane Man. That they should end up heading a garage-rock revival, calling attention to a sustained and existing scene, is as much timing as
talent. All that has happened is that we've become aware.


The first three Stripes records were issued on a small Long Beach, California label, Sympathy for the Record Industry. Listening to their records in tandem, however, is not advised. One hardly gets the feeling of evolution, though there is a sense of rubbing a stone smooth. If you like any of their records, you'll like the others, though there's a code to claims of preference: fans of the self-titled first record tend to be garage punk enthusiasts who like any band's first record best; fans of De Stijl, their second record, generally went to art school; and fans of White Blood Cells, their third, tend to be unpretentious types, unafraid to admit to being a little behind the curve.
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Elephant, their latest record, was issued by a major label,V2 -- the V being Virgin. When a band switches from indie to major label, a period of great concern and watching generally follows. Often this is the time that the major label abandons the newly-signed band in favor of supporting its more established acts. Not so The Stripes, who seem to have a promotional battalion behind them. They have been poised for months on the precipice of rock-and-roll domination. If you haven't read about them by now, it is unlikely you'll be reading these words.


All this could have put a lot of pressure on their latest record, and maybe that's why it's called Elephant, The Stripes perhaps relating to that age-old beast of burden. One has only to look so far as their name to know that they have a stake in suffering. But your guess is as good as mine. Don't expect any help from the cover, unless you're a crack symbolist.


A lot has been made of The White Stripes influences: the blues. They choose their themes from that deep pit -- love, money, pain, death, jail. But then they cross them with a bygone adolescence -- not their own, but a drugstore, soda fountain, bowling alley era: baby blues. It's lowdown but not too far down, though it isn't chaste either; it's posturing; it's fun. And with Jack White you're in the good hands of a man completely in control of his own mojo -- and that's a satisfying feeling.


The White Stripes are a natural reaction to music's neutered state, an ambivalence we've been drowning in since the death of, well, Nirvana. The reason they sound so good is we've been dying for them. But Elephant is their fourth record, which means in band years middle age; I'm being kind. I mention it because they've covered the same terrain now for the duration of their existence, a landscape that has served them well, and I can't help but feel a sympathetic anxiety for them.


Consistency is one of The White Stripes virtues. Even before I'd heard the new record, I was relieved; I knew it would be good. I was not troubled by the worries that can overtake me anticipating the efforts of other bands: the concept album, the cross-over album, the roots album, the electronic album, the acoustic album, the solo project. Over the course of The White Stripes career there has been little variation. Basically there are three songs -- the agitator, the serenade, and the swampy stalking blues, which isn't so bad when you think of it; many bands have only two. I love all three of these songs, but the records also contain their lesser versions. Jack White loves to reproduce -- whether it be himself or others.


On Elephant the reproduction can be heard most noticeably on the third track, There's No Home For You Here -- a version of what I by now think of as an old White Stripes standard, Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground, though this song only goes back to their last record. Other examples? The Air Near My Fingers is a note shy of a lawsuit; at the break in the song, there's no need for them to sing Wild Thing, I think I love you, because you do. Shall I go on?


Though not all things remain the same. For instance: Jack seems to have dropped out of Robert Plant's vocal studio, and into Marc Bolan's (hear, for example, Jack's channeling of Bolan's signature military goat on Black Math). Also new -- experiments in modulation! Don't get excited, they haven't changed key, but sometimes they sing soft. And Meg gets to test her vocal cords, though she sings just like you thought she would: bored and out-of-tune.

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But if her singing can be dismissed, her drumming deserves discussion. In case you haven't heard, she can't play. It's not even a judgment, it's more like a rumor -- passed along without reflection. It's based on a false model -- Neil Peart.
Drumming is one of those skills for which the phrase If you've got it, flaunt it, does not apply. Meg provides exactly what is called for -- the beat. Her diffidence in interviews, photographs, and videos is surely annoying, but when it comes to drumming, the results are an appropriate modesty, a crude ensemble playing.


I suspect the criticism of Meg's drumming disguises two issues -- the real ones -- sexism, of course, and the wish for her to not concede and defer as she
does. But let's not confuse things. Meg keeps the lines clear, she makes Jack possible.


But perhaps I should get to the new record. If the first track, Seven Nation Army, doesn't solve all your problems, then, my friend, you've got trouble. I hear bass, although I understand it's a breach of their by-laws, as well as over-dubbed guitar parts -- so fat sounding I didn't need to eat for days. And Meg's cro-magnon thumping has never sounded more perfect -- like Indians on the war path.


The first three songs, in fact, are so good and so intelligently sequenced that it almost seems moot to examine the rest of the record. Track four, however, is a sour-sounding version of Burt Bachrach's I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself, once sung marvelously well by Dusty Springfield. And by track five, I feel they're floundering. The song itself, In the Cold, Cold, Night (punctuation theirs) is a creepy voyeuristic-sounding piece which is followed by a creepy Godspell-sounding piece, I Want To Be The Boy to Warm Your Mother's Heart. They get back on track with You've Got Her In Your Pocket, a creepy folk tune, and Ball and Biscuit, a demented rough-up. They fall off again, jump back on; they should have cut about three songs -- The Hardest Button to Button (lyrically interesting, sonically dull), Little Acorns (though I appreciate the sound advice of the spoken word intro, the song itself is redundant), and The Air Near My Fingers (see above). Then they'd've had to re-sequence. Write me for my play list.


There has always been fatback on The White Stripes' records. It is as though they are circling their kill, unaware when they've actually killed it. This is, of course, where a set of outside ears could come in handy -- for instance, on Elephant, Liam Watson, the engineer. I can only guess from the detritus sprinkled throughout the record, and the tin-eared sequencing of the mid-section, that he was otherwise occupied at recording time. One of the strengths, after all, of the sixties garage rock records The Stripes claim to admire is their brevity.


But the new, trimmer Elephant is anything but starved. I haven't heard singing like the singing on Black Math in a very long time, not since, well, their last record, but before that not since The Pixies. Jack White's real soul-mate, truth be known, actually goes back only so far as to the early nineties -- nineteen nineties -- Black Francis. And his rule-breaking guitar-soloing on this song and others left me feeling pointlessly cheated: imagine if he'd been allowed to do that on the other records. The real problem is he's afraid of his talent.


There's No Home For You Here has the kind of majesty of The Small Faces Tin Soldier, as well as its electric piano, and the Seeds-inspired arpeggios are a welcome sonic homage; Ball And Biscuit, at seven minutes fifteen, keeps coiling out and winding back; it's through when they're through with you. It's one of the best tracks on the record and makes me just wanna leave home; Hypnotize is a hair-puller; and when Jack shouts "Acetaminophen!" on Girl, You Have No Faith In Medicine, it sounds so cool, kids will be grinding up the pills and snorting them; the last track, Well It's True That We Love One Another, a trio, is an inspired idea.

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The White Stripes songs are marked by a quick smolder, a spirit that makes a short bright appearance and goes away. There's an under-thought quality to the songs. As my old record-store boss would love to point out, It's not rocket science, though you'd never know it, from the joyless math-rock that flattens the air-waves today. But The White Stripes know it.


Which is another part of their brilliance -- context. They motored in on the fumes of car-commercial music, like a deflection of ambience. It almost makes them seem hyper-real -- which is a dilemma -- because it makes you aware of how dependent their songs are on their playing them.


But this isn't why The White Stripes are through. They're through because of their stupid, self-defeating rules about rules. Though I doubt they'll suffer -- it's obviously a death-wish. It's not the artificiality of it that irks me, it's the romance.


There's something dishonest about The White Stripes, something high. I've read that Jack White is not ironic. Whatever. But let's not assume that he's without device. Sure, I think he's serious about what he does, and far be it from me to lay claims to his tastes, his influences, or his real true inner being. They turned down a Gap ad -- an act that in today's culture is the mark of spiritual superiority, though it's semantics to me. The Stripes are talked about like they're the Holden Caulfield's of rock because they reject the modern world -- well, parts of it anyway. Their exclusions might carry more weight if they weren't so easy and negative. I'd be more likely to be impressed if instead of the liner notes reading No computers were used during the writing, recording, mixing, or mastering of this record, they read, No phones were used in the booking of any of our shows. Come off it.


I say this partly because I like them so much and it's hard to watch something you love kill itself. Imagine if David Bowie had had the same approach: he'd still be sleeping with Anthony Newley, I expect.

The other night I saw The Stripes again. They played at Hammerstein, near Penn station. I got there late and only heard the last three songs. There was a tired, distracted vibe. It felt like the end of a big wedding. From where I stood, The Stripes looked like bright spots of blood in headlights. The spots made no necessary correlation to the booming, dispersed sound that wafted over the crowd. Meg had propped her kit at the side of the stage. Jack moved close to her, leaving half the space dormant. People milled about and strained to see anything; they sat down. Jack's guitar spasmed invention after invention, which seemed to have no effect on the crowd. The stage swallowed him up. He seemed awkward and straining. It wasn't their fault; The Stripes and the Hammerstein ballroom are an uncomfortable pairing.


Loretta Lynn came out for The Stripes encore and sang a duet with Jack. She seemed to know how to inhabit the space. She sounded great. I wished I had seen her set.

I watched the crowd file out -- aging hipsters with serious faces, probably trying to figure out the cultural significance. Waiting for the train I saw some kids. I asked them what they thought of the show. They said they liked it. The reservation in their voices was apparent. They had paid 28.50, after all -- 35 with charges.


On the train home we got stopped between stations. The car was stuffed with passengers. A man with no eyebrows kept brushing past me and moaning in my ear. The conductor repeated the same regret and promise of imminent departure. At first his announcement sounded hopeful, but as time passed, it took on a doomed inflection. We waited like penitents for the train to move forward. I wondered what The White Stripes were waiting for.
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