Canned Dragons

Recently, I had a conversation with a colleague about music. I had gone to see one of my direct reports’ bands, and they were really genre-hopping. I told her about the experience and mentioned that they blended such far-flung musical styles as punk, hip-hop, and shoegaze. She said she loved shoegaze, but when I asked her if she was going to the Slowdive show, she confessed that she hadn’t heard of them. I was a bit shocked, since I would consider them just below My Bloody Valentine in the pantheon of shoegaze progenitors. I asked her what shoegaze bands she was into and she mentioned Emma Ruth Rundle, whom she described as metal/shoegaze.

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Upon discovering the new single from Yvette Young (via Instagram of all places), I was immediately reminded of Sophie And Peter Johnson. The breezy sophistipop certainly merits easy comparisons. Then I realized that Young did vocals for Brothertiger’s mesmerizing cover of Sophie and Peter Johnson’s “Torn Open.”

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Some of my fondest memories are of times at the Disney World theme park. In fact, some of the first memories I’ve retained are from my first trip to the amusement park. I was four, and sitting in between my parents in a car on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, filled with a mixture of excitement, fear and familial comfort. I also remember the thrill of going on Space Mountain over and over again later at night as a teenager, the unfettered access to the ride that was so elusive earlier in the day becoming manifest. I can’t forget the luxurious dining experiences my wife and I had on our honeymoon, the kind of which we continue to talk and joke about. I still get a twinge of panic when I think about buying several Lego Star Wars sets and then almost feeling them slip out from underneath my legs on the lurching, fast-paced Aerosmith Rock ’n’ Roller Coaster.

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I had been reading a lot of buzz around the Indianapolis band, Wishy, and their seamless blend of shoegaze and indie pop lately. Their debut album Triple Seven was stashed in my queue for later listening. Thursday morning, I browsed through the bands playing in clubs downtown for the free Day Parties, a staple of the annual Hopscotch Music Festival. The schedule app revealed Wishy was playing at a fairly small venue later in the afternoon. I quickly cranked up the streaming and fast-tracked listening to Triple Seven with just enough time to garner an appreciation for the recording before my trek downtown to see them play.

Wishy stays true to their description: “Wishy was born as a kaleidoscope of alternative music’s semi-recent history, with traces of shoegaze, grunge and power-pop swirling together.” When I shared this assessment with my son, he remarked that was how most indie bands today could be described. I’m wondering when my 18-yr.-old became so wizened and cynical, but I’m also not sure he’s wrong. For my part, the description reminded me of a band like Hotline TNT. Indeed, at the Wishy show, I spotted someone wearing a Hotline TNT shirt.

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I missed Divine Liturgy last week because I had to bid goodbye to my wife’s aunt, who just moved up North. Maybe it was the longing for worship I had missed that made this piece by Zac Settle about discovering Orthodoxy so appealing to me, but there was a lot that resonated. The chanters might be intoning away during Orthros while the priest is hearing confessions while the altar staff are replacing candles or tidying up while the greeters are setting baked goods in the hands and laps of visitors, setting chairs aright in an imperceptibly off-kilter row, or setting candles in front of the iconostasis, the row of icon panels between the altar and the sanctuary.

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