Music; It's More Than What's For Dinner

This past Thursday I took a sporadic trip to Asheville. Back in June I had started planning to make this trip, so in some ways it wasn't sporadic at all. The largest determining factor about making the trip was how I was going to get there. As you know, July kinda came barging into my sumer with its unexpected news of Hernando (this is the name I've given my Hodgkins. I like to think of the cancerous cells as an evil Spanish man. I haven't ever met a truly evil Spaniard or even a man named Hernando, but I felt the name fit its purpose.), and hence my plans were halted until further notice. The whole reason for my wanting to go to Asheville this past Thursday was to 1) visit my good friend Betty and 2) see the Scottish rock band Frightened Rabbit. 

Thanks to social networking and a news feed, I was able to find a ride.  A friend of mine had posted that she wanted to go to Asheville to see The National, and "did anyone want to car pool with her?" I saw this at 2:20 something. The show started at 8. It takes just under 2 hours to get to Asheville. We left town at 5:30. If only congress could make decisions in the amount of time that all of this transpired.

If you haven't ever visited Asheville, you're missing out. It's similar to Boone in regards to geography and that it's sort of like a college town. It also has hippies like Boone, but the hippies there are a whole other kind of their own. For example, while trying to find free parking, Amanda and I had pulled into a unidentifiable gravel lot a few blocks from the venue. She stopped a man walking through the lot to ask about whether you had to pay or not to park there. He joked around for a second or two about how you did, and that we could pay him, and then he gave up the whole charade. Our little jokester friend was named Shay (not really sure how he preferred to spell his name), and he didn't do handshakes, "Just good ol' fashioned hugs." After he directed us to free parking around the corner, I asked Amanda as we left, "Was he wearing a purse, or did he have rope thrown over his back, or something?" Amanda said no, and she seemed a little confused why I would've asked that. "It felt like he had dreads, or rope, or maybe just dreads that felt like rope..." Turns out Shay had dreads, not rope. Later a Flintstone like trolly came rolling down Haywood St. and we weren't really sure what that was all about. We became informed much later that it was a "Brews Cruise."

This was my second time seeing Frightened Rabbit. A friend had turned me on to them about 5 or 6 years ago. Their vocalist has a strong Scottish accent and a very honest way of sharing the lyrics. Their guitars are raw electric sounding, and the drummer is phenomenal at blending rhythms signature of Scottish and popular genres. I think i own almost every one of their albums and even a couple of them on vinyl. This summer I listened to their most recent album, "Pedestrian Verse," so many times! I'd set it on my turn-table and listen to tracks over and over. There may or may not have been solo dance parties, and my living room furniture may or may not be scarred for life for having been the only  viewing audience.

There's something about live music that you can't experience any where else. And I don't mean having to wait to use the public restroom or the amount of hearing loss one can acquire from lack of protection. Music, in all forms, has a very spiritual and, obviously, very emotional quality. I realized, while listening and experiencing this live performance of music with hundreds of other people, that so much of my life was directly related to my experiences with music, small and large things. My degree at university is through the Hayes School of Music. My career goals are to work within the music industry. My bank account is often the victim of purchases related to music. The reason I was even friends with Betty was because of our study abroad trip to Ireland where we had studied Irish MUSIC! I've met some of my closest friends through an internship I had at a radio station where we played, you guessed it, music. My passion for running is connected with music, because I only began to run when I was interning with a non-profit music company while in New York. The whole reason Amanda and I had taken our last minute road trip was because we both are crazy about music. After the first meeting I had with my oncologist, the only thing I wanted to do was to go sit in front of a piano and just play... I wanted to play music.

"I went looking for a song for you

Something soft and patient to reflect it's museI took a walk with all my brightest thoughtsBut the weather soon turned and they all ran off..."