The Clearing

Last night I should have gone to bed at 10 considering how much work I'd put in this week in trying to figure out a fairly complicated code--success in which endeavor will ensure that I have the possibility of continuing with my present temporary position if my job hunt stays unsuccessful--and my level of mostly related sleep-deprivation. Except that I didn't. I was up till 6 in the morning spending most of that time reading a blog I've recently discovered which gives a much-needed vent to...my need to vent, I guess (since this is being written in a public domain, methinks I'll try and not spill all the beans here).

Needless to say, I woke up feeling quite un-proud about myself. Had to put in a few constructive hours before I could feel halfway-good again. Afterwards, while I was headed home to catch up on this ever elusive thing they call sleep, I thought about why I didn't go to bed in time--especially since I'd had such a productive week. The tentative (always!) conclusion I reached was that I had somewhere along the way decided--and this is a trap I keep falling into--that I would feel content (about life?) if I was able to do what I was supposed
to be doing. And this reluctance to go to bed was a protest from my body/mind about being forced to conform to this hypothesis. To remedy this situation I decided that I needed to give myself some more leeway, some more breathing space. Keeping with that theme, I decided to attend a $5 concert of folksy music featuring local artists at the 'new' State Theater theater (now that's awkward!). I tried to round up the usual suspects but no one bit. Ultimately ended up going alone which in itself is a somewhat unusual experience for me.

I can't, for the life of me, remember who the first act was. Okay, before I write about the individual performances, let me first tell you a little bit about the format and the venue. The State Theater has now opened-up for intimate performances a tiny room which they call The Attic, with mostly-floor seating. Today's performances, which were the first that the Attic has seen, consisted of four half an hour acoustic 1-2 person sets by four different local-ish singer-songwriters. The first guy's music sounded quite rich--only a guitar, mind you--and in addition to having good-energy going his music had enough complexity to keep me interested. I think I would give him a fair grade (how meaningless is this without the guy's name, isn't it?). Kudos to him for asking what kind of mood-of-music the audience was feeling like. Though it was a little worrying when he responded to a 'angsty' request from the crowd with 'is that a real word?' (I'm a bit worried here myself as blogger is underlining it!) What kind of a folk-singer are you if you doubt 'angsty'?

The second set was by a two-man group called 'Matthew and the Judes', the lead singer sporting a guitar and his very young looking friend a saxophone (oh, god, I do hope, to prevent unimaginable embarrassment about being wrong, that this was a correct identification on my part!) . The guy was a little nervous considering it was his first performance--he told us this--but managed to deflect his nervousness with some funny self-conscious self-reflective oh-what-a-klutz-I'm kind of remarks. He had a decent voice but needs more polish to become a better performer. I didn't like his song selections which I thought were pretty flat and boring. Hit those high notes dude and give us some emotion for crying out loud! If my Matlab code was able to emote, believe me, I wouldn't be here!

The third act was for me what made the evening really worthwhile (hence the shortness of this paragraph!). Joseph Dabney was in his own world but seemed very sure, justifiably, of the 'product' he was serving-up. He hit his entire range of notes and the contrast between the subdued and unrestrained parts really hit the spot for me. I didn't really catch too many of the lyrics but the performance was almost so full of emotion that I didn't really miss that at all. This guy is a Penn State student who has a strong presence on the popular social networking sites, do check his music out which is available on MySpace.

The fourth guy, a minor celebrity in the local circuit, gave the show its title--'Koji in the Attic'. Koji who had a very laid-back style seemed very popular with the crowd in part due to a clearly amazing rapport he had with it. He even made us do some very iffy (for me personally, people around were chomping it down like Popeye) interactive stuff recalling which gives me the shudders, so will omit. He talked a lot in between songs--told us about how in getting his latest album recorded things got so hectic that he 'almost got depressed'! I think that's when the spell broke for me--is there a difference between almost depressed and depressed and thanks for clarifying that you stayed on the acceptable side of the fence--'phew, man, for a moment there you had me doubting how cool you were!' All this would be forgiven if he had played some more exciting songs. Acoustic doesn't have to mean serene (I'm being generous here)! All his songs were in the lower/middle register which was not at all satisfying.

Bottom-line, check out this Joseph Dabney guy!