The Story I Found: Foo Fighters and Sonic Highways

"There is a river I found---"

- from "Something From Nothing"

In Sonic Highways, there is a man, and the man--broken and a little lost, but looking for answers to his questions, looking for deliverance-- (unwittingly) takes a journey. Something inside him has died, but something in him, too, knows that there is life in the death that has taken place, that there is something hidden in the undergrounds of the world that just might bring him back to life. Along the way, he encounters darkness, more questions, people who are lost in similar and different ways, epiphanies in the most ill-lighted of corners, love both found and lost. He encounters himself along the way, meets himself at the end of every path. Finally, he comes to terms with himself and rekindles the fire that has kept him going, despite the odds, the same fire, stronger now, that will keep him going, henceforth, and his journey comes full circle, in the very fact that he knows and looks forward to the fact that the journey will keep on being.

It is a typical enough story, the story of everyman, after all, but the beauty and grandeur of Sonic Highways is in keeping true with the themes it has set for itself, in delineating a story with a beginning, a rising action, a climax, a denoument, and an ending. Each song is connected both to and with the next one, and each listen brings with it a discovery, so that one can spend entire hours on it, and not get tired of doing so. The words are in keeping with the music, which is brilliantly-written--thanks to the genius of Dave Grohl--and flawlessly-executed, thanks to the talent, skill, and passion of the entire Foo Fighters. The arrangements are dynamic, the riffs play up the narrative, the drumbeats provide both backdrop and heightened action. Sonic Highways is a phenomenal work of music, unabashedly different, and with enough richness as to leave the listener more than satisfied, even with only eight songs in the stash, because the music fleshes out the themes and this sort of thing necessitates a repeat listen, and another, and another.

The one flaw (and another good thing going for it, if you will) in Sonic Highways is that the songs would not be able to stand to their full height without the others. The album is unapologetically contextual, and something gets lost when one song is taken from the other, leaving the listener turning the song over for something more and very possibly not finding, and thereby making the songs un-radio-friendly. Or maybe it's just me talking. I take off from the mistake I made of listening to "Something From Nothing" the moment it came out, and subsequently giving it my full judgement, without giving it the very benefit of the whole. It was only when I got to listen to Sonic Highways in entirety that I saw its richness. From that point, I started raving (mostly to myself) about it, and about the fact that everything now made sense (and what beautiful sense it was!), the way that almost nothing of it did with my "Something From Nothing" one-bite experience.

There were undercurrents of a narrative in Wasting Light, but the Foo Fighters' use of the story-telling device comes full-blast in Sonic. The album excellently spells out the kind of evolution that Foo Fighters has proven itself capable of, time and again, the band's collective effort and incredible energy visible in the entire production. I would say that they have outdone themselves, this time, and have managed to put enough pressure on themselves as to spend the next few years bleeding their brains out in order to top this particular, border-defying work. But knowing Dave Grohl, I now counter my last statement by saying that it will never happen. There's no going dry with that madman. He is most definitely something else.

See if you find the story I did, and if you find something else, do share it with me.

"There is a secret

I found a secret--"

- from "I am a River"

Static

Let me tell you about my recent preoccupation with stasis, about the question of what one is supposed to do with it, about whether one is supposed to do something about it. But then again, will that not negate the stasis, will that not make it something else? I fear I will contradict myself; I often do. I will pause somewhere, I am certain, and I wonder if you will wonder about that pause, you who seem to find blanks in pauses. But know that there is stasis in certain pauses; in others, thoughts, in some, confusion. And then there are those that hide stretches of waiting, variable in length. 

The afternoon could drag on like a tune pretending to be a melody, and I shudder at the thought, for that could mean a chance forever lost. But what am I doing taking chances? There is comfort in stasis.

I will take a sip from my cup of tea, I am sure, I might finger the label at the end of the string and fold it into smaller and smaller shapes, but let me talk to you about you, too, will you? Will you let me, if I could find it in myself to do it, if I could allow myself to leave the safety of my pause? As it is, I have a feeling I will end up (once more) analyzing the stasis in teacups: the subterfuge of stillness resulting from the opposition between teabag and water.

Let me tell you a story I found along the highway, instead. This, I just might be able to pull off.

Older and Better: My Kind of Mr. Big

euphoria. noun - a feeling of great (usually exaggerated) elation

Thank you, mobile phone dictionary, for being so succinct. Euphoria is the very word I would use to describe my Mr. Big experience last October 31st. The build-up of excitement--from the time I found out they were coming over to the very moment they appeared onstage--took a little over two months before culmination, so that meant I had had to suppress that little lump of giddiness for quite a while. Our tickets were purchased two weeks before the date and by that time, I had already consumed enough of their music to fill a medium-sized pool. I am a discography type of person, though I no longer have the luxury of time to "study" each and every album, so I end up singling out and retaining only my favorites from each. A handful was added to my cache of Mr. Bigs, but I still spent so much time listening to them because once a song becomes a favorite, I put it on loop and listen to it enough times for somebody else's ears and patience to burst.

Sadly, though, Mr. Big started out for me as Eric Martin and only Eric Martin, when I was in High School and still very much prone to crushing on celebrity vocalists, Eric Martin not the least of them, if only because he was so deliciously good-looking and had one of the best voices in town. Paul Gilbert and Billy Sheehan--I used to not see drummers back then, so Pat Torpey was virtually non-existent--were no more than fixtures for me, ignorant little girl that I was, whose idea of music consumption was confined to song and singer, and knowing next to nothing of the other (equally) important details that went with the finished product. All those changed when I got older, but that's another story.

So, anyway, there we were, two hours before the concert, loading up on a few beers, trying to contain the excitement that found (paltry) relief only in sudden exclamations of "I'm so excited I could barely contain it!" And alcohol, so it would seem, because we managed to make it to the arena in one piece. Thankfully, we had prepared ourselves for a delay, being used to waiting as we were, so it didn't appall us as much as the sight of the half-empty (or half-full, for the positive thinkers out there) venue did. I found myself getting more and more dismayed as the minutes ticked by and there didn't seem to be much hope of the arena getting filled. I grew anxious for the band because yes, I'm a little crazy that way. What will they think and how will they feel, poor creatures? What is wrong with people? I questioned the universe for a little while, biting the ends of my fingernails and sighing. The minutes stretched into longer ones and I turned into a huge blob slumped into my seat, watching a big, white guy in denim shorts and a black shirt making last minute check-ups on the set. His long hair was tied in a ponytail and I wondered what his life was like.

When the lights went out and loud, orchestral music filled the room, people started to clap and shout and whistle and I felt the hairs on my nape and arms rise. The band went onstage and took their places and everything else disappeared into a vacuum--I felt myself rising to an all-time high, and the rest is history. Or maybe not. They opened with "Daddy, Brother, Lover, Little Boy", played "Green-Tinted Sixties Mind" and "Just Take My Heart" to an audience that could hardly stop itself from singing along, "Alive and Kickin'", "I Forget To Breathe", "Addicted to That Rush", "Take Cover", and some tracks from their new album The Stories We Could Tell, "As Far as I Can See" being my favorite from that album, which I have yet to "study".

Eric Martin wasn't as cute as I remembered him to be (I'm stupid, I already know that), but he was still able to hit the notes, though sustaining them was an altogether different affair; still, he had ways of playing around with the vocals so that he still winged the more difficult songs with flair. Paul Gilbert was his usual brilliant self and the crowd went crazy when he did his solos, but Billy Sheehan ended up the one to take my breath away--so much stage presence, that giant of a man, and those guitar rifts, holy molly! Apparently, he is who Mr. Big took its name from, and this new tidbit delighted me to no end. Pat Torpey, who has been diagnosed with Parkinsons Disease, still appeared on stage and drummed to "Just Take My Heart" and "Addicted to that Rush". For the rest of the night, his place was filled in by a drummer who was known to me only as "that bald guy". I just recently found out his name was Mark Starr. "To Be With You" and "Wild World" were my two least favorite numbers.

Everything else was a roaring blast, as I had expected--and hoped--it would be. It was a relief that the band did not allow the sight of the empty seats to stop them from being in their element. They soared up to the high ceilings with their energy, more fired up and bigger than I have ever known them to be. There they were, a bunch of wonderfully talented musicians who've been playing for fans for 25 years; there they were, in their mid-fifties and having gone through as much of life's ups-and-downs as any other person could; there they were, older and better. I had a feeling that night was going to imprint itself on me for a while, and was I right. I'm writing this more than a week from that time, and I can still remember how they were, and how I was, watching them.

They didn't play "CDFF Lucky This Time", which is my favorite Mr. Big song, but I ended up not minding, at all. My pool was overflowing and it was one of the best feelings in the world. That night, I went home nostalgic, reminiscing how it was in the 90's, remembering my long, wavy, untreated hair and my afternoon trips to the diner with my friends, the little joys and heartbreaks, the weekends spent reading and waiting for my favorite songs to be played by faceless DJs, the light, airy evenings, wonderful little stuff that only fourteen-and-something-year-olds can know--and I felt young and stupid and happy, all over again. And so it goes that the things we loved and lost but keep loving, anyway, eventually find their way back to us, at some point or another, and music has just the power to bring it all back. And that unforgettable night, Mr. Big made it all happen for me.

Companions

Morning. My thoughts are taking a walk, with I in tow. They are traversing a path strewn with certain hours of certain days. Objects, sights, platforms, smells. Remembered musings appear from corners. Sudden turns yield more images. I find myself having to catch my breath, sometimes, they are going too fast; other times, I stop and turn blank, unmindful of them. Then I would have to break into a run, just so I could keep up. There are times they pause and turn their heads to look at me, willing me to confront their faces and I comply, breathing a sigh of relief, taking a rest from the whirl of strangers and voices and gamuts of feelings. They resume and I follow. We keep walking and I start losing my breath.

By the time we return, I am exhausted, my cup of tea grown cold.

Disagreements

I survey the distance from I to you and stifle a gasp.

The plan is to calculate and come up with sums, but I end up counting differences, instead. For example: your hurried steps plus my tentative ones equal a gap. Or: a definite blank is formed when my flights of fancy meet your appallingly firm hold on all things solid. At least I know I got those right.

Everyday, I wonder, though I almost always resolve to stop poking figures into the air. Because I have never been good with equations; because equations aren't figures one pokes into the air. Or are they?

The law of this states that and the law of that states this--I am mad to think I could make sense of things, though I'm pretty sure that you could. I count the number of squares between us and realize what exhausting shapes they are. So I turn my back and draw circles, instead, wishing I could disappear into them.

I would like to

draw a line on one of your furrowed brows, and make a cut, a cut along your frown. I would like to trace that line.

It cannot be clean, this mess that's to be. You are not a task and if you were, I will never be able to complete you. Are you all straight lines, are we parallel lines? It cannot be so, or so my mind insists, insisting on softness even as I struggle--while feigning non-struggle--with the (imagined) resistance of your surfaces.

I steady my trembling hand; this fear is of my own making. This fear of you is of my own making. My fear is that of recognition: what if I end up seeing you, and yet end up only seeing you? I suspect I will; I am sure I will.

And so I wrap you up in haze, consign you to the shadows; I darken you with words like "cruel" and "lost". I look for safety in my own ignorance, or whatever bliss that's left of it.

I shut you out. I would like to.

Dear--,

There is a distance made of walls and on the other side, you. Where are you, dear friend? How are you? Sometimes, it is a thick slab of glass, opaque, this gap. I feel, hear you stirring, and I wonder if your thoughts mirror mine, like they often do. We are listening to the sound of the rain, falling listlessly, aimlessly. Are we? Is it raining where you are? In the distance, a grand chorale, horse hooves thundering. Listen. Listen, you would say, listen and hear. And I would hear them, I who never think of horses, realize that they are beautiful and grand. Send me a line, share this breakfast with me, for it tastes like sadness where I am. Where are you? Help me break this wall of glass--surely, it can be done? We've done it before. We've been saved once, and again, and again. Talk to me about angels, talk to me about grace. You are moving my fingers to write. You are here.