Warming to an idea

I shouldn't even say this, because I don't want to jinx it ... but I think I may be having a Wilco breakthrough. I was listening some last night, felt an inkling of understanding, and then continued the therapy this morning stuck in Tokyo "express"way traffic ... so a nice long two-hour stretch of exposure. During those two hours, I kept catching myself saying ... yes. Ah, yes. Mmmm (which is Japanese for "yes." Or "no." Or "I don't understand." Or "I DO understand." Mmmm.). Yes. Not going to say anything else about it just now, because I'm not convinced that my conversion is complete. But I'm getting there, I think.

When I'm not undergoing Wilco therapy, I find myself listening to a lot of "summer" music lately. It's because it's starting to get chilly here, and I'm having to face up to the fact that summer is gone, which really, really sucks. So without thinking about it, I'm listening to stuff that makes me think of summer, even if there's nothing inherently summerish about the songs. Like Lucinda Williams' "Car Wheels on a Gravel Road." That album says summer to me because it was one of the few CDs I had with me during my summer of exile in Paducah, Ky. So I listened to it a lot. I was an intern, working the late shift in a town where nothing except Wal-Mart is open past midnight, when I got off work. So I'd drive home on the backroads, windows down, Lucinda blasting. That's summer.

And Old 97's are getting that way for me, too. I think I've seen them in several seasons, but the last time was an outdoor show at a street festival on a scorching day in D.C., and I remember that everyone was sweaty and miserable from the heat, made worse by the dancing around, and no one cared. Everyone was nice to each other and one couple even let my friend and I use their lawn chairs while they went for a walk. Let me tell you: People being nice to each other in D.C. is rare enough, but people being nice to each other in sweltering heat on Pennsylvania Avenue is just unheard of. Old 97's: Workers of miracles. My boys of summer.

But that honor must be shared a little with BR5-49. My first show of theirs was in hot, hot summer in the middle of Missouri. My second was at last year's Merlefest. While the temperature at that one wasn't all that hot, by the thermometer's reading, the hot, hotness of the show and the sweat from the dancing around you must -- MUST -- do at their live shows make for a memory that can warm you through even the harshest winter.

Lyle Lovett warms me up for a variety of reasons, most of which I won't get into here because I know we're a delicate crowd. So I'll focus on the PG side of my Lyle obsession: His music evokes summer for me because he always tours in summer and I'd always catch one of his outdoor shows -- Chastain Park in Atlanta when I lived there and Wolftrap outside D.C. when I lived there. So Lyle brings me back to sitting outside and feeling the heat of the day give way to the mellow sweetness of a summer night. Ahhhh.

Oh, except that one time I saw him in Knoxville in the dead of winter and waited outside his bus for HOURS just to see him after the show and he never came off the bus, even though I was standing there in the cold looking very sad, I'm sure. Well shit, there goes that nice warm summer image. Never mind.

But you know what I'm saying. Some songs, some bands, just can't be separated from summer, once you attach them that way, and for the forseeable future I'll be playing those constantly while I work through my denial about the coming of hated, hated winter. Peh. Anyone got any other suggestions for bands that can stave off the cold? I'm all ears ... at least until it's so cold I have to wear big heavy hats and three layers of hoods, at which time I will not be able to hear crap, and you'll be too damn late to save me.