Things Mo Likes #4: Silversun Pickups

The first time I ever listened to this band had been in a basement, my ex's. It was Summer 2007, the day was very sunny and the room was nice and cool. He was fiddling with his computer and he had the internet radio on. Whenever I was at his house and he was in his computer mode, I found ways of occupying myself and/or annoying him.

The opening bars of "Lazy Eye" were like a finger beckoning to us. They said: Listen to me...and bask in my indie rock awesome-ness.

I've been waiting, for this moment all my life, but it's not quite right...

The guitar riffs were just as hazy and warm as the sunlight streaming in through the small window, and there was just something about this fucking song that made us stop. He stopped his computer-ing, and I stopped my annoying, and we just listened. We looked at each other and just nodded, like we just figured out some great equation: our synapses were connecting over a song. I think "Lazy Eye" must have played at least 3 more times that day. Each time was better than the first, and each time it played, we would stop mid-sentence/action and just listen. We knew we were getting that good shit. It didn't take him long to download their first album, Carnavas, and we just marinated in it.

Later during that summer, I had spent a crappy day in the city on two miserable interviews. The sun was shining everywhere, just not on me and my foul mood. As we walked to get food, he put one of his earbuds from his phone/mp3 player in my ear, and he slipped his arm around me. The song "Melatonin" was next on shuffle, and as soon as we embarked on that first music assisted-step, the scenery glazed over and changed.

My brain doesn't produce any, I'm soaring without anything...

My feelings and senses were being magnified tenfold. I felt the navy green in the softness of his dress shirt, and I heard the swish of my dress pans, and the slap of my flip flops against the pavement. I felt the warmth of his right hand radiating on my waist, and the syncopated rhythm that our hips made as we walked in unison. It’s strange sometimes, the way music makes you move in slow motion, even stranger is how the rest of the world follows.

Earlier this year, Silversun Pickups had released Swoon, their second full length album, and by this time I was very much single; so many things had changed and were still in flux. I had given it a couple of good spins, but I don't think I recognized the most important track on this album until I saw them live at the All Points West festival in August. They played the last day, a Sunday, and the weather was complete shit. The sky, the color of an sweaty gym sock; the air was just as stale. My feet hurt from my cheap-ass plastic rain boots and the humidity was killing me By the time the gates had finally opened, many of the bands were cut. As I walked in with two friends I could hear the strains of "Growing Old Is Getting Old" tinkling from the main stage, all the way across Liberty State Park. I ran, sprinted to the main stage, squelching along in my rain boots.

So we all are growing old and it's getting old, pressure on our hollow bones and the varicose...

It stank of mud and shit and damp. Yet my hands were in the air, and I had found my voice...and I was singing.

Suddenly we decompose but we're not alone
So we all are getting old...
Maybe we're sealed in silence
Maybe we feel a guidance
Maybe your own devices
Will keep you afraid and cold, but I...
Memorized your smile lines when lips divide
Kept alive your childlike reaction time
We're allowed to expire with ourselves in mind
So we all are getting old...
Put out the fear of silence
Put out the need for guidance
Put out your own devices
Don't be afraid of the cold, because we...

When Brian Aubert screams out, We sing, we fight, we cry…we slide, slide, slide into delight, it’s so fucking strong. I had put up my hands in the air because it felt like I was fighting too, trying so hard to slide into that delight. There’s such ferocity in that song, this fevered urgency that I felt creeping inside me, a tendril of life that had awoken. Now, I feel like it's about not being afraid of the future, not holding back, and rushing head first into aging and moving on. I must have looked insane, but that’s how you feel when a song is calling your name.


Don't be afraid of the cold
Afraid of the cold
Afraid over time we've got nowhere to go but here...