I have a few thousand words of stuff written today about various personal topics, but I’ll end the day publishing this: Listen to Aqueous right now.
I feel very privileged to be in something of an inner circle of AQ fandom and evangelization. They’re a Buffalo band, and I feel a sense of Great Lakes vibes when I reunite with the core in, say, Erie or Buffalo for a show now and then. This band is surrounded by good and loving people, and I’m always thrilled to spread the good word and rekindle a shared obsession with those on the road.
And so in that inner ring I’ve called informally for an Iron Works-Letchworth Pines box set this evening — a record that would stand tall as a marker of where these cats have landed as of spring 2016. (Leagues beyond what I had previously thought was an era-defining fall ’14, to give you a sense of what’s going on here.)
But I guess my point in writing this and publishing a quick end-of-the-night thing like this is: Don’t miss the wave, folks. I take great care in grasping the contextual and musical labyrinths of bands that have a unique voice. I cherish this sort of emotional prowess in my voyage. (That is only to say that I enjoy the sliver of musical legacy that I’ve happened to fall into. My favorite thing is to learn about wonderful music that’s new to me and to spread that gospel with equal fervor.) It’s just one man’s thoughts on the matter here, but I can’t help but encourage a pure swan dive into AQ bliss. I shit thee not on this count.
For the video linked above, I’ll submit that it’s badass to hear a band of mid-twentysomethings roll out “the old classics” like Dave’s Song and Marty before dovetailing divinely into Origami, which tends to produce some of the band’s most stellar jams. (The bass is woefully low in that mix, but we do what we can with what we have, yeah?)
They’re the perpetual motion machine of second-tier jam bands, and that should be as fine an endorsement as you’re likely to hear of anything this week. Which reminds me: Go watch Primer right now.
Sandy 