On music that finds you and the friends that make it

I’m not sure I believe in fate, the big version at least. That all things are fated to be as they are? I don’t buy it. If free will is just a ruse so that everything plays out according to someone else’s master plan, than what the hell is the point anyway? We might as well not make any choices and just let it ride. But we don’t so our own choices have to amount to something right?

But I do believe in the fate of small things, small moments. I don’t think fate can work on the grand scale all the time. But it can work small minor miracles that make us take stock and really think about it, connections, the grander scale, the bigger picture.

Yesterday I experienced one of those moments.

I go through cycles where I ignore my personal emails and some, if not most of the email newsletters I signed up for, even if they are from writers and people I admire. I tell myself it’s because I don’t have the time, but really its because I don’t want to expend the effort to connect with what that person is trying to say.

I could’ve ignored the @Whereverwriter email post. But I didn’t. I have to admit her lede spoke to me. She got me with Free Gift to You! So I clicked and read. I was surprised to find that someone who’s writing I admired so much was also a gifted musician.

I clicked on her link to her EP and from the first song I cried tears of joy. It was so beautiful. Her voice was stunning and the words gave me goose bumps. I listened to the EP alternating between giddy joy and joyful tears because someone I consider a friend made something so awe-inspiring.

Then I got to The Bridge.

It’s like her words were destined to find me.

I’ve talked about it some on this blog and on my other blog Ukiah’s Heart but I’ve been struggling with depression pretty hard on and off for years. After my son died, I went through a tail spin. Recently I’ve gone through another. It’s the reason I haven’t written on this blog for quite awhile. Composing my thoughts can be downright impossible when I can barely see the forest for the trees.

Sometimes I’m able to dig myself out of a tailspin okay. Lately I haven’t. I finally had to admit to everyone I loved that I needed help. I’m getting help. I’ve had several people tell me variations of what was in Amy’s song for months now, but this time it connected. I mean, really connected.

I wept. I listened to it again and I wept some more.  I kept listening and kept crying. Finally, somewhere between the fourth of fifth listen, the tears stopped, but the connection didn’t.

I needed this song and it found me and now I won’t let it go. One of fate's small little miracle's I guess. It could be argued that I would've found this eventually, that it still would of made an impact. Which is probably true. I try to connect to her site at least once a month to get caught up on what I'm missing in her life. But I could also argue that if I had found it any other time, it maybe wouldn't have resonated as deeply as it had. We're chalking this one up to fate, and Amy's generosity for now.

There are few greater pleasures in this world than when you connect with a piece of writing, music or art. It’s a thing of wonder and pure joy and a person I call my friend gave me that connection. Words can’t express what a gift that is.

So I’m trying to give one back. Listen to this album. Please, if you have a few spare bucks, download it and send that money her way, so that way she sees a few monetary fruits of her incredible endeavors. If you are on social media, link or tweet her album that way it might bring someone else the joy and the connections I received.

Amy your writing and your music mean something because they meant something to me. Don’t ever doubt that. When you finally release your ebook, consider me ground central for your promotions. I’ll be singing your praises for years to come. Thank you.

Music Review: Hourglass EP

I love it when new music just falls into my lap, or more to the point, comes up, slaps me across the face and forces me to pay attention to it when I’m least expecting it. It doesn’t happen very often but when it does its memorable. I can remember discovering Better Than Ezra eons ago on a defunct TV show (that subsequently launched Orlando Jones’ career, which weird, also neither here nor there so moving on) on FX when FX was a completely different cable channel called Sound FX. They were a revelation and are still one of the only bands to make it out of my teens relatively unscathed.

Other musical revelations that caught me completely off guard include a moment when an old coworker and music junkie handing me a mix CD involving a Rocky Votolato song that rocked me to the core, finding The Joy Formidable thanks to a person I follow on twitter and now I can count finding Brian Bergeron amongst those experiences. He followed me on twitter for whatever reason God only knows. He wasn’t the typical account that follows me on twitter (usually they are fake accounts featuring scantily clad women asking me to check out their porn sites, don’t ask me why cause I haven’t the foggiest). His twitter account intrigued me, I clicked a link to his website, listened to the music from his EP, Hourglass and fell for it, hook, line and sinker.

It’s a solid folk EP, and it meets are the mile markers a good folk album is supposed to. The stand out to me is 'Don’t Let Me Go'. I keep coming back to it, and it keeps giving me goose bumps the way a good song is meant to.  The other two I like. The title song, Hourglass is also grabbing me the more I listen to it. Although I have to say ‘One I Want’ is great lyrically, but a little shaky musically maybe?  But that's the only criticism I can even think to throw at it. But the EP is well worth it. I love finding indie music in my neck of the woods (San Francisco, I love you and your awesome music scene!) and Bergeron is no exception.  and I’ll probably end up downloading the EP post haste just so I can listen to Don’t Let Me Go over and over again, and also to support awesome burgeoning talent. ("Yeah, that Brian Bergeron? I was in on the ground floor on that. He's awesome!" or so goes the imaginary conversation at some awesome cocktail party I'm always going to in my head).

Brian Bergeron, if you’re reading, thanks for this chance encounter to listen to some quality music and thanks for the goose bumps.