A few days ago I, Zach That, went on hiatus from WLFY. Today I was depressed and with slumped shoulders drove my neon yellow VW Bug to the local record store. I slowly flipped through the stacks, each album cover seemed blank in my new state of misery. A small girl, maybe four, looked up at me with large blue eyes and said, “Mister, what’s wrong? Today’s a beautiful day full of smiles!” I smiled at the young girls naïve outlook on life and responded: “Music’s dead”. She shook her head and said, “No sir, that’s just Punk music. Music is better than ever.” In one swift motion she handed me a vinyl that radiated with angelic bright light. Power surged from this album and struck my body with a life-force that I couldn’t even begin to describe with words. I bought the little girl a Shasta as thanks for the tip, along with the album, and ran home like Charlie from that chocolate movie after he found the golden ticket.
I slammed the door and ran up the eight flights of stairs of my luxurious home to my vinyl listening room. The plastic wrapping flied off this brilliant album and before I knew it the needle had dropped. What began next will be quite a task to describe…let’s just say the sounds spilling out of my speakers looked like this:
Never have such sweet sounds tickled my soft ears (I’m notorious for having very soft ears). It was almost as this album had been made for me. The drumming tight yet whimsical, the guitar playing tight yet whimsical, the bass playing tight yet whimsical, the singing whimsical yet tight. And the lyrics, oh, the lyrics! For dummies these lyrics are nothing more than the ramblings of an educated homeless man. For me and my Northwestern graduate degree, the meaning behind the meaning behind the meaning uncovered New Yorker Comic Strip-esq humor/insight.
Tears began flowing down my face as I quickly dialed Hank’s phone number. He answered after some time (he was preparing tea for his book club that was to gather later that night). I shouted into the phone, “Hank, you know that sound you’ve been looking for…the music that would save music…I found it!” I held the phone to my speakers and after a few minutes I heard weeping on the other end. All Hank could muster was the same line over and over: “It’s beautiful, it’s beautiful…” and so on and so on for hours. He cancelled the book club and over the phone we listened to this album over and over until the sun came up and the grooves of the record had been worn to oblivion.
Hank, finishing up the last of the tea said, “Zach, we must return to the blog and share this world changing record with our readers…and the world.” I paused, a baby bird sat on rose pedal that floated in front of my window, “Yes, we must return to spread the word.” Thanks to a little girl in a record store, my faith in music has been restored. The album no longer plays, but I framed it and put it above my bed, it’s the most amazing thing ever created…and I owe everything to Vampire Weekend’s Contra…it made me love music again.
