Saturday, August 4, 2012

No. 670 – Cheerleader

Performer: Grizzly Bear
Songwriters: Chris Taylor, Edward Droste
Original Release: Veckatimest
Year: 2009
Definitive Version: Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, 2009

As I’ve mentioned, I don’t watch TV. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not an anti-TV snob or anything like that. It just currently doesn’t fit into my life.

I had cable, including HBO, until I moved to Chicago in 2005. Laurie didn’t have cable, and I usually was in front of my computer, which lends itself more to music or the radio (and now the Steve Dahl Podcast Network), so I didn’t watch much, and I soon learned that I didn’t miss TV. With more stuff than ever online, it’s not even really an issue any more.

But every once in a while, usually when Laurie is gone, I might turn on the TV to veg out a bit. Typically, I put on a movie, but in June 2009, I flipped around the broadcast channels and stopped when I hit Late Night. Unlike when it was Dave vs. Jay, I didn’t have a horse in the recent late-night wars, so I didn’t care either way, and I can’t say I had much interest one way or the other in Jimmy Fallon.

But as soon as I turned to his show, Grizzly Bear started into this song, and it was hypnotic. The way the stage was set up with the lighting and the sound of this song drew me in; it sounded like a perfect late-night song.

But moreso, it reminded me of one of me and Laurie’s favorite bars—Sylvie’s. Sylvie’s is a quintessential Chicago neighborhood bar for the most part, except that several years ago, Sylvie bought the space next door and expanded, so now it has two rooms—one for live music and one for drinking and darts.

Laurie always liked going there and knew Sylvie somewhat, so that became the place we’d go to play darts when we had such a hankering. Sylvie always kept two sets of darts—the real cheapy ones with the bright-colored solid-plastic fins—behind the bar for those who didn’t have their own. (Sylvie’s is a serious darts bar, as all the trophies on the wall attest, but Laurie and I aren’t serious darts players.)

For $2, plus leaving behind your driver’s license, you can rent the darts for as long as you set your mind to it. We’d play several games, usually a best-of-five, of 301 and maybe some cricket after we finished with the 301, all the while listening to the live music in the next room and drinking cheap beer—Old Style for me.

The bands usually were rockabilly and almost always never very good. If you were good, you played someplace better, like Shuba’s or the Double Door. But one night, the late-night post-headliner act was a trance band that played superspacey guitar-based instrumental music. It was completely out of character from the previous band and the usual acts, and they sounded great. It actually fit the vibe of the dart room, with its brighter overhead fluorescent lighting and stark, two-table furnishings. We never heard a band like that at Sylvie’s since.

So when I stumbled across Grizzly Bear that night, I immediately was struck by the sensibility of the music. It harkened very much to that night at Sylvie’s, even though, of course, Grizzly Bear is a far more straightforward rock band. The next day, I went to the all-knowing Internet to help me determine who it was that I stumbled across the night before.

I didn’t buy Veckatimist—the recordings didn’t match the sound of the live versions I heard—but I became a fan anyway. In fact, I have tickets to see Grizzly Bear in September, when Laurie and I surely will be the oldest and least hipstery people in the audience, and I will buy their new album when it comes out that month.

And all because I happened to turn on the TV one night.

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