17th
Bill Withers - Harlem
It’s bound to happen. Two-car garages. A deck that needs treatin’. Extra shelf space that leaves you stroking your chin, wondering about “what could go here … avocado pits?”
The ability to talk and walk something out in mid-afternoon, for a post you’ll never use about where Marc Iavaroni fell short, in the time it used to take to fill up the glass full of Brita water … without knocking knees on (in this order) a VOX practice amp, a coffee table, an exercise bike, and a kitty scratch post?
Freedom? Movement? Track lighting? A fake fireplace w/ mantle? You happy, big boy?
Yes, but … some synapse has to strike the wrong way. Some disc must slip. The knee must crack, every time you extend it. It’s 2009, and you’re one bad run of Cavs takes away from being out. For good. And deservedly so.
So you mustn’t lose sight of it. You have to keep that carrot in front of you. That drive and that hope and that funk that led you back to this disturbed burgh some years ago, as Steve Nash was finishing things up in Dallas, tail between your legs, bank account at nil, bad habits at full bore, stacks of mp3s just waiting to put to use.
And what mp3, years later, brings that mess of the blues back?
Bill Withers? That guy?
I mean, your parents made fun of this guy. In your presence. And it was hilarious.
“Lean on Me” and “Ain’t No Sunshine” and all that. Horrid stuff. Coffee house twaddle made right for hotel bars, in between “Besame Mucho,” “At Seventeen,” and (sorry, NC), “Fire and Rain.”
But this noise. It’s a proper noise. And there are two ways to take it.
One, in the front wheel driven, nuanced flow that never really pins the ears back, but lets you purr a bit:
And the other, in all its studio glory, an absolute monster.
Full-on, V8. That’s the way drums sound when you die. Or when you stumble out to face the morning light, a few minutes short of trading your Ray-Bans for a loaf of bread, and a Jimmy Reed song is about to hit.
— Mercury’s Mustache
