SOUNDS: Avett Brothers Play NYC 6/12 & 13

photo by crackerfarm

If you put your ear to the street, you can hear the rumble of the world in motion; people going to and from work, to school, to the grocery store. You may even hear the whisper of their living rooms, their conversation, their complaints, and if you're lucky, their laughter. If you're almost anywhere in America , you'll hear something different, something special, something you recognize but haven't heard in a long time. It is the sound of a real celebration It is not New Year's, and it is not a political convention. It is neither a prime time game-show, nor a music video countdown, bloated with fame and sponsorship. What you are hearing is the love for a music. It is the unbridled outcry of support for a song that sings to the heart, that dances with the soul. The jubilation is in the theaters, the bars, the music clubs, the festivals. The love is for a band. The songs are honest: just chords with real voices singing real melodies. But, the heart and the energy with which they are sung, is really why people are talking, and why so many sing along. They are a reality in a world of entertainment built with smoke and mirrors, and when they play, the common man can break the mirrors and blow the smoke away, so that all that's left behind is the unwavering beauty of the songs. That's the commotion, that's the celebration, and wherever The Avett Brothers are tonight, that's what you'll find. (source)

NC's The Avett Brothers play NYC 6/12 & 13 @ The Fillmore at Irving Plaza. The Second Gleam has been in stores since July 08.

ART: Like A Rolling Thunder Tent Revival Revue

My brother always threatens to leave town. Like that would magically solve all his problems. What people like him fail to realize though is that wherever you go, there you are. I don't mean that in a Zen way either. I mean, you take your problems with you, especially if it's you that is the problem.

The weight of lies will bring you down
And follow you to every town
Cause nothing happens here that doesn’t happen there
So when you run make sure you run
To something and not away from
Cause lies don’t need an aeroplane to chase you anywhere
(The Avett Brothers, "The Weight Of Lies" from Emotionalism)

But running away....It does hold the hopeful mirage of a clean break, a fresh start where no one knows you. And all your wrongs can be made right or maybe never even existed. You can be the person you always believed you could be. The you that you know you are, but maybe nobody else can see. There is no possibility like that of a new place...and the story whose end has yet to be told. And besides, it's just a few tracks later on Emotionalism that the Avett Brothers sing that "all my mistakes, They brought me to you."

So, I guess you never know...

When he's not making music with his brother Seth, Scott Avett is painting. An exhibit of his work, in collaboration with husband & wife photography team Crackerfarm, is up now thru August 29 at the Envoy Gallery on the Lower East Side, NYC. The Avett Brothers The Gleam II is out now.