Family, family, family ... It makes me feel better inside just to write those words, though sometimes I don't know why.
Family is safety and security and love and support. Family is being at the base of a very tall mountain
and feeling no doubt about getting over the top. Because euphoria will get you there, and you know that if you fall someone will catch you and get you back on your feet. And you will do the same for your family.
I always love my band mates like my brothers. We've been together for six years, and we finish each other's thoughts musically (most of the time). I can play a chord and my drummer can tell, without discussion, the kind of rhythm I'm about to head into. That's plenty of practice and also the same kind of love that makes my biological know exactly how I'll react to good or bad news.
My band mates and I share no mother or father, but we do share blood, because each of us have left it on a stage somewhere at some show, and that is a unity unrivaled by any other kind of friendship.
I have been with women, and I have tried drugs here and there, but nothing compares to the kind of high exhaustion that rushes like high-voltage power signals through the heart when I and my band hit that final chord of a song in perfect unison. Or we rock that transition from soft to hard chords with a well-licked drum roll and good scream into the microphone.
I always love my band mates, but I love them more when that happens. And we had the chance to do that over and again for two long sets this weekend, first at Planet Rock and then at the Corner Bar.
I have believed since I was 6 years old that music could save the world, and that happy, familial bond is just one reason why.
The American Birdbrains' "I Know a Place Where It's Raining":
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