Comet Gain

I've started a lot of dead posts lately. One on harmonicas and their infinite uses, another on William Henry Pratt, otherwise known as Boris Karloff.

But kept running into dead ends. I felt like I was trying to affect something that I wasn't really feeling at the time. I researched Boris Karloff passionately on Sunday afternoon, but much of that passion (and the specifics that made that passion possible) have temporarily left. The harmonica bit felt too one-note, and I didn't really understand what my point was. Harmonicas are good? I think most people would agree with that.

During my glummery (invented word), I decided to pull out a few records that I haven't really listened to. One of those was Comet Gain's "Realistes." I bought this record on a whim, based both on the cool cover art and the idea of a patchquilt sort of indie-pop band; London guerillas with Rickenbackers.

I remember first listening to the album and thinking it was amateruish and forced. But tonight, something clicked. The lyrics and vocal mannerisms, which before I found cloyingly obvious, now seem charming and sweet. They are clearly in love with the Swingin' London sound, but also approach this era with a totally different, scrappy mindset. But what really hit me was this thought: "What right do I have to critique a band that is clearly in love with what it is doing?" They operate as a collective, have been a band for 17 years, and here I come along, some jerk from Georgia, thinking that I have the right to take a band's art and merely call it good or bad, filing it away for obscurity.

"Our mixtapes are memories for unseen histories," Comet Gain sing. This is the lyric that did me in. For me, every song that I have ever loved has a memory attached to it. Shared moments, intimate things. What Comet Gain embody best, for me at least, is the fun that a group of friends can have together. You put something together because you love it, and you let it be what it is without trying to gloss it up or make it more appealing to more people (There is, however, a difference between "glossing up" and "refining.").

I am aware that this post makes me seem a blaring sentamentalist. I cry in movies at the drop of the hat, and Kurt Vonnegut's short story "D.P." moves me terribly. I'm okay with that.

And for the three people who read this, I would love for you to post a song and a memory that is permantently attached to said song. Go!