esrever ni nevele enin: grandaddy elliott smith

grandaddy is playing tonight at a record store in brooklyn. a fucking record store. i think i read somewhere only 250 tickets. two hundred and fifty. and there i will be fourteen years after the last time i was in the same room with grandaddy at irving plaza october 4 2003. and tree was there too. seventeen days before elliott smith was found dead and there we were in irving standing in the back near the exit. ready to race out the door with the bridges and tunnels crowd. the rat race to the bridges and tunnels while grandaddy was performing their final new york encore although little did we know at the time. and there i was at irving the night before as it was back to back granddaddy sets in new york and the song names i scribbled in the dark with a black ball point pen on a folded four times piece of white printer paper because that is what i used to do back then. write down the set lists of all the shows i witnessed a sort of ritual or habit perhaps as i did not even think about it. i just did it in the dark with my eyes on the band writing shorthand because that is what i did. at every show i witnessed. and now the lists are all disregarded somewhere in a binder in a closet or maybe the attic or someplace we collected our pasts as we fucked and made babies and never looked back and never looked forward and never looked at all. period.

grandaddy at a fucking record store in brooklyn. records indeed i cherish records i long for records as i have been amassing a collection since those childhood days of neglected needles upon scratched skipping and broken records warped and abused by the destructive child ethan. but these days i can sit and stare at the records while they clockwise spin on the manual belt driven table turning. sit and stare for twenty something minutes then flip and cue and sit and stare for another twenty something minutes. just sit and stare and listen and absorb the vibrations of the needle on the etches and the sounds emanating through my ear drums triggering the neurons and synapses driving the perpetual mind machine occupying my decaying skull.

i was a different person the last time i was with grandaddy. it was four months after i witnessed elliott smith at north six. north six his final new york show before he was found dead with two stab wounds and a knife protruding from his chest merely a week after he scheduled to finish an album with producer crane in los angeles.

i was a different person then. i was not as jaded and bitter as i am now. i was not as disgusted and disappointed with the world at large bled dry as psychopathic humans murder and destroy effortlessly in the name of peace through imperial strength and phony missions accomplished photo ops on oversized aircraft carriers. it was 2003 and i was deep but not too deep into my nine eleven rabbit hole when i saw grandaddy and elliott smith both for the last time in new york my home away home. it was during the time i still believed they let it happen on purpose by taking advantage of so called blowback while citing intelligence failures for their lack of security and thus the catalyst for their act of blind patriotism designed to destroy civil liberties in the name of a new war on. a global preemptive war on. a global war on terrorism.

http://youtu.be/6jZ0_YUXO-I

and now these days i am so deep into nine eleven and associated acts that i am drowning in my own self constructed endless feedback loop deep in the bowels of the prison i self constructed in my mind. and grandaddy is playing tonight at a fucking record store in brooklyn and there i will be away from twitter and twittercide imminent but soft for now. away from the psychological operation owned and fueled by billionaire disney fanboy jack dorsey. there i will be in the record store surrounded by countless vinyls all the while absorbing grandaddy. surrounded by vinyls and bitter and jaded but content for a moment or two and a set list that i will scribble on a piece of printer paper folded into fours in the dark with my eyes on the band so i do not miss a beat because tonight there will be no bridges and tunnels between brooklyn's rough trade and home out on the island.

flashback to june 18 2001 at benaroya hall in seattle where grandaddy opened for elliott smith and together they performed grandaddy's he's simple he's dumb he's the pilot just one week after mcveigh was executed and nearly three months before nine eleven was executed.

http://youtu.be/6jZ0_YUXO-I

flashback to september 4 2012 at shepherd's bush empire in london where during their reunion tour encore grandaddy covered elliott smith's classic oh well okay.

http://youtu.be/PQ1p9-TA8qA

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