We’ll Flash Forward to a Few Years Later…
…and no one knows except the BOTH OF USSSSS!!
Well, it happened.
As tends to be the case with our most beloved antiheroes, I’ve…uh, I’ve…lived long enough to see myself become the villain? Hm, no - that’s not quite what I mean. Let me try another one. I’ve…become what I always feared most? Closer, maybe.
I never wanted to be that blogger that promised you the world and then just quit updating his shit like he had something better to do; the guy whose attention span was so flighty that the whole “music thing” was really just a blip on his radar, his enthusiasm an atom bomb that went off and burned white hot for ten seconds and then dissipated as he ran off to chase other unicorns.
But here I am, crawling back to my blog after almost a year of radio silence. Hold the phone, though, because I think I can explain myself: I only started the blog to report on my own musical news. The blog never had any inherent value without anything to report on; not really, anyway. And, up until now, dear voracious, insatiable blog consumer, there simply hasn’t been all that much worth relaying your way!
In the last few months, though, between a series of live shows, the assembly of a full band, and an upcoming onslaught (an onslaught, goddammit!) of new music, that’s changed, and it seems high time somebody turned back on your IV drip of Wirelight news. I’m that somebody, friend, and here’s my news:
The Wirelight, once the output of a solo practitioner, now (sometimes? maybe permanently?) exists as a group effort. As you may or may not know, depending on how deep you’re diving into the Lewis Beard Wiki that’s probably/definitely out there on the internet somewhere, I moonlight as Duke Silver an auxiliary keyboardist/guitarist/vocalist for Quiet Hounds, an Atlanta-based powerhouse band, and they gifted me the opening slot for their headlining show at Eddie’s Attic in Decatur last Thursday. Rather than treat the audience to my usual solo set (Rolling Stone has called it “astonishingly acoustic”), I decided to pump some fresh blood into the mix as a sort of post-Covid treat to myself, so I assembled a collection of former-and-current bandmates from such well-regarded living and dead groups as brOasis, The District Attorneys, and ::gasp:: Stalking Louisiana (…that name hasn’t aged super well). Thus, with Lana Sims, Chris Wilson, Alec Wooden, and Drew Beskin on board, The Wirelight played a five-song set as a five-piece band for exactly nineteen minutes, and you know what? It felt pretty fuckin’ good.
Wait, wait - this pic reminds me of something. What is it, what is it…oh, that’s right. Of course. Battle of the Bands 2005, Davidson College.
There’s Lana, and there’s me. Still making music together seventeen years later, and my giant fit khakis are somehow fashionable again.
Anyway. One particularly notable feature of those nineteen minutes of raw, sensual musicality, at least to me: they did not feature a single song released prior to 2021. Most other shows I’ve played to date - maybe every single show, if I’m being honest - have included at least a few choice selections from my 2004-2012 output, and my god do those songs have long teeth (Ed: Are you trying to permute “long in the tooth”? Stop it.). I can’t guarantee that some of those golden oldies don’t sneak their way back into future setlists (the ravenous hordes will always demand their “Altitude”, assuming I can track down a portal to my dorm room in 2005), but it feels pretty good to introduce legitimately new material.
SPEAKING OF NEW MATERIAL.
::ahem::
Speaking of new material, The Wirelight’s sophomoric sophomore album is finished and ready to whizz out into the world like a frisbee (“CD” is probably a better simile but also seems way harder to catch). As soon as I can figure out my marketing strategy, which I’ve been dubiously assured must somehow incorporate TikTok, I’m gonna start throwing those frisbees atcha, so…like…get ready to catch ‘em. Before we get to the album, though, I’d like to bend your ear with a cover of a song that I can say with near absolute certainty you’ve heard before; even better, statistically speaking, you probably liked it. Here’s a hint: it has over 1.2 BILLION streams on Spotify. No deep cuts or B-sides for me.
So, yeah. I’ll do better with the regular posts here; you do your part with the whole “listening to Wirelight songs” thing; everybody’s happy. Deal? Deal.
PS: I still have vinyl available. It’s still megaturquoise.