Sinister: clear spot

[stacey dahling]

lordy lordy
two posts in just as many days!
can anyone tell i'm procrastinating in a huge way? indeed. it's horrid.
today i made a pact with myself NOT to go into #sinister until i complete 
some work on this monster article i'm writing about a basketball team that 
dicked me over in the worst way. i have to put on my rosy-tinted glasses as 
i write, however, which makes me growl and mutter horrendous things to 
myself as i pace in my pajamas and curse the outside world as i try to find 
something other than rotting grapes in my empty kitchen. i console myself 
with the fact that after it is printed i will be able to write a note to 
some administrators and get an asshole fired. or at least reprimanded. yes.
i'm not really a bitch, i swear. but sometimes a girl has to kick some ass, 
you know?
ANYWAY...
now that i've gotten COMPLETELY off topic here...
RACHEL GRAPES DEAR! welcome!
and max too i suppose :) and everyone else in nursery or lurking in the 
shadows reading this shite.
thank you for rising above this strokes debate and mentioning my second 
favorite band ever - THE PERNICE BROTHERS! *sigh*
(ed: warning! long pernice brothers tirade to follow, then some actual b&s 
content...)
i actually believe it was someone from this very list here who turned me on 
to the pernice brothers a few years ago. i bought overcome by happiness on a 
whim, thinking other belle and sebastian fans in the know just cannot be 
wrong!, and i quickly added it to my small list of "albums i can listen to 
all the way through and ot get sick of" otherwise known as my desert island 
list. also on the list, of course, is if you're feeling sinister, portola, 
rushmore, classic sinatra, the source hits from the vault volume 1: the 
pioneers, and some heavenly album i have only on tape and can never remember 
the name of.
anyway... after putting "all i know" on repeat for hours while sulking the 
summer away waiting to move from greece to rhode island to northampton, MA, 
i ran into my Great Indie Friend Mike, who casually informed me that mr. joe 
pernice LIVES DOWN THE STREET FROM MY NEW NORTHAMPTON APARTMENT and that he 
would be performing that weekend next door. so i moved in a few days early. 
i stayed for TWO DAYS in an apartment with no electricity or hot water, just 
so i could see the pernice brothers. sacrifice. worth it!
they opened for some shit band i cannot remember at this overpriced club 
downtown. i was THE only fan there. it was heavenly, despite the couple who 
talked through almost the entire set. afterwards i shyly approached joe and 
local-celebrity-of-sorts thom monahan and said hello. mmmm.
it was later learned that joe worked directly across the street from my 
apartment in a music store. mike taunted me continously about how my joe 
pernice stalking was going, but in truth i was way too shy to attempt any 
stalking. see, this wasn't a cd store or anything this was a store for 
musical instruments, and i wouldn't even know how to begin walking in and 
casually browsing.
truth is, joe pernice is a BIG DORK. actually, a rather short dork, of the 
stephen merritt variety. he's not that attractive really, and my strange 
obsession had nothing to do with attraction of any sort. i do not fancy joe 
pernice is what i'm trying to say here. but he's achieved this odd 
sturan-type status.
as i continued to live and work in northampton, i got to know almost 
everyone in the local music scene. i befriended michelle, a drummer in a 
fantastic local band, king radio, whose husband, frank, was in the scud 
mountain boys, joe's previous wonderful band, and who is still a close 
friend. i got to know every other member of the pernice brothers, and i know 
every other supporting cast member of all joe's side projects. but i still 
CANNOT talk to joe.
i think joe performs more in australia and the uk than he does in his own 
home town. this is because he is afraid of all the old hard-core scud 
mountain boys fans who are still bitter that the band broke up and blame him 
for it. he's afraid no one will show up at his shows, which is just silly, 
as they are aways packed on the rare times he takes the stage.
at one performance, he was sitting alone, mournfully scanning the crowd, 
nursing a beer in obvious boredom. i decided to make my move. ha! i can 
easily talk to criminals, rapists, perverts, cops, judges, politicians, 
child-molesting psychologists. but five minutes with a dorky rock god is 
TORTURE. i have no idea what we talked about, but it was so awkward and 
forced. i think the topic i chose was australia. yup. dork. but he was very 
nice.
right before i left to come to greece, like, a few nights before my flight, 
i went to a final show in northampton. it was a pernice brothers show. i was 
there with michelle, and we were quite popular. everyone came over to say 
goodbye to me, including a keyboarder and tambourine player from the pernice 
players. we hung out with joe's new girlfriend, a gorgeous tall, slim thing 
from nyc. joe stood with us, smiling at me, and i just stared like a fool.
how does this happen???
anyway
i am soooo sorry! i was intending this to be my very first short sinister 
post and i have just rambled on for 10 minutes about my really dorky 
obsession with a northampton band. egads!
what i meant to say was:
RACHEL, overcome by happiness is a super fantastic album!!! and if you like 
it, you should get "massachusetts" by the scud mountain boys. (their other 
albums are a bit alt-country). joe also released albums as big tobacco and 
chipaquiddick skyline.
that's all.
since i've come this far, i might as well add something b&s related.
my favorite B&S album is if you're feeling sinister, and more and more 
lately it has become woven with greece for me. it's very odd. it all started 
in 1997, when i was on a plane by myself, setting off on the biggest 
adventure of my life, finally leaving behind everything i knew and hated and 
loved. my restless soul had been pulling me away for a long time and "get me 
away from here, i'm dying" had become my one-song soundtrack. as it played 
in my headphones with the plane ascending from logan airport, it never rang 
truer. it was a Moment. my apartment in athens was situated near a 
monastery, hospital, two archaeological schools, and an elementary school 
and as i walked under fragrant lemon trees in my new foreign home, i could 
hear the ringing of school children nearby and it reminded me of the opening 
of if you're feeling sinister. it put me instantly at ease. now, four years 
later, i'm back here, my back balcony overlooking a school yard where 
piercingly loud children gather all day long to scream and wake me up and 
distract me. it makes me feel a bit sinister, but in the very best way. when 
i was being restless in massachusetts, b&s to me represented this liberating 
foreign ideal place and state of mind. in some ways, i've tried to reproduce 
it in athens, but it's failing me at the moment.
in less than a week's time, i will be in london and a few days after that in 
edinburgh and glasgow and leeds and sheffield and... i really can't wait. i 
will be with other sinister people, which seems at the same time wonderful 
and scary.
have you ever tried to explain the sinister phenomenon to someone? isn't it 
difficult to describe what makes it special and ok and not scary and full of 
perverts and strangers? we don't feel like strangers do we?  why? it's so 
weird. i can't understand why i feel the absolute need to spend lots of 
money to go meet a bunch of near strangers. they don't feel like strangers 
to me, they feel like friends. and the few sinisterines i have met have been 
almost instant friends. what is it about this band that makes nearly all its 
fans so gosh-darned compatible with each other? why do i spend hours bearing 
my soul to someone i've never met in daily 50K+ emails, but haven't written 
my friends back home in two months?
there's so much i want to say, but i've already said too much. argh. 
verbosity.
i've been thinking an awful lot about fate recently. it scares me, but is 
also oddly comforting. i have begun to think that fate had a lot to do with 
why i am sitting on a bed in a room in a brothel district in athens, and 
i've been feeling recently that i am ready to just resign myself to fate, 
but that feels a little bit like giving up. someone sinister also posed a 
simple yet way-too-complex question to me recently: what do you want? and i 
can't answer it! do i want people, places, a career, a future, freedom, 
stability, stories to tell the kids, kids? why am i still restless? who do i 
love? who loves me? who am i?
it's tough being human, isn't it?
ok, get me away from here i'm dying just came on and i want to cry! this 
whole album makes me want to cry. why oh why?
at the final moment i cried, i always cry at endings...
yes.
on that note i should really end this now and get to work on the stupid 
goddamn article. grrrr...
thanks to joanna darling for an absolutely fabulous night that i still smile 
about and for your super-kind words (happy and pleasant? me? oh dear). and 
to paul, nicholas, dafyd, will, maddie, ally, calumn, gavin, sweetie, 
richard, vic, honey, jeremy, ken, kev and stoo: i absolutely cannot wait to 
lavish you with cigarettes and ouzo and cheesy postcards, give you all 
bone-breaking hugs and maybe a few kisses, and drink so much i cry and tell 
you embarassing secrets.
and warning: i plan to take lots of pictures of my obsession, which is you.
to the rest of you: hello. be good. and um.. twinkies.

MWAH!
~dahling

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