I Love Beards! Yes, Beards!

To all of the places that I have known. To all of the places that I have known. To all of the places that I have known. To all of the places that I have known!

I have this visualization of my best friend sitting in first chair next to her rival saxophone player, the heavy brass instrument hanging beside her. He only got to be first chair about twice during middle school, because everyday after school she was forced to practice for two hours to keep that chair. To keep that passion of music. And then when high school came she divided her time between drama after school and marching band before. After graduating from college she moved to New York City and then L.A. to pursue a career in acting. She left that saxophone in her parents house in Virginia.

About a month or two ago when she finally gave up her dreams of being an actress, she started a music blog (it's linked underneath my faded beach picture, selectbypush) and started writing music reviews for popmatters.com. She also got an internship at a record label to really start getting into the business. Her blog is all about the bands that are going to be at Coachella, where we are meeting in a couple of days.

I don't feel like she's really giving anything up, actually. And for her, music never really went away. She's just rediscovering her passion for it. She's brought out that old saxophone and she's finally starting to play it in front of people.

It is called Bunkerhill Saloon and it's on the outskirts of downtown old Vegas. It's basically on a street of apartment complexes and I think as we pull up that we could discover another side of Vegas tonight. When we walk in the opening band is still playing and a couple people are dancing at this old bar and I see beards and flannel shirts and I think: this really could be something. I'm immediately in North Carolina, but this lasts about twenty minutes.

By the time Akron/Family sets up their equipment themselves, half the crowd is drunk or has left. There's about ten of us who are really interested in what's going on and as they begin to play some ass hole by the bar yells: "you suck!" The bass player gladly dedicates their set to him before the second song. It's just three of them, and they are loud, folk, electric, and amazing. I think I'll leave the music writing to my best friend and my roommate, but it truly was one of the best shows I've ever been to. It was seven bucks, a couple of PBR's, and a reminder of how important music is to me in my life.

After the show we tell them what a great job they did, my roommate buys a t-shirt and we say we'll see them at Coachella this weekend. Thursday night we are heading out to the campground after my roommate gets off of work. I was going to go into work an hour early today to get the schedule ready for when our manager gets back into town. We've had a couple of people quit recently, so I've already got to adjust the schedule accordingly. I'll never really know what makes people tick or how people find what they are passionate about, but I feel like something is tilting in my life, spilling over.

I'm already late sitting here writing this blog. I think I'll stay and keep listening to music with my patio door open. I think I'll go into work when I'm supposed to and know that I can get it done later. For right now, I just want to hang out and enjoy some music and think about this weekend...