Context – catching my breath

Today has been a day of stress and running around, the culmination of weeks of planning.  Today we stick the landing.

I think we did ok.  A couple of notes for future events, but overall a success.  I’ll drink to that tonight (but only a little, I have to drive home).

I was going to find some balls-to-the-walls metal to help funnel my lingering anxiety into something that wasn’t work, but after not really finding anything that jumped out at me I remembered my morning record was The Lawrence Arms’ fantastic record, The Greatest Story Ever Told.  This album was given to me as a gift from my brother-in-law, and it’s found steady rotation ever since whenever-that-was.  It quickly became a favorite of mine, just some good old fashioned earnest punk.  Sometimes pop-punk, sometimes a little indie, but mostly just everything I love about my city’s scene wrapped up in a neat little bow.

So given how much adoration I have for that album, it’s always struck me as odd that I never dug deeper into their discography.  So today we rectify that!

Oh! Calcutta! is a rad fucking album.  It’s hard to compare to The Greatest Story Ever Told since it’s such an ambitious piece of punk and I love it so, but this is really good.  Just in your face, but in a pleasant way, punk rawk.  These dudes mean it, although I’m not always sure what “it” is.

All 12 tracks are phenom, as in enal.  Phenomenal.  Just had to make sure I was spelling my abbreviations correctly.  I suppose that defeats the point, but my brain is tired and I don’t care.

The Lawrence Arms help, though.  I’m all jacked up on life and shit now.