Apropos of nothing…

Have to write this one quick before the moment (or courage) fades. It's possibly a bad idea, I can't help it, I'm caught up in the moment.

So this post has nothing to do with Jesus whatsoever, but The Twilight Singers have just put out their latest album Powder Burns, on Itunes, and I haven't been this happy in a LOOOOOONG time.

No, Greg Dulli has nothing to do with Jesus, and he probably holds contrary opinions on the whole God thing. But he makes me happy. His music makes me DANCE like a mothertrucker.

See, The Replacements got me through high school, but The Afghan Whigs got me through college. Ask anyone (especially the girls) who bought Gentlemen when it first came out. Such a Twisted But It Feels So Good album, perfect for the young masochistic writerchick continually falling for the wrong guy in college.

1969 is a perfect album that got me through the first years of living in L.A. It was during that time I even met Mr. Dulli once, at a party in the Hollywood Hills, in which I came off as a babbling idiot, and he came off as a patient person putting up with the babbling idiot who forgot me as soon as he left the kitchen. I don't blame him. I was truly witless.

Then the announcement that the Afghan Whigs were breaking up, and I thought my world was over. I thought it was me, actually, since as soon as I figured out The Replacements existed, they broke up (but I still got to see them in concert twice.)

But then Greg Dulli went on to form The Twilight Singers , which has formed the soundtrack to my years of living in L.A. And The Twilight Singers were exquisite, don't get me wrong. It was just a different kind of music. Not bad, just different. More mellow, more thoughtful. They had their rock out moments, but overall, the music was more contemplative, possibly of their own mortality, of their own maturity, or possibly I'm talking out of my ass. But whereas it's hard for me to get into Paul Westerberg's solo stuff post-Replacements and post- Eventually, I'm on Greg Dulli's side forever.

Because he put out his own solo album last year, which rocked old Afghan Whigs style. and now there's Powder Burns. Don't get me wrong, Mr. Dulli could probably burp the alphabet and I'd die a thousand times (because I’m a chick, and that’s the power he has over chicks.) But Powder Burns rocks my world.

Do you guys know what it's like to hear a song, a new song, that just makes you SOAR? That suddenly makes where ever you are the best place in the world, because you're hearing the song, everything else falls away, and it’s you just dancing in between the lines, caressing the melody, embracing the feeling, singing, belting, crooning, swooning along from the very bottom of your soul? That you didn’t even know where the bottom of your soul was, until Twilight Singers hits it with a song like “Forty Dollars.” And then you know. YOU KNOW.

And I don’t care. I don’t care that I’m a Christian, and Mr. Dulli probably isn’t, and his music is about less than pious things. Hell, I’m not exactly a pious chick myself, in case these blog entries haven’t clued you in. I love God. I love The Twilight Singers. I don’t care about the dichotomy.

This album makes me feel. It makes me dance. It makes me smile and smirk, it makes me move and groove. It makes me turn it up so loud that Roommates Heckle and Jekyll are annoyed, but I don’t care. Twilight Singers are worth the wrath of anyone.

I’ve seen Afghan Whigs/Twilight Singers more than a few times in concert, because I’m blessed enough to live in L.A. There are many stories to tell, maybe later. They’ll be coming back in June, and I’m gonna be there. I can’t wait.

And there really isn’t a point to this entry, other than trying to channel my exuberance at the fact that there’s a new album. And I am happy. Happier than I’ve been in a long long time. Over something secular. I’m in touch with a moment, with a feeling, and trying to make a connection with ANYTHING has seemed so alien these days. And I’m here. And I’m listening to this music, and it gives me hope. Not for anything in particular, but just as a reminder that it’s possible to know what HOPE feels like. I didn’t get it from God, unless God’s trying to reach me through the music, which seems twisted enough to satisfy both Mr. Dulli AND the Almighty.

This is what hope feels like. It feels like happy. This is what happy feels like. It feels like hope. And it’s got killer guitars all over it.