“One Note” by Vanessa Weibler Paris

The band’s name is Jim-Bob and the Waltons, and they don’t start until 10.  I get there an hour early, like always.  The non-smoking bar is filled with smoke and everyone there is there alone, staking out a stool or corner. My draft beer comes half-foam and the bartender promises the second’s free.  I sip it in my usual spot, equidistant between speakers, and lick the salt off peanut shells, return them to the scratched wooden bowl unbroken.

Jim-Bob and the Waltons: It’s a twee, cheesy name for a twee, cheesy band.  I don’t like twee and I don’t like cheesy, but I’ll give it a chance.  I give them all a chance.

I’ve seen Jack Off and the Jizz (acid punk).  I’ve sat through Cathy Cumulus and her Clouds of Pain (blues with added angst) and endured Double D Battery Drawer (rockabilly). I’ve seen bands bland as Flour and Pillow, obscure as Dusty Roosevelt Muffins and murky as Run Maria from Mo Tiffin.

Trying. Hoping.

None make it happen.

I’ve got the clipping in my pocket, smeared dying newsprint, too many adjectives and too few details, an intern with a backstage pass and Alternative Press subscription: “…delicate, introspective and meandering…fleeting moments reflect the understatement of its style.”  Like a fucking chapbook.  Not a band.

You remember bands?  Real bands?  I bought my first cassette, matching poster for the wall, and listened to Side 2 day and night until the slippery brown strip sucked into the gnawing gears one last time, stretched and skinnied and broke.

My first slow dance was a song that wove inside me and went straight to my center, pushing out of my skin as I pushed my body into Joanne’s.

I had my first kiss to the Doors, got my first hand job to Zeppelin, lost my virginity to Pink Floyd.  I was hungry and porous; the music saturated me, made me.  I’m the boy who is Lou Reed’s girl whose life was saved by rock and roll.  And now, I’m the man who was that boy.  But the notes are gone.

The old stuff has gone stale.  “Train in Vain” has slowed, “More Than a Feeling” is less.

Remember those days, those moments?  “Fast Car” on a post-breakup all-night drive; “Life is a Highway” on a college road trip.  The songs more than the moments or conversations, more than the people.  Now Death Cab sounds like Snow Patrol sounds like Interpol.

Tomorrow night’s headliner is Haunted Mantra, “a rock band that incorporates a bit of everything that is good,” and the opening act is Stars and Tripe, “simmering with sighs of relief.”

No wonder they can’t make good music any more.  They can’t even describe good music.  Everything is cobbled together on deadline, ripped from the pages of a thesaurus, plagiarized from fashion show or wine bottle or souffle: clean lines, smooth nutty reminiscence, light and airy and almost boozy.

But someday I’ll find it.  I’ll buy CDs and download MP3s and see shows like these, and I’ll find it.  A band.  A song.  A note.  One note that’ll make me feel.

Jim-Bob and the Waltons are starting their first song.  I get a beer, half foam, smell the smoke and listen.  I wait – for a chord to stab me or a tone to brain me or a blank spot to gut me – and listen.

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Vanessa Paris’ work has appeared or is forthcoming in Pindeldyboz, Eclectica, Menu 971, The Other Room and other publications