Say Hello 2 Heaven - Fresh Tendrils's Blog

Fresh Tendrils's Blog

Say Hello 2 Heaven

Posted on September 22, 2010 at 08:54 PM.

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When was the last time you actually spent quality time with your favorite album? And I mean quality time, not just having it playing in the background while you read, clean, have sex, or balance the check book. One hundred percent quality, sit-your-***-down and focus on the music. Melt into whatever it is you're sitting or laying on. Let the music absorb into you like smoke coming off fire, each piece of the music with its own flame, burning red, yellow, blue, and green. Feel it transform from simple noise into an energy, a force that you believe in your soul to be tangible because you can feel it prickling up and down the skin of your arms and waltzing up your spine. Something that is both familiar and new, enjoying the time together like you would with a long-time friend and still learn new secrets and hear new stories. Grade A quality time.

Early rock music and its intertwining car culture got it right - music and cars just go together like ice-cream and pie. Perhaps its my romanticism for pop culture tradition, but there is no better place to listen to music then in the car. Its my own world in that tin can box on wheels. No pressures. No recent regrets. I am King and Judge and Casanova here in my car with music pumping vigorously out of the stereo while I've melted to the driver's seat, sitting behind the wheel and letting the music be my energy for the drive. There is an almost spiritual connection between man, machine, music and this world that exists solely for this experience. Normal day driving, however, is not adequate for this type of experience. By far the best time to take a drive with your favorite album is middle of the night, no cars on the road, and its just you with your essentials: ID, keys, enough clothing to not be arrested, and music. No cell-phones. No phony mp3 players. Nobody else.

With a full moon at its apex in the night sky and the late night blurring itself into early morning, the once familiar landscapes and roads become almost alien. It is not familiar, yet it somehow feels welcoming, refreshing, and warm and in that aspect it becomes familiar again. As the moon slowly creeps in and around the clouds, filtering its light through with specific intensity, I catch a sleep deprivation buzz that allows my universe to drift down around me like fog and transform everything around me. The music itself drowns out the sounds of rubber tire and asphalt hitting and pushing against each other. The focus on the music so intent and my universe gradually changing the nighttime surroundings that without that sound I feel like I'm in a spaceship gliding along a space city highway. The black asphalt blending in with the darkness around my headlights to the point that is almost disappears completely and I am literally flying down this space road now. The air that rushes around and pushes past my open windows combines with the full force blast of the cockpit's air vents to create a buffer of sound that, in actuality, is very similar to the sound of silence, and it restrains the music inside the vehicle, making it louder and more vivid.

The music comes crashing towards me like waves and I swear on my soul that I can actually feel the music coming at me with varying intensity, like puffs of air. Each entity sending out its own wave of air, sending the hairs on my body back into a potential free-fall that is only saved from their death-like grip to me. Then when each part combines a big block of air shoots off at me like a brick wall and I feel like I'm bursting through something weightless. The vocals come out of the speakers and I can see the words float out with them and around the car into my ears. The guitars play a game of hug-and-push-away, mixing together for a beat before distancing themselves and continuing this way like long time, on and off lovers. The bass and drums coming together to form a base for the launch of the music pushing it off and out of the speakers into flight around the car before entering my ears. The music as a whole transforming its energy slightly with each word, each chord, each beat, and each cymbal crash.

Still gliding down the space city highway, each landmark that is so plain and ordinary in the real-world is now new and transforms into a beautiful, heavenly mystery in my universe. Surroundings cannot be fairly judged just by what is seen during the light of day - that's only half of it. Things that we mistake for normal and unassuming during the day morph into something celestial. The local airport, with its runway lights, boundary markers, and empty, silent and motionless aircraft somehow turns into a scene of heavenly, nighttime beauty as it softly lights up on the side of the road. The moon itself filters and bounces its light through and off of the fields and lawns, making glowing patches of white moonlight laid out beside me. Something so plain in the daylight such as grass and grazing fields grow into floor tiles of heaven in the light of the moon. That is really what it is about. Spending enough time with it to pick up on the nuances, the changes, feeling everything move, and transform everything ordinary into supernatural beings in the heart of the night.

Spending this time with my favorite album fashions the same results. The Temple of the Dog album is an album I hold above everything else. It is the quintessential musical experience for me. The perfect mix of raw emotions, power, beauty, and grace. Floating along the highway, focusing on this music is an extraterrestrial experience. It takes me completely out of the world and launches me far above it. The words acting as both a eulogy for deceased singer Andy Wood and a call to live life fully. Chris Cornell's vocals going across such a great range that I am simply and utterly awe-struck; his power simultaneously cloaked with beauty and grace and enough emotion that it is gut-wrenching and misty eyed. The whole album is a tour de force and a showcase of vocal ability that is somehow matched by the instrumentation. The guitars shadowing Cornell's ability to be powerful and beautiful, graceful and raw. There is as much emotion in each rhythm, each lead riff and solo as there are contained in the lyrics. Every bass line is a warm hug from a close friend. Each drum beat and every crash of the cymbal alternate between clapping for life and thrashing around in a subtle angst against death. Every song, every element walking that line between sadness for death and celebration of life. These things click into place and become clear as day, lighting my eyes up like sparklers, igniting a connection from left brain to the right. All of this culminates in one moment. A moment where everything is flawless. A moment that pushes me further into my seat. Puts out so much energy that I'm almost freezer burnt and simply sit there in admiration and awe-struck stupidity. Call Me A Dog. 3:33 mark. The final lines of the last verse. The buildup and resulting climax of Cornell's angelic banshee wailing being shadowed by McCready's solo like a tightly knit call-and-response between life and death.

That moment, that otherworldly experience makes the drive and time spent absolutely worth it. Its like hitting my very own reset button, making whatever has been clinging to my every thought simply crumble away into oblivion. Its a renewed friendship with an old friend and discovering something new in something that is old and familiar. At the end of it, I can faintly smell the music. A hint of ethereal smoke lingering in the air. I am baptized in it and I can feel it fill my soul. That is quality time and time well spent.