seein’ nothin’ but blue and gray

Nos­talgia for a place I’ve never been. Regret over the end of a rela­tion­ship that I was never in. Ever had a film, book, or song give you that feeling? It’s a rare thing, dis­con­certing in a way that’s dif­fi­cult to define, yet a feeling I’ll always seek again. It’s hard to explain, but let me try, using a pair of examples.

Best Coast — “Over the Ocean”

I was flying away from a place where I could have hap­pily spent the rest of my life. I remember looking out the window, thinking I can’t believe I’m leaving. Thinking about the places and people I was leaving behind. The man next to me snored in his seat, a con­stant buzz in my ear. The plane lurched in the air occa­sion­ally, in an almost lazy fashion, as if it wasn’t any more eager to reach its des­ti­na­tion than I was. The ocean was spread out far below, fea­ture­less in all direc­tions as far as I could see. I think I’ve never felt so alone. What awaited me? Why did I leave? Could I ever be that happy any­where else? I remember looking out the window, seeing nothing but blue and gray.

Best Coast — “Sun Was High (So Was I)”

It’s like those dreams I have some­times, where I finally find the one person who’s per­fect for me, the one I can under­stand com­pletely, the one who under­stands me. Of course, it never lasts, because I inevitably wake up, grasping for the rapidly fading images and mem­o­ries. But today I real­ized I’m in one of these dreams right now, and it doesn’t have to end. It was a rev­e­la­tion; I’m not sure what else I could call it. I laid back, watching the clouds go by, my mind just fuzzy noth­ing­ness, without focus or def­i­n­i­tion. But one thought stayed in my mind, one thing cap­tured my atten­tion, like a single object glinting in the sun­light as it floated on an end­less ocean. I thought of you.

Best Coast is one of those bands where I really like a few of their songs but feel pretty much ambiva­lent about the rest. Even so, I find that lis­tening to their EPs and sin­gles one after another makes for per­fect music for all the long drives I’ve had lately. They’ve got an album out later this year, which I’m really hoping will take the same direc­tion as the above two songs. If so, I’ll be writing about this band again when it’s released. In the mean­time, they’ve got a new video out for their single “When I’m With You” that I can show you.

So, folks, with Vivian Girls, Dum Dum Girls, and now Best Coast, I’m pretty sure I’ve com­pleted some kind of posting tri­fecta. I really like what these bands are doing, their sort of fuzzy, less offen­sive ver­sion of the noise I usu­ally enjoy in music. If you like any of these three bands, then def­i­nitely give the other two a try.

Best Coast are signed to Group Tight­ener, but their releases seem to be sold out there and on Amazon, so I will instead refer you to iTunes because, hap­pily, they never seem to run out of 1s and 0s. Enjoy!