Annie’s Indies: St. Paul and the Broken Bones

Like all of us I have found music to be a huge comfort and release in my life. Often I find it is able to express the things I cannot. Recently I started guest blogging on my good friend’s music blog, Why it Matters. Mostly I will be photographing and reviewing live shows in and around the Los Angeles area. If you’re interested in adding new music to your own life playlist come check it out.

James Stafford of Why it Matters also has an array of music related stories from bad album covers, playlists, and his own creative non-fiction stories of how music has influenced his life, so when you visit click around.

Why It Matters

 

I never thought I could fall head over heels in love with a band from a 6 second video, but then my tastemaker friend Daniel Jackson (@ListenYoungMan) posted this on Vine. The clip shows a young Dana Carvey looking Southern guy dressed in a suit, kneeling down on stage and wailing out a soul wrenching song that gave me chills. From that that first moment I saw St. Paul and the Broken Bones I scoured the internet looking for anything I could find about them.

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Boys and their Toys

It’s a rare moment that I am alone with my 8-year-old son. We are sitting in a long line of cars in the Starbucks drive-thru, having a lovely Sunday morning chat, when he says, “Sometimes in the shower my penis gets really big…and…um…hard.” Ok, my escape plan is to ditch the car and run until I can’t run anymore and then hide for the next 15 years or so.

9 to 5

Slicked hair gleamed under the dim elevator lights and the soft smell of bar soap filled the air like a fog. Too many shiny black shoes, black slacks, belts, shoulder-widening jackets, and crisp blue shirts with ties to count. The heavy doors shut and the buttons, like a tree of lights, lit up as floors were selected. Ours was 22. I looked down again at my skirt, flattening it with my clammy palms. I checked my shoes for dust, quietly clicking the patented leather toes when I saw none. At our floor, the elevator rang and we exited to smiles and winks.

Chicken Dinner

I sat daydreaming again about my escape to far off places beyond the “walls” of my life. I knew one day I would get away and find a quieter life in a city. It didn’t make any sense because I already lived a quiet life on a country road in a town of 12,000. But at home things were anything but quiet.

They Were Gods

The car leaned hard left around the turn and shook me in my seat as we hit a pothole. We were speeding down Dog Bar Road, a twisty jumble of chip and seal that was more pot hole obstacle course than road. He sat up front in the modified 4-Runner that had the entire roof cut off and a roll bar installed for 4×4-ing, which is in essence what driving on roads in our town equated to. The hoodie and jacket he wore couldn’t hide the ripped arms and shoulders that lay beneath.

Utility Tool for the Woman

Sixth grade is when my school district deemed it was time for us kids to start dressing down for PE. On that first day, our gym teacher Mrs. Iesha (looking exactly like a gym teacher) walked all of us girls into the compact room to the left of the gym.

The Fiddler Made Me Lie

It began with “hallelujah” and “praise Jesus” as my Mother tried to coax us awake. When we wouldn’t emerge, she would resort to more extreme measures, the praise music cranked up to top volume.  I pulled the covers tight around my head in a failed attempt to mute the noise.