Sound Words: White Denim Not Blue
“Bubbling water popping in the air like one-sided kisses”
I know I went to some sort of Cajun/zydeco/blues/grass fest at least once. One time where dad brought me to one of those super free-form spring or summer cookout jams, up in the hills or something, Strawberry Creek something or other. The memory is pretty fuzzy to be sure, all sweet steam rising from behind a bunch of food-piled picnic tables and a dozen guitar-based bands all putting it down on the same small stage.
Obviously, nowadays there's like a whole gauntlet of summer festivals shunting commercials and advertising and price gouging between music and food and fun and all the people who like those things. But that one memory...
It still feels so honest to me, nothing mattered beyond the immediate surroundings, tucked into a valley, a creek running through the backdrop. A bright blue sky still shrugging off those late season clouds. The meadow grass, pressed down in soft outlines of feet, buzzing back to form, only to be quilt covered again. Heavy blankets and afghans, all manner of textiles. Crisscrossing patterns fabrics and lines. Kids dancing in front of the stage, the breeze through their hair matching the pulse of whatever collection of jugs and washboards were amassed by whichever collection of down-from-the-mountain type musicians were jamming on them. All the guitars were steel ones. All the harmonicas chromatic. All the blues did not feel like blues.
And the food. Oh the food! Great piles of crawdads, cooked crimson, scooped right out of the boiler. Bubbling water popping in the air like one-sided kisses, finger picked steel glowing open tones. A half-cob of corn, butter glistened and golden, vying color for color with the moist insides of a square of cornbread. All sliding around on the paper plate. Mixing like silk chords flying from the guitar strings, or scaled strands off the corn husks, shucks. Whatever they're called.
What I'm saying is, it all just felt relaxed, natural, right. Like good vibes could be steamed right besides crawdads and hot guitar licks. Like who knew thimbles were instruments. Like do we really have to be sold our good times?
I still go to festivals but they only feel good when in the familiar context of that memory. White Denim's Corsicana Lemonade feels all kinds of familiar, and the memories are good, like they must've been in that same place, so they didn't need to sell me anything 'cause it just felt right. Good times okay. Still, though, a plate full of crawdads and half an ear of corn wouldn't hurt either.
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