Without Music, Life Would Be a Mistake

Friedrich Nietzsche wrote that, in the 1880s, shortly before succumbing to syphilis, manic depression, an hereditary stroke disorder, or something else that manifested with an abrupt collapse in a public square and left him mentally incapacitated for the last ten years of his life.  He was 44 at the time of the collapse, and not widely read, but what he accomplished between 20 or so and 44 made him one of the most influential thinkers in human history.  He was, I contend, correct in his aphorism about music.


looking back to March 2016:
I listen to digital music at home, and I occasionally hear some beautiful, mostly a capella singing from youth choirs, street-corner choirs or Gideon.  Taxis and private hikes usually have music playing from a flash drive or the radio -- Jimi Hendrix once (the driver didn't know him; it was just the radio selection), Adele a few times, African rap often, lots of gospel of various provenances, and frequent doses of electronica/dance stuff.  The skydivers introduced me to Swakopmund's Desert Tavern, which had a good acoustic guitarist playing and singing covers, and a dance club that had two guys playing electric guitars (one flying-V) against a drum machine.  But a truly live band... oh, a live band.

In late March 2016, it had been almost one year since I had seen a live band.  I saw Houndmouth in Philadelphia on 4 April in 2015.  They are great.  I think that was the last full band I'd seen when I noticed, somewhere, an announcement that a four-piece, electric band would be playing that Desert Tavern on Easter Saturday.  There was, of course, a very real possibility that they would be disastrously bad -- that is always a very real possibility with an unknown band.  But I liked their looks, and the name The Fate of Ms H, and I had a yearning and enough frequent-flyer miles to book a free hotel room, so I headed for the big city with a song in my heart.

First I stopped at the COSDEF Center, where PCV S. works.  They were having an Easter festival, and S. was hula-hooping in celebration.  I watched awestruck and then bought a powerful ostrich-shell necklace.

I am a complete incompetent with a hula-hoop, but S. is great.  She's also a
former competitive diver, which I guess means she knows how to twist.

With my new necklace for back-up (this makes no sense in writing, does it?  But in my head, it's spot on), I stepped along to the Tavern around sunset.  Stepping involved tucking my skirt up and splashing through the edge of the Atlantic, which at one point got a bit playful, tried to pin me against some rocks and knocked my reading glasses into the surf.  Oh, ocean.  We have such fun together.

Fortunately I didn't need to read the tavern menu, because I remembered the veggie pizza is called the Popeye, and their drinks all stink so may as well just order a Savanna Dry.  I had seen the band photo, so I could i.d. the lead singer futzing around near the stage, and she looked kind of fun and low-key.  Soon enough she stepped up onto the stage with an acoustic guitar and announced that she'd do a few songs solo, and then the three others would join her, and oh, yes, her name is Heather and she grew up in Swakop.  She's got a great voice -- covered Four Non-Blondes and Tracy Chapman with aplomb -- and admirable stage presence.  She did an original, by audience request, that she laughed was 'dirty' or something like that.  It was good.  The lyric seemed to involve lusting for a woman in a taxi, but I very often get lyrics really wrong.

Ms H moves among her people

Real band.  Seven months later, my heart lifts just seeing this lousy photo.

The full band was well worth the $30 cover.  The bass player was shiny blond (and talented, thank you), the guitarist tastefully understated, the drummer strong.  Every now and again they'd get silly and strike guitar-heroic poses, which seemed to me very obviously tongue-in-cheek and great fun.  They did mostly covers, but again a few originals that showed promise.  And no drum machine.

One of the interesting things, for me, was the audience.  It was, like, Hipster Swakop or something, which I had not seen before.  I suppose, since most of my Swakop time is Saturday afternoons in the Shop Rite, I couldn't really expect to catch the hipsters en masse.  But they were fun to see.  I wonder where they congregate the 300-plus nights per year that there's no live music worth the cover.

There's a poster at Milk Boy in Philadelphia that delineates the similarities
between hipsters and hamsters.  I think it's kind of funny.

So I danced through the Fates and Ms H's two sets, and was so sorry to be turfed into the night, music-less (bar the beating of my heart and pulsing of my cells etc.).  As I walked away from the club, a young-ish (30?) man with gauges or plugs or whatever in his earlobes loped up to me, saying, "Sorry.  I just.  I wanted to ask.  How old are you?"  I stopped, answered truthfully (rounding is still truth) and watched him droop.  "Oh.  I just wanted to know," he said.  "I got that," I assured him, and walked away.  The Fate of Ms H (sometimes she is Miss and sometimes Ms; Miss on Facebook if you want to look them up) has not been back since.  I wish they would.

On the way back to the hotel I saw this kit-cat.  Pretty.