Falling Slowly

I'm listening to The Swell Season - their album, from start to finish, and maybe for the fourth time this month. Its unsurprising turn of events, given my recent (and all too fleeting) brush with fame at St.Kilda's Palais Theatre. Stuck to my noticeboard is a ticket stub, perhaps one among few I genuinely prize. The noticeboard is a record of things I've seen. Places I've been. And, I suppose, a testament to how much I've truly devoted my adolescence to music. And I have, in mind, soul - and I'd be ignorant to neglect the body. My feet have ached to the bone from The Corner to The Forum, from Festival Hall to the Hi Fi. And these stubs are, I suppose, eternal proof of my everlasting love affair with so many sounds of so many genres over the years. This particular stub has scrawled upon it the signature of Glen Hansard, frontman of Irish-sensations The Frames, and one-half of The Swell Season. As you might expect, its more, then, than just a stub. But then, in reality, its also more than a signature. Its a symbol of something much greater.

A standing ovation. Hell - two or three standing ovations. A stalwart memory from The Swell Season's 'stoundingly brilliant two-and-a-bit hour set at The Palais, should I lose all else from the evening. Unfortunately, however, it was over, and the adoring crowd began to file out of the theatre, forever awe-struck. I knew I was. Rachael and her sister were practically beaming. Hayden mustered about as much emotion as I've ever seen in the entire time that I've known him. The line out was long, and it felt futile to encapsulate the quality of their set in words. It was then that I turned from my friends gushing praise to notice Mit and Nicko at the foot of the antique-ancient Palais stage. Set-list scavengers? Or something more? Again - and as was my way with Ryan's circle - I decided to investigate.
As I approached, I've no doubt I filed through the same sets of thoughts and emotions and patterns I so often do. And each of which are simply matters of acceptance. Or perhaps, beneath it all, questions of confidence. They had it. I didn't. I still don't. I have a blog. Is it that they're older? No. Mit, at least, is barely older than me. In any case, they were cool, and as a twenty-year-old with too many questions, and rarely an answer, I always thought it nice to know just how one arrives at the point in which they can live with themselves, despite even the most grave cases of self-doubt. When they invited me for gelati, I followed like a little lost puppy. When I knew I needed the last tram, and that it would arrive any minute, I stuck around anyway. The extent of my juvenile fascination is far from lost on me. But then, it was this very thing that drove me to follow them back to the car, and in doing so, toward the side of the Palais - toward a charming, genuine character in Glen Hansard. It was, effectively, what landed me the prized stub.

I think its because I'm the little brother. Is it normal? I have no idea. This kind of relationship is probably a tendency between brothers though. I've always been stubborn in my ways, but a taste - that is, any invitation into Ryan's world (a world that I suspect is as intricate and as maze-like as I have come to realise of my own life) - has always proved, ultimately, hypereffective in shaping the person I am today. Maybe that's why I'm excited by his music, his friends, their music. It is, quite possibly, a drug. Its exciting. Its opportunity. I remember when he introduced me to Radiohead. No: I remember when I approached him months later and told him of my sudden love for OK Computer. And months later still when I had discovered The Bends. He told me - and I suspect always will tell me - so.

I often reflect upon whether this strange infatuation is at all healthy. Probably not (as if it were something I could control). But then by the same token, its probably not worth thinking about. All I know for sure is that I'm listening to The Swell Season.

You know, I saw them once.

I have the ticket stub to prove it.

Your Day Breaks, Your Mind Aches...

The Beatles.

And you don't even have to ask why: they're The Beatles. But truly, once I had mused upon the idea, I had no choice but to embrace the irony in titling a blog - essentially a public journal, to be accessed by the entirety of the Internet community - "For No One". At the very least, this journal will be, at its core, for me.