Beautiful/Trivial Jesse Daniel Edwards

Sweet, aching sadness.  Bitter, snarling anger.  Gentle piano notes being smashed to a frantic crescendo.  Screeching guitar.  Whispering.  Insidious.  

Jesse Daniel Edwards could curate the soundtrack to the chemically drenched sock hop I endeavor to conjure on my depression-mandated Ketamine trips.  

My first impression of him was Little Steven (I only know about Little Steven because of Rattle and Hum, ‘’… a friend of ours, Little Steven, was putting together a record of artists against APAR-TIGHT” – preach, Brother Bono) meets Harry Connick Jr… crooning away as the apocalypse begins and the bombs start to fall. 

Quiet, gentle bombs, please.  Last November when I wandered into Salim Nourallah’s listening room – Galactic Headquarters— to see Jesse and Landon Pigg, I was hung over.  I don’t drink.  I get Ketamine infusions.  Better living through chemical intervention.  I overcome my fear of needles long enough to get some sunshine mainlined directly to my brain.   Turns down my self-hating, self -destructive monologue long enough I can function again… for awhile.  But I’m left dried out.  Aching.  Low lights, friends, music at Salim’s seemed like just what the doctor ordered. 

My Wardrobe Can’t Make up Its Mind

I have since journeyed down an Insta-YouTube rabbit hole for more information regarding what I saw that night.  Jesse seems to have a lot in common with Salim.  Each contains multitudes.  10 different kinds of rock star wrapped up in a quiet, unassuming, crazy-talented package.  “Little Steven” Jesse is just one face (“My wardrobe can’t make up its mind…”) .  There appears to be a Richie Valens Jesse, Leonard Cohen Jesse, some sort of grizzled blues man persona, Mellencamp(“Jack and Diane were such fine examples” he sings in “The Future Has Been Canceled”)/Springsteen  tattooed, mullet-rocker resplendent in wife beater (please, if there’s a more PC way to refer to those shirts now… I don’t know what it is) and jeans, a Hawaiian shirt and visor wearing “Jimmy Buffet, Bart Simpson backwards hat wearing Jesse who – carried away by the moment — throws himself on the ground and writhes with his guitar.

In every single recent video I found of Jesse, Landon is there (per further Internet research, their friendship is a relatively new thing -2022 – coinciding with common interests and a mutual desire at reinvention).  Buttoned up shirt.  Beating the hell out of tambourine, smiling like a (if there were such a thing) long haired Mormon missionary (I am a lapsed Mormon, I can say stuff like that.)   I don’t know these gents other than a few words exchanged at that first show and the occasional DM I will send Jesse’s way on Instagram, but I can only assume Jesse and Landon are best friends.  If you let me imagine it too much, I will make a Pixar, friends-til-the-end movie out of their perceived relationship.  Brothers together in the cause and service of ROCK.  It makes a nice mental picture.  I like it when people care for each other. 

We, The Product

The other half of Black Lodge, my other half, the light chevron pattern to my dark (aka “Doug”):  he doesn’t care.  He will listen to music and remove it from the maker.  He barely listens to the words.  His heart is guided by the pure musicality (this is how he appreciates Frank Zappa where I cannot get past the ridiculous words long enough to even get to what may or may not be brilliantly executed music.)  He doesn’t care if the artist is a good person or if the band members were getting along when they recorded such-and-such.  He appreciates the product. 

I need to know the product was arrived at through pure intentions.  I like it when you are a good person, I like the band mates are best friends, I like my performers having fun, experiencing joy.  That’s just me. 

I like it when your lyrics make me feel something.  Even if it’s sadness, anger, impotence. 

“I don’t wanna do it anymore/You can’t make me do it anymore/God, don’t make me do it anymore” 

Do what? Everything. 

Wake up.  Doom scroll.  Wonder.  Worry.   

“The more you care, the more they take.”   

Watch society collapse.  Hope you can scratch out a little life for yourself, a corner of happiness.  Keep that happiness safe from the onslaught of daily soul sucking reality.  A rose under glass from the Disney childhood all the Millennials are trying to hold on to, keep safe and untarnished.   

“I hate me, but I can’t change who I am.”  

My high school ring (class of 99) says “Life on the edge of time.”  The last analog generation with vague memories of being sent outside to play, riding bikes, passing notes instead of texting, failing a grade at school instead of getting shot to death there.  

The Holocaust is Live on Channel Three

We started life watching war on TV.  How is it reality where you can get bored with war and change the channel?  What is this? Where are my cartoons?  (“The holocaust is live on channel threeee”) As an elementary school class project, we wrote to Desert Storm soldiers.  Waco, 09/11… the revolutions have all been televised and we are soul-numb and bored.   

Every dream our parents took for granted is now out of our reach.  Education, a home to call your own.  Tell me how much hope *you* have managed to hold on to under these circumstances. We are racing to see if we finish ourselves off before the planet shakes us off like a bad cold. 

“Love is all you need/But love won’t stop bombs/or pull the nails out of your palms…”   This line stings like a sore spot in your mouth you can’t stop tonguing.  It hurts, but in a good way.  This line puts JDE on the opposite end of the spectrum from Salim Nourallah (my friend, Beatles fan, and the musician previous to Jesse to evoke such a visceral response in me musically) Salim Nourallah whose music is hope[…”ful melancholy,” a line I didn’t pen, but I keep returning to in regards to Salim’s music as it is, for the most part, a perfect description of why his songs appeal to me so much.] 

Salim is hope.  Jesse is hope lost.   As a 42-year-old (elder millennial) major depressive, I am both of these things.  Bitterly attractive dichotomy.  Salim’s music is the feeling I aspire to when the chemicals are still working.    Jesse’s music is the chemicals wearing off, realization, dull horror.  Reality. 

What did Cervantes say?  “Too much sanity may be madness, and maddest of all – to see life as it is and not as it should be.”  I like a little of both. 

I feel like Jesse does too and Landon’s presence at his side feels like confirmation of that. 

High Times

Landon is a beautiful musician in his own right.  Sweet, wistful.  A touch of Eliot Smith.  A little Iron and Wine.  Master of what everyone aspires to:  the elusive EAR WORM.  Listen to ‘Falling in Love at a Coffee Shop.’  You know that song.  I promise you.  I know that song.  I was able to mouth all the words as he began singing it… the infuriating thing is: I don’t know HOW I know it.  I played it later for my mother.  She knows it too.  She does not know HOW she knows it either!  Google says it was probably either an AT&T commercial or an episode of Grey’s Anatomy.  Both of which I’m sure I’ve been exposed to… but not in enough quantities to know all the words.  I remain… befuddled.  

Landon was also in Whip It – that earlier 2000s movie I was briefly obsessed with, decided I would learn roller derby even though I could NOT skate to save my life.  This brief obsession led me to my first broken bone at the auspicious age of at least 30: my tail bone.  I broke my tailbone for this movie.  I’m an idiot… but it’s a good movie. 

I forgot to rewatch it before I saw the performance.  Went back and watched it later:  yep.  There he is.  Right there.  Pretty big part too. Huh.  Good going, sir. 

At first, I was nervous I would wax poetic about Jesse for pages and then go, “Landon sings pretty.  He’ll be there too.” But then I relearned what I found out months ago:  Landon has, among other things, 406THOUSAND Spotify listeners (several times the population of the city I am currently sitting in while I write this) and Jesse has… 106.   

Something tells me Landon won’t mind that I was a little heavy handed in Jesse’s direction. 

(But yes, he’s lovely.  He has nice hair, sings like an angel and is witty to boot.  The “champagne lady with the pickle-back” sends her regards.) 

All of this to say, the boys will be back at Galactic (Dallas) this Friday and Austin on Saturday (ticket links removed since events have passed.)

Don’t miss this.  I designed stickers for both performers… come get some.  You’ll love them, I promise.  There’s no place like Galactic (Austin is good too, don’t get me wrong, but Galactic has Salim and all my friends, I’m biased.) 

—These events passed. A fantastic time was had by all! New link for the next time the gents will be back in Texas—