Unbest

Jason Sanderbeck on Kurt Vile’s Smoke Ring for My Halo (2011)
(iTunes, Rdio, Spotify) 

Every so often, I’m reminded that I am part caveman. While this revelation has manifested in numerous forms over the years, at least two of them directly involved Kurt Vile. In 2009, I caught the prolific singer/songwriter and his Violators at the Grey Eagle in Asheville, N.C. Beside that date in my concert journal, it simply says, “Kurt Vile? LOL. Nope.” Not my most articulate review but I stand by it. His performance that night recalled what I imagine a reverb-soaked food processor sounds like.

For the next few months, Kurt Vile was my joke-in-waiting. I was genuinely excited for my friends to check out his record and join in on my disdain. There was only one small snag: They loved him. So did Kim Gordon. So did Pitchfork. I watched in horror as my favorite new joke became the favorite new artist. The progression drove my hatred right off the charts. There was no rationale behind my contempt anymore. The caveman was in charge and Kurt Vile was dead to me.

By 2011, a lot had changed. My life had done what lives sometimes do: It self-destructed. The MFA programs I applied to rejected me, I was unemployed, and a particularly nasty strain of Parkinson’s had started eating my Dad’s neurological system. It was a devastating blend of personal failure and sheer bad luck. Having no idea how to combat this brand of trouble, I simply didn’t try. For nearly the first half of the year I struggled, alone in a Sunglow yellow guest room in my parents’ house.

One day, I was streaming a playlist of new music. Unbeknownst to me, “Puppet to the Man” by that damned hack Kurt Vile was in queue. The opening chords hit me in a way I haven’t felt since Modest Mouse’s “Working on Leaving the Living” first entered my life. Vile’s track had a great atmosphere to it but it wasn’t until the resolve when he sings, “Sometimes I’m stuck / And then I think I can’t unglue it / Will you help me do it?” that my breath was taken away.

The inner-caveman lives for those times when you don’t know how to deal with something. Help. It seems like such a simple concept now but, at that time, it was foreign. Eventually, I got some help. I got the record too. Smoke Ring for My Halo now lives on a pedestal with my other musical staples. Have I gone back and listened to his other records? LOL. Nope. I probably won’t either. No matter far down the evolutionary path I make it, the caveman lives on.

Jason Sanderbeck leads a home-school flag-line. Watch him twirl, alone in his driveway.