Je t'aime.

*Photo by: Genna Howard

(B)  RVIVR - The Joester Sessions LP ( A Music List Without Numbers)

I’m way behind on this yearly write-up stuff. In fact, I had a friend pester me about it all day yesterday and the day before. Apparently, “I have important things that need to be shared.” And you know, as sentimental as that sounds, I think he’s right. Especially about this. Because this band is something special.

I had discovered RVIVR by accident through a mutual friend that set up house shows in Michigan somewhere. Michigan was thriving with their whole acoustic-folk scene, and this was about the same time Bon Iver started getting more than local attention in Wisconsin and the surrounding areas. What flowered as a small obsession, quickly grew into a large one, and I associated it with the parts of adolescence that I had felt like I had missed out on.

For months I was licking up the sweat of Erica Freas and picking up my guitar, hoping to scream with just as much candor. I was never into the whole sugar-pop punk noise, but this was different, this was an energy that never waned much. And you know, Matt Camino was just as much to blame as well. He can spark up a killer heatwave when he performs. He’s all there, whether he’s spitting saliva across the room, or flailing his fleshy, tattooed arms around.

What sealed the deal and made me eerily psychotic when it came to my loving this band though, was what happened back at an old workplace. I used to work as a pretty morose cashier girl, that gathered dirty dollars from people, and placed them in a metal box, only to tell them to have a good day. And on the job, there was this cute, mousy girl that would come in to buy cigarettes, cat food, and various food items that made me want to go home with her. I thought she was a fucking gypsy. I WANTED HER MAGIC POWERS.

What made this girl special though, was her ability to make me turn a quick shade of maroon. Now I don’t know why, but my entire body would experience some sort of shut down, and I’d be standing there with my teeth biting the fleshy cushion of my dart of a tongue. Something about her got me spooked, so much, that I wouldn’t be able to articulate anything, and would just have to nod off smiles when being talked to. It was really very embarrassing, actually.

But then one day, I was listening to Real Mean, and everything just sort of started making sense. This girl, this crazy girl that I spent so much of my time dreaming up stories about, was the mirror image of Miss Erica. Her voice was even her voice. I had systematically paralleled them as one person and placed the music in some inner dungeon of the soul, so that it had my psyche all fucking messed for good. And for whatever reason, that sat well with me.