How NOT to write about music – 172. Quasi + Snoozers

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Moments in joy.

  1. I can’t hope to capture in words what I express through dance.
  2. After the show, when I was mustering the courage to speak to Janet Weiss, she broke off from the group of people she was chatting to and rushed over to hug me, saying “You must be the greatest dancer in the world because I can always tell how a show is going just by watching you dance”. What a lovely, lovely thing to say. I was always so taken with the idea that Jonathan Richman was the first person to ever dance to Ramones: all I want to be remembered for is the fact I like to dance down the front of shows. Even at the age of 62. Especially at the age of 62. My hair and beard were an absolute asset: so soft and comforting, I even needed to remove my spectacles at one point because I was worried they would fly off, my head was shaking so much.
  3. Alice said she received so much joy watching her friends receive so much joy watching Quasi, and she was tickled majorly by the fact all much of what the audience would have captured on film – if that was what they were attempting to capture – was myself and Nadia’s hair bobbing about in front of the band. I had a similar feeling watching Snoozers: whether the three of them had played a note or not, it made me so, so happy to see my three friends up there on stage, such wonderful people. The music they create is magical indeed: like I always wished Cyndi Lauper would sound like, toes turned inward dancing, Steve’s minimal drums so brilliant, so integral. (FACT: a bad drummer will ruin a band more than any other sort of bad apple.) Jon and Nadia… oh my God. Why are these people not major league stars, but of course they could never be major league stars cos their songs are too personal, too evocative, too Snoozerly for that/ Nadia has an extraordinary voice, as does Jon in his own way. I was captivated, first note to last – so gentle, so angry, so mid-80s rock star stadium that you wouldn’t even notice.
  4. After, Alice was like, “Wow, Janet is quite some drummer” and I was like, “yeah, she was the main reason Sleater-Kinney kicked ass so hard” and she was like… “she was in Sleater-Kinney?” And then a few minutes later, Alice was like “they reminded me a bit of Elliott Smith” (she loves Elliott, and has danced on stage with him), and I was like, “uh… Alice…?” and she was like WHY DIDNT YOU TELL ME?! I think that was shortly after a woman detached herself from a group of friends walking past, grabbed my hands and said “Excuse me, but you are Everett True aren’t you? You once wrote something really nice about my band (you can find it here) and I just wanted to thank you” and then she hugged me and looked on the verge of tears and ran away. But, your band were great! Why wouldn’t I write something nice?
  5. I forgot how loud, how intense Quasi are. They have gotten louder, more intense over the years, I swear. I did not forget however how melodic, how poignant, how heartbreakingly pure Sam’s voice sounds to me. I did forget how much I used to love seeing them… for about 10 seconds, and then I was like WHAT THE FUCK? WHY DO I HIDE MYSELF AWAY THESE YEARS? This is what I love. Quasi. Shows like this. Quasi.
  6. I didn’t forget how much joy Quasi give me either. For a while there – when I moved to Seattle in ’98 and for a crazed nine-month period became the Music Editor of The Stranger and found myself living MY LIFE DREAM and yet not with the woman I loved because of circumstances way beyond our control – Quasi were the main band in a life that had spiralled out of control and then back into hyperreality and star-tossed focus and shortly after would go even weirder. Every three minutes during their set, I found myself clutching myself convulsively nearly unable to believe I am still able to experience such paroxysms of joy. It was every time Janet hit a drum basically, or Sam hit the keyboards. Or either of them sang. Certainly, the Breeders cover and ‘California’ and all the other echoes of a previous existence didn’t hurt.
  7. Towards the end, Sam asked if there were any requests. I shouted out immediately for ‘You Turn Me On’… the one song Quasi clearly never cover – perhaps the most magical song of the 90s for me.
  8. It didn’t bother me.
  9. I have no words. I cannot hope to express through words what I capture in dance. “Side note, in this life one should aspire to the amount of joy that @everett_true had dancing to Quasi last night” – Nadia Buyse, Facebook.

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