My Last Selfish Record
In the early 2000s, a bunch of young professionals, including myself, found an Elks Lodge in the middle of Austin. And I mean right in the middle.
We overran it as the future, and probably in a tale as old as time, everyone was excited to have us until they weren’t.
The most important part about this lodge is that it had a bar. And it was self-serve. Probably overpaid, looking back, but pouring yourself your own pitcher and then sitting down was really delightful.
We met a lot of colorful characters and everything like that. We had themed parties that they had never really done before, and two friends and I formed a band called the Brown Ferns to play some cool old songs. And some current songs, too.
One of my picks was “Home by Saturday” by Hayden. It was off his 2004 Elk-Lake Serenade record, which became, when it came out, and still is, one of my favorite records ever.
I’d kind of caught him in his slacker rock days in the ’90s. And one of those songs was on a Dell computer I had to buy for a job. So I looked into what he was doing then, and that was right at the time Elk-Lake Serenade came out.
It’s such a great record. Sounds like it was recorded yesterday. Huge variety of styles, but 100% all him. Solo acoustic, gets electronic at the end. Fun songs, airy songs, great vibey kind of songs, very dark songs, lots of fingerpicking. Everything is generally based around his acoustic guitar.
It’s just an amazing record, and I’m sure people in Canada love it. But I’ve not really met anybody here, stateside, who knows it.
This morning, I was doing something, and one of those imperceptible whatevers reminded me of the record. So I decided to listen to it today when I was driving around running errands, and it is every bit as good as it was back then. Or I would say, better.
I need to get it back in the at least monthly rotation.
But when I looked at the date, it was released in 2004. We had our first kid in 2005.
And that makes it probably my last selfish record.
Like, where that could be the most important thing going on in your life, is this record you just heard.
I was young and married, trying to figure out what I was gonna do with my life. And as an all-in kind of parent, it was probably one of the last things that was mine.
He came through town, and oddly enough, played the same place that we were going to church at the time. Our next-door neighbor was the chef for this particular church. He still is, actually. He retires in December.
But I got to say hello. I grabbed a shirt that I still have, by the way. I can see through it, but it’s still wearable. In celebration of this post, I’ll probably wear it to the gig on Friday.
But just a huge impression. At a time when life was still crazy, those post-college, super early 30s, blurry times.
Takes me right back.
Much like I can’t think current thoughts when I listen to albums like Synchronicity, just ’cause it was so connected to the time. Same with Elk-Lake Serenade.
And I will say this. It’s pick-up-able now. There’s nothing in that record that says it couldn’t have come out today.
I’ve got about five or six records of his that surrounded it, and his output’s just been fantastic.
I think he’s mainly a Canadian artist, but it would be nice to see him down here again.
But I understand. We all like to stay a little closer to home now that we’re old people.