tales of a brave band

non-food post ahoy!

sometimes, while riding my bike to work in the morning, the most random things will enter my brain. i suppose it's just a process the mind goes through - discovering forgotten pockets of memory while clearing out the cobwebs of sleep and shaking off the echoes of strange dreams.

anyway, i find myself considering people i haven't seen in years, moments from childhood vacations, a funny little joke from a movie, a headline from last week's new york times. sometimes it's a song - maybe even just a refrain or a few notes - rising up from the dregs of my unconscious.

today, i kept thinking about Ida, a band that was one of my high school favorites. i still really like them, but have less of a place in my life for pretty, heartfelt emo. that kind of music is really good for driving around on clear afternoons (which i don't do much of anymore); it is also good for singing to yourself on your bicycle on a new spring day. now, comfy at my desk, i've been listening to them all morning and am a bit surprised how fully these songs still tug on my heart strings.

go here and listen to the song "dream date" and you'll see what i mean.


i do have their newest album "lovers prayer" (artwork above) that occasionally finds its way to the turntable while i'm in the kitchen. chill music is best while baking, i find. the record is lovely, as is the band: a married couple and their friends, who've been doing their thing (they call it an "idiosyncratic style of minimalist folk rock music") since the early 90's.

when i was 17, i went with my friend blair to see Ida perform at the terrace club on princeton's campus. i didn't ask permission to drive the car that far and didn't get back til probably 4AM, when i got so, thoroughly busted. but you know what? i don't remember how sucky it was to get in trouble, or even what my punishment was. what i do remember, clear as a bell, is the dark, creaky wood floors of the club (a very cool space to see a show, btw), the softness of the lamplight, the band's quiet intimacy and impossible grace. i remember how enchanted i was, how giddy, how deep and stoned and intense it made me feel even though i was completely sober. i went up to them after the show to thank them, my hands shaking, and then fled down the stone steps and ran out across a big field of wet grass. everything was woozy and surreal under the clear university sky.