The Sea and Cake
La Salla Rosa
Dandy Glover
“Bar Keep! Scatch!”
He scrambled to get my drink, perhaps he noticed the make of the heat I was packing. Perhaps not, either way I pounded back a few squirmin’ wormin’s before the men took the stage. The Sea and Cake were mostly enchanting. The swell of jittery guitars crashed and hammered against the hard rocks of infectiously bouncy drum lines. Their music reminds me of what I want my future to be like but in the meantime they can be the soundtrack to my fast fading youth. They’re jazz cats without the smack. In lieu of track marks on their wrists, they wear friendship bracelets. But, these pleasantries shouldn’t undermine the intricacies of their music. Many members of The Sean and Cake are prolific musicians on their own, and without falling for the cheap journalistic trick of tying them to their own projects to give them credibility, they are fierce. Simply that.
Half way through their set I closed my eyes and was suddenly an integral part of a classic late 70’s sitcom montage, and I mean that in the best possible way. For those of you familiar with montage, it’s the one where the sun shines bright, the grass has just been cut, you and a very best friend run through the neighbors sprinklers before remembering the jay birds you had rolled and stashed in your pockets. They’re soggy and wet, but you use the joints for currency at some junior’s lemonade stand- and its okay because you don’t take drugs anyway! Then it’s off to play stick and ball- and, the gang’s all there! Someone makes a great toss and the ball disappears into the bushes… you dart into the shrubbery to fetch the ball and return with the ball in one hand and a brand new puppy in the other! The sun never sets for The Sea and Cake. The show is best remembered with affection in frothy motel bathtub, with all your bad memories resting quietly beside your piece on slippery wet tile. But I think the real question here is: The Sea and Cake: What time is it in your heart?