It's horribly scary when, as a child, it dawns on you that death comes for everyone. You don't even realize how deep and conceptualized the idea is at the time (how could you?), but when you actually understand and appreciate that your mom and dad aren't always going to be there forever, it hits like a ton of bricks and you're on your way to that tougher, more mature life. You don't necessarily think about yourself dying because you're just a kid, but mom and dad are OLD. They could go at any minute, or so you think, and it's a hard couple of nights getting you calmed down enough to realize that it's not going to happen for a long, long time - if we're lucky. There's so much to do yet. There's nothing fair about the setup. So many things kill us slowly is the part of the equation that we can't grasp as children and if we were able to get it, we'd probably never sleep. What we also can't grasp - and this is where Chicago band Minor Wits ties it all together - is that there are certain things that can give us extra lives, that behave like the cherries, oranges, apples and strawberries in a game of Pacman, giving us bonus points and little shots of dopamine.
Death is going to get to us, but it's just so damned busy elsewhere all the time that we're free to let the hair hang down and we can go slashing in the fire hydrant, or savor our home-cooked meals knowing that our evenings aren't over until we choose. Singer/guitarist Eric Nicpon, bassist Mike Nolan and drummer Brad Nicpon fuse together a lust for life and the grave understanding that we're going to get cleared off of this table - every single one of us - likely before we feel we'd gotten enough time. The songs on their latest EP, "Bedroom Blues," are filled with a feeling of substantiated dread that often comes across as nostalgia. Good times are remembered and issues are considered.
The people within them are living in their cluttered rooms, in their cluttered heads and they've experienced disappointment and despair, but those are write-offs. They tend to look on the brighter side of things - constantly - choosing the frame that they like the best. They might drive a car they don't give a shit about, some hunk of junk, but it's just a car. It means nothing. They might feel that they're out of body, or that they've altered the recipe of the blood that they run on, but that would have been noticeable, were it true. Nothing seems to be too off, even when they're putting on the same exact tee-shirt every morning, before opening the door to get the paper. There's sadness in the everyday chronicles. There has to be, but life being short, as it is, even in its unknowable lengthiness, should be enough to perk the spirits up.