Daily Jam - Heaven

Man I’m getting old. I notice it in every single white hair invading my head and beard space. I feel it in every popping joint at night as I carry a sleeping toddler up the stairs. And I sense it at every concert or festival I go to, content to hang in the back (maybe even with a chair!) as youthful bodies kick and sway up ahead, their eyes glossing over me, a boring and crumbling wallflower. Pay no attention to the old fart drinking beer in the back. He’s just here to listen.

And listen I do. Honestly, it’s another thing that’s making me feel my age, seeing and hearing all the different genres of music becoming popular and gaining prominence to then fall by the wayside, relics of sound from another era, to then be revived and re-lauded only to lose favor again before bubbling back up to the surface yet again to the delight and listening pleasure of the masses. Nothing ever dies. Nothing ever goes away. It all just rests for a while. I couldn’t begin to tell you how many hot takes I’ve read over the last 20 years declaring rock n’ roll to be dead only for some scene of likeminded artists to suddenly make it cool again.

This is normal. This is where we are. This is okay. Everything will be cool again one day, just give it some time.

But I certainly do feel my years when attending these shows, these umpteenth revivals of audio. It’s been going on for years, even before my facial hair gave my age away. Way back in 2012 at a SXSW day party in Austin, I was fortunate enough to catch one of my “must-see” acts that year, then riding a synth wave revival of sorts, the gloomy, Canadian synth pop group Trust (aka TR/ST). Gothy synth tones and techno beats have long been in my wheelhouse of sound, and I’m always happy when they’re back in vogue, so catching the artist was a no-brainer for me. And they were great (I caught them two more times that week), their TRST album from that year is still one of my favorites, and we got an excellent memento from the gig, a hilarious picture of Trust’s Robert Alfons looking absolutely zoned and bewildered in between my smiling wife and friend.

Who are these old people? Why are they taking pictures with me?

Alfons was actually a very professional and nice guy. He seemed flattered by the attention, and he didn’t really comment on our age. But he didn’t have to. His facial expression said everything.

Anyway, I don’t know what the point of that story was. I’m old. Here’s Trust’s 2012 synth jam “Heaven.” Enjoy.