Hilly was right — emo sucks. But it’s not just emo that sucks. Music sucks, especially live music. Your favorite band is atrocious, and my favorite band is only marginally better.

But it wasn’t always like this. People didn’t always stand in the back with their arms crossed. You remember don’t you? August 1992, when we went to see Jawbox at Rockafellas. The Belltower was the opening band, and although is was really cool to see Brianna — the voice of Jem from Jem and the Holograms — play her Mini-Mustang with those tiny fingers, everyone knew who we were there to see.

At the intermission, the crowd all pressed together at the front of the stage, all sweat and hormones, in anticipation. We were all buzzing, winding up inside like springs. When Jawbox ripped into Ones and Zeros, the entire place erupted. The club was a frenzy of lights and sounds, as we all pushed and pulled once another, screamed the words in each others ears, lost ourselves in the mass of bodies, and bounced around until we were all hot, exhausted, spent, and no one could really tell where the audience ended and the band began.

But that was ok, because that’s why we were all there. We all knew that the purpose of going to the show was to dance and yell and scream, just like we did at home, when we would turn up the song realy loud, dance around our rooms and scream into the matress. The only difference was that at the club, we were surrounded by people who all screamed into the matress, and we thought for a few hours that we had found our tribe.

Shows don’t feel like that anymore. Maybe the bands have changed, or maybe I’ve changed as I’ve gotten older, but I just don’t feel that urgency, that mad rush like I did, even though I still know all the words and still scream into my matress. I was beginning to think that maybe that euphoria had all gone away, until the show last night.

Last night, I drug (dragged ?) Caitlin, Maya, and Emily to the Black Cat to see Jason Lowenstein. For the uninitiated, Jason was one of the original members of Sebadoh, who kept the band from going totally sappy. While Lou Barlow, the original emo posterboy, was writing classics like Brand New Love and Magnet’s Coil, Jason was writing classics like Careful, and Not Too Amused. And Sebadoh. . . hell, everyone knows who Sebadoh is.

Speaking of Sebadoh — You may remember a VW commercial that came out a few years ago featuring a song Pink Moon, by 1970s mope-folkie, Nick Drake. I’d been trying to place where I’d heard the songs before, and I just realized that Sebadoh did a crazy noise/sludgerock cover of PInk Moon on the 1992 album Smash Your Head on the Punk Rock. Score one for SeBAdoh.

Anyway, Lowenstein has finally released a solo album on Subpop — At Sixes and Sevens, and is touring in support of the same. Thankfully, we missed the opening band, Sumac, but we were forced to suffer through the next band (The Sounds of) Kaleidoscope. They had a kinda noisy 1960’s Beach Boys, Zombies thing happening, but I couldn’t tell if it was purposefully noisy or if they just couldn’t keep it together. Emily said, “They’re not so bad, but there is nothing to recommend them.” Well said.

Yeah, so Lowenstein came on, and instead of moving to the front of the club to cross their arms, the crowd just left. It only took about 2 songs for the crowd to clear out. I guess they were expecting confessional Lou Barlow stuff. Well, Jason is no Chris Cabrerra, and is never going to sing about his ex-girlfriend, unless he is telling her exactly how far she should go away.

So, the girls and I fought our way (sic) to the front of the crowd (sic) of 30 and set up shop. It didn’t take long until I forgot I was in a club, and I began to jump and yell and scream and generally behave like a sixteen year old, instead of a twenty-six year old. Meanwhile, the girls are going crazy (like Girls Gone Wild, the PG version) and luckily, we were all having too much fun to realize that the rest of assembled had moved far away from us.

For his part, Jason was as manic, urgent,energetic, frenetic, frantic, and angular as ever. It was the best show I’ve been to in a long time, and when Jason and the band broke into an extended version of Mind Reader . . well, I almost hurt myself.

In summary, thank you Jason Lowenstein, for restoring my faith, and for your beautiful sludge.

To summarize the summary, go buy Jason Lowenstein’s At Sixes and Sevens, or face the wrath of Simplemath.

That’s all. I’m winded.