the musical fruit: movement #5.
song: "bankrupt on selling," fresh cherries from yakima
fruit: cherries
about a half decade back, when i was playing a lot more guitar, for as much joy as i got out of writing my own songs, i would also sit around for hours on end learning & playing covers of my favorite songs. these days, the few times when i pick up my guitar, it's usually to figure out how to play some song that randomly comes up in the itunes shuffle & grabs me by the scruff. my skillz are slower these days, but a half decade back, i was playing a good amount & my skillz had reached an acceptable level of quality. at the same time, i was all into lo-fi music, so it was fine if my playing or recordings sounded flawed or blatantly home recorded.
sometime around then, i came across this dude who goes by the name fresh cherries from yakima. he's from washington & i first came across him because of a cover he did of wolf parade's "you are a runner & i am my father's son." back then, i thought his stuff was brilliant. my favorite was (& probably still is) his cover of modest mouse's "bankrupt on selling," which, after hearing, i immediately tried to learn how to play. it's one of those songs you can play as slow & sad as you want & in as much isaac brock voice as you prefer & it still sounds good. mr cherry's done covers of the decemberists' "eli the barrow boy," wilco's "jesus, etc," neutral milk hotel's "communist daughter," "linger" by the cranberries...a bunch of stuff i've totally tried to play at some point or another. in fact, there's a whole library's worth of his potentially unlistenable covers & originals on his website, a number of which i've tried to learn. as for my reaction upon hearing his music again for the first time in a few years...not as fresh as i remembered it being back in the day..."specific time in my life" sort of stuff, i suppose.
earlier this week, as i went back & rediscovered fresh cherries from yakima, i did so under the influence of a shit ton of cherries. cherries are pretty much the best fruit alive these days. cherries--you may remember them from last month's tropical thunder & cherries related post. that means you get two photos of two different angles of a bowl of cherries for your money here at eat!drink!snack! this time, i learned from my mistakes & made sure to consume them over the course of 48 hrs (the unit of time, not the eddie murphy/nick nolte gem). another 48 hrs [insert rimshot here] & those cherries would've been as gross as a monkey with a self-deprecating attitude.
but i didn't wait for that to happen. you see that bowl up there? something like twenty/twenty-five cherries in it? i can not tell a lie. that was half a package & before i'd even had a chance to finish listening to four songs by FCFY, the cherries were reduced to a sorry bowl of pits & stems. ooh! let me drop some science on you. cherry trees take somewhere in the range of five years to grow & produce crop after first being planted. that's a half decade & that's the same amount of time since i first discovered fresh cherries from yakima! whoa!
and...theme.