....And Her Boyfriends

I'm going to be honest here. Biker Boy and I differ drastically about what could be considered "good music." God bless Dwight Yokum and Johnny Cash because they represent what could be the only crossover present in our musical oeuvres. I had mentioned to my darling dear Biker Boy, briefly, a passing enjoyment of an alt/country artist by the name of Neko Case (once! about a zillion years ago!! maybe before we were dating!).

Biker Boy, who has one of the most extensive collections of music known to woman, lets me know that he, of course, owns a Neko Case CD. Of course. On a particularly tedious roadtrip (I'm not going to insult Iowa again, but for the LOVE OF GOD, couldn't they do something with I-35?), BB pulls out his Neko Case CD. Now, here's our roadtrip system. I get to pick a CD, he gets to pick a CD, I get to pick a CD, he gets to pick a CD, and on and on like this until the most boring state in the union is past us. But, whoever is driving is able to fast forward through whatever songs annoy them beyond belief (like, perhaps, the vast majority of whatever the hell that Wilco CD was that had soooo much white noise I wanted to shoot the CD player and listen to the sound of the wind instead). It's a strategic game we play. Anyway, about halfway through the Neko Case CD, after I've fast forwarded about half the songs already, I ask, "where are all the upbeat songs? you know, the ones that are still sad, but aren't boring like these ones?" He stares. "They all sound like this." "No, they don't. What about Mood to Burn Bridges? You know the stuff with Neko Case and Her Boyfriends?" He looked at me BLANKLY.

Biker Boy knows more about music than I will EVER, EVER, EVER know. Yes, he taught me what a dobro was. But he had no idea what I was talking about. I swear I thought I had made the whole thing up. I really did. I thought I had made up a song called Mood to Burn Bridges somewhere in my depressed state of the first year of my graduate school career. Hallucinating with sound. Because Biker Boy knows everything about music, and, although I can sing the lyrics to any Garth Brooks song you want, this does not qualify me to actually know anything about music.

Alas, after we got home, Biker Boy sends me an email. It seems Neko Case AND HER BOYFRIENDS are playing at a local venue. Oh, yeah. I RULE. I didn't hallucinate with sounds. I didn't.

Of course I made him take me to the concert. So we went on Tuesday night. Because I'm a baby who doesn't like to drive downtown, we took the bus. So we heard good music and we saw interesting people, but the most fascinating part of the whole evening for me was seeing what songs we actually enjoyed. Whatever songs I thought were boring, BB was riveted to. Whatever songs were playing when he was gazing at the crowd, I was singing along to. We're so different.

Oh, and while we were downtown, I caught him ogling bikes locked up to bike racks. Much as another man would ogle an attractive female, the man would stare and stare at the bikes. I wonder if I should be worried about this?