The Darkness: A Love Letter

Is music the only relationship that matters?

Note: Don’t like reading? Allow me to read it to you. 🫡

Music is connection. The straightest line. The strongest kick.

From the instrument of its creation—a voice box in a throat, fingers applied to a fretboard, sticks to skins—it moves on and directly to the heart of any human within range. If the connection is good, firm, and solid, it zaps along the invisible wires in the atmosphere, from artist to punter and back again.

Call and response.

Boards light up as the circuit is made. The rocket launches, our world turns, and we become atomic specks of dust dancing in a beam of light, thumped by reverb and the insatiable impulse to move.

Well, that’s how it’s supposed to work. The Energy Exchange. Mileage, as they say, may vary. You cannot predict what will happen on the floor of the exchange, but at a live gig—that’s the best way to send it back. A thumping room, filled with sweat and weird smells and frenzied humans pulling pins and exploding with primitive joy all over the venue.

Connection.

Call and response.

Answering the most basic of needs.

Enter, The Darkness.

-

On a crisp October morning in America, with the Pacific Ocean slapping breaks to my left and coastal shrubbery swiping by on my right, I twist the throttle and decide that in today’s movie—the as-yet-untitled movie of Janeen—I am cool.

Look at me.

This lady on a motorcycle, long hair flowing out from beneath her helmet as a salute to offshore whales, the white lines of Highway 1 reflected in steady motion upon her gold-mirrored visor.

The Darkness calls, and I must answer.

I am cool. So cool.

Two hours straight up the coast from Santa Cruz and toward the “sleepy hamlet” of San Francisco, a town that I [suppress intrusive thoughts] tolerate.

I can feel my armor pressing a waffle pattern into my knees, and even though my jacket is zipped right up to my chin, the temperature has dropped and I regret wearing nothing but a t-shirt under it. I tense up and try to stop my teeth from chattering.

Harden up, princess. You are headed for The Darkness gig, not The “Can I Get a Cozy Cardi Please?” concert.

Even with the chattering, it’s hard to find fault with the day so far. This is one of the most beautiful coastal rides you’ll find and here’s me, zooming along with a playlist of pre-gig prep B-Sides blaring inside my helmet at what my Apple watch tells me is a dangerous volume.

Which is the only volume at which The Darkness should be played.

I am so cool right now.

Newsflash: I’m not particularly cool.

My right knee is locked into position and screaming in that banshee way, and my hair is tangling like that drawer of Apple accessory cables that you never open. Anxiety is creeping in.

Timing.

If I don’t time my arrival correctly and can’t check into my cheap hotel in time, I will be introducing myself to The Darkness in my full moto regalia, armor and all, and while I will tell myself this is cool—You’re so cool!—it won’t be.

Call. Response.

I throttle on, wind wiping rudely through the seams of my jacket.

-

Who are we without music? Are we anything at all?

Disconnected from our self, from our life, and from our ability to show the feel of it, what do we become? If there is no raucous chord shaped by a skilled hand to wake us from our malaise, do we remain inert, locked forever in the void of eternal nothingness?

In our living rooms—zombies. At the bar—zombies. Sitting on the train and gazing out the window, no notes, no tone, no melody to ignite us—zombies, counting sheep.

Empty vessels, heads filled with hummus recipes.

Probably.

Good lord.

We are made whole with music. We have at our center a giant brain processor, programmed to receive on all frequencies regardless of situational aberrations. Beneath tree canopies, underwater, in the far-flung desert dunes, the signal will not be denied. A lilt and a flip and if a song or a band turns the dial of you to a specific spot on the board that lights up the brain, you will be as a tuning fork ringing in a large hall.

A god note held in the moment.

Soles sticking to a venue floor.

Souls leaving bodies and collecting on the ceiling.

What are you talking about?

Music. I’m talking about music. Keep up.

Music is the embrace you seek at the end of a long, hard day. A whole-body connection that touches you all over.

You will find safety in the sonics.

-

I have in my possession two tickets for The Darkness at the SF Masonic. Both are for me. One for the floor, and one for the balcony. This is my preemptive “Knee On-the-Fritz Strategy.”

Old lady talking.

The plan. If things are going well and the knee is fine, I will go to the floor—General Admission—and be received in the arena gloriously and with love and I shall stand among the maddening throng and I shall receive the triumphant signal noise into my earholes and eyeballs and through the capillaries and corpuscles and radiance of my body and be energized and reborn and my face will melt and my heart will sing and all through my body I shall be electrified by the spirit of four rock-infused souls creating a spectacle and I will make stupid declarations like “I should go to more live shows!” and “Witness me!” and the heat of life will be upon my soul as it lifts and I will feel it for days later as a warmth in my heart that reminds me that humans are capable of wonderful things and I saw The Darkness and wasn’t that something.

Plan B.

If things are not going well—if the knee has had a day and my body betrays my heart’s desire—I will take my assigned place up in the eaves and I won’t panic because this is music and music is carried in the aether and this is The Darkness and they will feel my presence and hotwire the car and drive it directly to the parking garage of my heart no matter where I am in that room.

Don’t ask me where Plan C came from. That was a late addition.

VIP.

On a whim and in a panic at not being close enough should Plan A fall-through, I pulled the VIP trigger.

I guess I forgot who I am. Forgot for a moment that the “I” in my VIP always stands for introverted.

Pep talk.

You are not you. You will stride into the venue as someone else—someone with confidence and bravado—and you will confirm for yourself with your own eyes that The Darkness are not aliens at all but just a band of humans with very effective tractor beams. You will push all awkwardness and anxiety to the very side of the inside of your skull and you will swear that today will not be the day you walk straight into a curtain as you did that one time after meeting Chuck Yeager, who as far as you know never played an instrument, but hey, he was the first man to break the speed of sound so cut yourself some “not particularly cool” slack.

Relaxed. Cool. Brave. Quality eye contact. Participate. Do not be a tourist in your own life. This is happening.

Yes, you did already screw up the timing for hotel check-in and yes you are at VIP in your moto gear, but it’s ok. Stuff the knee pads into your bag and let’s do this.

Let’s cop a look at these aliens.

Janeen enters the arena.

There. There they are. Oh. So not aliens? Just people? A sigh of relief.

People are just people. I can deal with people.

I calm myself and relax into sound check. I am grinning—I can’t help it—and looking around in wonder at the whole deal, like I’m at the pyramids of Giza or something. Honestly, you’d think I’d never been out of the house before. Some hayseed from the sticks. A rube, a mark, a clodhoppin’ bumpkin in the big smoke.

Don’t talk about my friend like that.

You should’ve come with someone. Look at how exposed you are. A year alone in lockdown, in an apartment by yourself—it wasn’t good for you. You still haven’t recovered. Do you even know how to be with people anymore? Stop pretending you belong here. You don’t belong anywhere.

-

Music. Everyone belongs in the music.

-

The Ten Benson t-shirt was a dumb idea. I see that now. Too inside baseball. Too “nerd who reads liner notes.” But what were the odds that I’d even have a Ten Benson shirt? What were the odds? I dunno, I’m a liner notes dork, not a bookie.

Rufus asks me what’s on my shirt as I go to take my VIP band photo—the Ten Benson shirt was a great idea! I fluff the opportunity. The door cracked open and I slammed it on my broken knee. I wanted to ask what the connection was—the history between the two—but realize it now. It doesn’t matter. No one cares. It’s not important.

I wanted to force the connection.

This is not the way. In this moment, under these lights, with a sense of rushing for a photo and me at my award-winning awkward best, with no music playing to ground me and make me feel safe.

I cannot make the connection.

This is not how we connect.

-

Music is not magic. It’s just sound.

Sound combined in a certain way to produce pleasing beauty and satisfying arrangement and harmony. It is expression. It is pain. It is emotional shorthand, distilling the human condition into swells and stings and it rings in the mind long after the moment of its implantation.

Music is magic. It’s just sound.

Sound that can saw you in half.

-

As the tiny spaceship lowers in front of The Darkness's backdrop curtain, I laugh, assuming it’s a cheeky nod to Spinal Tap. But I don’t want to make too big a thing out of it.

Making a big thing out of it would’ve been a good idea.

Objects appear even smaller when you’re in the balcony section, trust me.

My knee has ballooned—a result of two hours of pointing and laughing at modern art at the SFMoMA, followed by standing all through VIP. I can hardly bend it now, and so here I am, four rows back in the balcony with a good view but shit, it’s not the floor is it, Janeen. There is only the floor. That’s all that matters.

You made the choice, girl. We live with our decisions. Make it work.

Call.

Response.

But they won’t feel me from here.

Make it work.

The volume cranks and anticipation builds. I prepare myself. It’s okay. They will come out and everything will be alright and they will unleash the signal hounds and LAUNCH in all directions and I will receive and recharge and radiate to the rafters and it won’t matter where I am because the connection will be made and I’ll have plugged in for the night. An oozy pool of yes, shouting at the stage.

Out they come, flashy and resplendent in their various garbs. A unit of unbreakable spirit. A band. My band. The Darkness. They have arrived.

I think I might have squealed.

Black Shuck kicks off¹ and the curious beast takes a swipe to plug me in and I am part of the engine now. Time to enjoy this ride, however long it lasts. This is why I came. In the sound and the lights and the antics and the din—this is where life is captured in mason jars. Or Masonic jars, I guess.

I have never seen The Darkness live.

This venue is not full. This f*cking town. F*ck you, San Francisco! How is this not sold out? This should be cheek-by-jowl let’s all get COVID together tin canned is that your hand on my arse well get it off you’re too tall this sweat is salty and everything sticks and it’s too hot but this is heaven.

This is all my fault. For sitting in the balcony.

Let it go.

Let it go.

Connect with them, not your anger. Rise to the occasion.

Receive the signal!

And so I sing. I yell. I throw my arms. There is nothing like a live show—the being in the thick of it—and even from a distance the music reaches for me. It reaches and reaches and I feel the sinews of it stretching toward my heart.

Like fingers looking for pies. What do I mean by that? Who knows, but who doesn’t like pie?

Energy energy energy. They are pure energy and agitation and running around and blasting it out. Energy. Sending it out. Seeking to make the connection. Are they getting it back? I’m trying. I’m really trying, guys!

Witness me!

“That the light of my life
Would tear a hole right through each cloud that scudded by
Just to beam on you and I”

The hole in the cloud scudding by. Now that’s a line. That’s a line you dream of. Oh to have written it. It’s possible I came here tonight just to hear that line be released in person. In the real. In the now of it.

Jesus, Janeen. You’re being dramatic. They’re just a band. And it’s just music.

Jesus, you. Are you even a person? Do you feel anything at all?

Yes. It is just music. And The Darkness ARE just a band, but I ask you, have you ever eaten a really good apple?

Think about it.

They walk off. The encore comes and with it, some bed-ready attire and wet hair.

They love me five times.

I love them forever.

This is me. I am not cool. I swoon from on high, a light sweeping across The Darkness, the feel of ‘nothing else matters but now’ resting a warm hand on my shoulder.

-

Music is impossible to describe. It must be felt. It must be invited over the threshold of your body and given an audience. You must exchange tea with it, engage in hearty debate, and when negotiations break down, show it the door.

Music is humanity existing outside of itself.

There is nothing in the nothing but all.

-

“I went and saw The Darkness last night,” I say to my old friend Zolty, a friend I haven’t seen in the flesh in well over ten years despite him being one of my best friends. That’s the only explanation I have for why we rarely talk. The complacency of old friends who trust the permanent connection and know the signal is strong. That it cannot be broken.

“The Darkness?” he says, seeming surprised. “I haven’t heard that name in years.”

I shake my fist at America’s algorithm, successfully suppressing the signal for all these years. Doing The Darkness dirty, as it always has. They should’ve crushed America like a cheap beer can.

That show last night should have been stuffed to the absolute gills with humans.  

“It’s funny,” I say. “You were the one who turned me onto them in the first place.”

Music ties itself tightly to your life, soundtracking the moments of where you were and who you were when. Twenty years ago I had just moved to America with a suitcase, a bicycle, a laptop, and a dream. I knew nobody, had no idea what my dream was exactly, and hunkered down in a room at the 92nd Street Y to begin a new life. After dwindling finances down to my last $200 in the world—a terrifying predicament—I miraculously lucked my way into a copywriting job. I was off to the races.

That’s where I met Zolty. My design partner in creative crimes.

We worked on the Delta Airlines account, an experience that taught me how to say airplane instead of aeroplane and how to draw the shape of the USA on a whiteboard in meetings. At least one afternoon a week, we swayed back and forth in the bar car of the Metro North train heading back to Manhattan, talking shit and trying to not drink so much that the train’s horrific toilet facilities became a consideration.

Zolty was in a band. A singer and guitarist. We swapped music and vibed on the same records. His brain was sympathetic to how mine worked. He’s always been able to interpret its kook.

Back then, I was surprisingly confident. I used to go to gigs by myself all the time—mostly friends’ bands—and had my eardrums blown out on the regular. This was before earplugs. Before swollen knees. Before the connection was lost.

So many bands. So many hours on the subway listening, drifting away on the magic carpet of music.

Zolty.

I swear, there is no more important friend than the one who hooks you up to good music.

“You HAVE to listen to this,” Zolty had said that day, twenty years ago, swinging by my desk all excited and bouncy. “This guy’s voice is in-sane!”

And hilarious. Insane and hilarious. Insane and hilarious and fun.

There are not many albums I remember hearing for the first time, so if I remember this one, I think it means Permission to Land is important to me. First kiss and all that lip balm. The connection was made long ago, I guess, and then shit happened and lives moved on and friendships faded and people picked up sticks and there was drama, and melanoma, and careers imploded, and somewhere in there, some clumsy arsehole knocked The Darkness plug from my wall.

It didn’t get plugged back in until Easter is Canceled. I’m not proud. But it’s never too late to make up for lost time.

“I used to write a song a day,” Zolty says. We’re talking about music and who we were twenty years ago.

“How do you write a song?”

It seems like witchcraft to me. He has no real answer. You just do, I guess. Like me writing this, you just sit down and start. You open your heart to the signal noise. Swim in the static of it all until the channel goes clear.

Zolty.

Before we part, he tells me to keep doing what I’m doing. The writing. The speaking into microphones thing.

I counter with: “You should start writing songs again.”

The Darkness never gave up. Why should we?

-

Music. It is the straightest line to who you are.

-

The third position on my musical trinity diagram—a diagram mapping the most important bands to my day-to-day existence—has always been changeable. Fluid. I have never been able to make up my mind because I like lots of bands. A lot of bands mean something to me.

My tastes are wide.

My mood is always shifting.

And there’s the rub.

The first two slots in the trinity are set in stone and have been for a very long time. Dylan and Radiohead. (Thank you, but I don’t need your feedback.)

The third spot. It’s been hard to pin this butterfly down.

I’ve dabbled with putting R.E.M. there. Led Zeppelin got really close to being permanent in my late twenties. The Beatles would’ve been an obvious choice (under my photo in my high school yearbook was a quote saying I would be naming my children John, Paul, George, and Ringo. I was such a Beatles tragic), but that’s too… I dunno. Too on the nose?

The balance never seemed right.

Because the trinity is delicate. The trinity needs balance. The members of the trinity cannot be a simple reflection of popularity. They have to reflect heart—your heart.

Both Dylan and Radiohead have my heart and they give it back to me, sometimes altered, but still mine.

But let’s let’s face it: so serious. So earnest.

My liege! I have news!

Today, I’d like to officially welcome The Darkness to the holy trinity. Of my heart.

Annnnddd scene.

The Darkness? That band that has a song about a dog terrorizing a church or something? I can’t take you seriously anymore.

Hey, you. Firstly, I don’t care what you think. You love what you love and I’ll be over here so happy in my love that it won’t affect your life in the slightest. What did I just say about balance? Let me spell it out for you.

Heart, brain, body.

All three artists have all three, and I feel all three in all three.

Say three again.

Okay. All three are happiness. All three are joy. The joy of letting yourself feel something even if you don’t know what it is and committing yourself fully to the emotion of the moment and your life. Fully committed to the craft and to your work. All three are intellect, and prowess, and mastery of expression.

These are just facts.

Sounds serious.

Exactly. Where is the ridiculously fun? Where is the loud? Where is the brazen? Where is my peacock?

Enter, The Darkness. It’s so clear to me now.

Wit. Wit Meets Rock ‘n’ Roll Wizardry.

There’s your marquee.

There’s the balance I need.

The Darkness are Spirit. The Darkness are storm the castle, kick down the doors, and have a good time but be so goddamned good at it that people don’t notice because they’re too busy dancing their arses off and throwing shapes at the ceiling.

The Darkness are the hardest-working band in the business and have been for a very long time. The Darkness are courageous and flashy and funny and so rock ‘n’ roll with so much attitude that it makes me wanna hurl rainbows.

The Darkness are the constant yes, the fist pump, the power and the glory of, Amen.

The cheeky wordplay, the poetry, the tight rhythms, and OK, tight catsuits, too.

And skill. There is a lot of undeniable skill in The Darkness. Not just the songs, but the crowd work, the energy, the swagger. The showmanship. The Darkness rocks and blows out speakers and means business and gives no fucks. The Darkness is the bravery I wish I had. The extroversion. The talent.

The Darkness are guitar solos—a decadent and tasty treat that goes straight to my hips. You are never in a calorie deficit with The Darkness.

This is what persistence looks like.

What it is to believe in yourself and what you do.

To keep going.

Confidence brings connection.

Whenever it is absent in my life, I shall play The Darkness.

-

I am who I am because of music, of this I am certain. Books too, but music, come on. Is there anything better than music?

Look at me. I grew up on a sheep farm in Australia, a million miles from anything cool. Me, an awkward teenager crouching with my finger hovering over the button of my cassette recorder in front of the shitty speaker on the tele, waiting to record my favorite songs off Countdown. Me, taking that carefully curated mixtape and playing it on my knockoff Walkman at night in bed when I should’ve been asleep. Winding tape back on the spool with a pencil when the knockoff inevitably ate it from rewinding too carelessly.

Music.

It connects us all, wherever you are, whatever your status, regardless of income, personality, or profession. There are enough outlets for everyone.

I saw Pearl Jam in a stadium once. Vitalogy I think? Dire Straits too, for the On Every Street tour. I’ve crowd surfed in university bars and waved my hands around like a looney toon in the sweatiest fire hazard darkened rooms in shitty towns with people drunker than me, but not by much. I’ve bought too much merch in a frenzy of support and marveled at the shittiness of venues. I always tried not to touch anything in the CBGB bathroom because, ay caramba, that place.

It was a John Varvatos store the last time I saw it. Touch what you want.

I thought you were talking about The Darkness?

I am, but you’re not getting it.

Music.

Music is the straightest line.

It shoots an arrow into the target of you. It either draws no blood or it makes you bleed like a stuck pig. It is unpredictable and gloriously difficult to comprehend at times. Or it’s the easiest thing on earth. Sometimes your brain doesn’t understand it, but your body always does. The body does not lie.

We carry music with us. We carry it for all our lives. For twenty years in this case. But despite what the American algorithm did in suppressing my awareness of the multiple albums The Darkness made in the interim, they didn’t stop twenty years ago. They kept going. They grew apart and grew together. They struck at chords and hearts and minds and memories and they changed but stayed the same. The same, but different.

Old friends. Bookends. Bookends that melt your face off.

Don’t roll your eyes at all this. Yes, I am the most pompous overblown dramatic arsehole who feels too much and speaks too little and wears a mask of faux bravado while hiding under the awning of “too many words, not enough editing,” and what of it.

It’s just music!

Yeah, I know. And The Darkness are just a band. But this is a love letter. I was quite clear about that. I even put it in the title.

I don’t know why, I can’t explain it. It’s connection. I connect with them. They are my forever fearless band. They remind me to just do the work. Keep doing the work. Make. Create. Put stuff out there. I don’t care what you think about them—find your own band, your own connection. I can’t do everything for you.

If they’re not for you, they’re not for you.

I am for The Darkness.

Good lord.

-

Sometimes I think I exist only in the quiet.

Of my inner insecurities.  

In the imaginary safehouse of my brain.

From this balcony in The Masonic, with one knee swollen and a heart raging like wildfire, I watch as Justin owns the stage with his…him-ness? Hymn-ness? Church is in session. My eyes switch over to Frankie, his jacket shimmering like river rocks in a mountain stream. Dan with his wide leg stance—a true rock pose—commanding respect. Rufus thrashing away, a blur of action and time and space and energy.

Oh, matron!

The solo enters the chat.

The truth.

I do not exist only in the quiet at all.

I exist in the noise.

The sound, the music, the connection.

At this moment, tonight, I am open on all channels. A magical band from outer space lands note after note in my earholes with wicked precision. They parse thought and time and notes and bends, leaping high with sweat dripping to the floor, attempting to power a room with pure charisma.

The solo reaches out to me, stretching a tendril of sound and energy and cosmic composition.

It doesn’t matter how far away from the stage, from the heat, from the center of it all I am.

It doesn’t matter.

It reaches out with the honest promise of connection. It makes its ascension toward the balcony on a staircase of improbability, the air of love soaring on the dream of it all, plugging right into my heart with a resounding click.

Touching you, touching me.

I send this connection back the only way I know how.

With these words.

Yours in tiny thought,

Janeen

To get the backstory of this post, watch this👇

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This week’s amends…

"What we know of other people is only our memory of the moments during which we knew them. And they have changed since then. To pretend that they and we are the same is a useful and convenient social convention which must sometimes be broken. We must remember that at every meeting we are meeting a stranger."

- T.S. Eliot

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On Rotation: “In Spite of Ourselves” by John Prine

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Speaking of my old creative partner in crime, Zolty (he first turned me onto The Darkness as I mentioned above), this is what he’s been doing for the last decade or so. It’s ART, baby! This video is three years old, just to hip you to what they do, but take a look at their site for MORE ART, and yes, I’m being a total hype-girl for my friend because that’s what friends do. It was so great to see him last week. Felt like we just picked up our conversation right where we left off.

Via love for my friend and what he does.

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This short film by Erik Wernquist explores what it would be like to be aboard a circular space station that’s spinning. I think I would throw up with how fast the light (and Earth) moves outside.

Via Kottke

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Shameless Podcast Plug

Listen to audio versions of early issues of The Stream on my podcast, Field of Streams, available on 👉 all major podcasting platforms 👈

Here’s Apple

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1. Although they played Bareback first. I neglected to check the setlist before I wrote this and memory is fallible.