Last night, EIC Todd and I were enjoying a hot chocolate—each of us enjoying our own, that is, not one big hot chocolate with two straws—at one of the several chocolate shop cafés near Styquarters. It was all going really well for a while, and then:
“So what are you thinking for the Stypod?”
“I dunno, maybe Hope for Agoldensummer?”
I like to think that at this point, someone played that record-scratch sound and everyone in the chocolate shop café turned to look, while Todd’s homemade rectangle marshmallow made a perfect, diaphragmatically propelled, slow-motion arc to the back of the oversized armchair next to ours (each of us sitting in his own, that is, not sharing a single oversized armchair). In reality, Todd just took another long pull on his hot chocolate.
“You’re kidding, right?”
He went on to explain the following:
1) Hope for Agoldensummer is one of the five best bands in America, maybe one of the best three. Could very well just be the best. Too many people already know this; please just shut the hell up about it and let them play.
2) Hfags (as they call themselves) represent the rise of an ideal South in which some are straight and some gay, some vegan and some omnivorous, all are telepathically empathetic musicians, and some are sisters who sing in uncanny harmony. They are saving the South, music, and all of us, and if we in the Eastern liberal internet media establishment support them openly, all their hard work may be for naught.
3) The more you talk about Hfags, the less likely they will come here and sell homemade soap and engraved knives out of an antique suitcase at Pete’s and Tonic, and the more likely we will have to crane our necks at Webster, and that soap smells so good.
4) There is a secret league of critics monitoring all music writing on supercomputers at the Hall of Righteousness to make sure 1-3 are not compromised. They strike without warning or restraint—it’s amazing Liz can still walk. So, seriously, bad idea.
I didn’t believe it—I couldn’t believe it. If I know anything at all, it’s that criminally few people know about Hfags, and the world would be unconditionally better if more did. Also, I didn’t get into the rock game only to be pushed around by some faceless bloggers NSAing me from their undisclosed location. At that point I realized all the hot beverage-drinking wasn’t really helping my score in the rock game, either, so you better believe I stuck Todd with the check and sprinted out of that chocolate shop café as fast as my Dunks would carry me, with nary a glance back until I’d made it all the way to Styquarters and found the Stykey in the Styfakerock a few feet off the Stydewalk. I barricaded the door with five boxes of promos and fired up the laptop.
Friends, Hope for Agoldensummer are responsible for three of the most beautiful shows I’ve ever seen and one of the best albums I’ve ever heard. Their music is folk and pop and country, but not any of those exactly; it’s music from a real place (Athens, Georgia) and from that ideal South they’re making for themselves and everyone, one that has a lot to do with the “verities of the human heart” some Southern idealists like to tell you about. I could go on, but as Jack Bauer notes at the start of every call he makes to shut Chloe or whomever up, there’s not much time: let’s get to the tracks.
Both songs here are from their self-released 2004 album, I Bought a Heart Made of Art in the Deep, Deep South. These find the band in two of their best modes: joy and heartbreak, each shot through with the other. In “Malt Liquor,” sisters Claire and Page Campbell promise, “I’ll give you a nickel for your quarter, malt liquor for your water”—it’s a sly, fun hustle, and here’s the point: “I swear I will sneak up right beside you, unlock your heart, and set you free.” It’s salvation sung beautifully over a spare, warm bed of acoustic guitar, cello, and understated brushed drums. The glockenspiel is the tolling bell, but playful: don’t bother asking, you know who it’s for.
“Hearts in Jars” is the opposite story, a slow waltz on how the hurting heart came to be shut up in the first place: “I re-wrote creation, gave us all vaults in our chests / with secret combinations.” The only percussion is a crate of milk bottles shuffled back and forth every other measure—the jars, yes, but also the broken pieces inside, still making out a beat because, well, life goes on. Five transcendent minutes of pure ache, but no despair: the heart is just resting, waiting to be whole again, and free.
So here I am, playing the evangelist I was named for, preaching salvation from a locked room. I can hear them outside; it’s getting louder, but by the time they get in, this will be posted and it will be too late. Hope for Agoldensummer has a new album coming out probably some time this year.
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