Couch Potatoes// Living Room Songs

COUCH POTATOES//LIVING ROOM SONGS PRESENTS: BLACK BYRD

I got off the Red Line Loyola stop late on a Tuesday night to head over to Blackbyrd singerJenn Jones’s apartment. On my walk from the station, I passed a young, palish blonde, waif of a woman talking heatedly on her cellphone. “No, I’m not going to freak out! I’m going to remove your fucking face with a cheese grater!” she shouted.

“Just go and fuck her some more, and while you’re at it, fuck yourself! I will cut off you head!” she yelled.

Suddenly I was immensely grateful towards all of the girlfriends I have had the pleasure to know in my short life. 

Anyway, I showed up to Jenn’s place cold and discombobulated and rang their (I found out later) broken buzzer. An old blind lady (this really happened) came to the front door. “Broken buzzer,” she said, looking past me. I trekked upstairs and found Jenn’s place. God, what was I in for? The night had a bad weird feel. 

Thankfully, Jenn and Tristan— Blackbyrd’s excellent guitarist and a hell of a guy— were welcoming, funny, acted like an old sixth-grade married couple (by which I mean they were both domestic and shockingly infantile in their poop and penis humor), and showed me a great time. And then the music started up and these two goofy twenty-somethings who liked to doodle penises and could go whole quarter-hours without breaking a sarcastic tone turned out to also be a knock-me-on-my-ass great jazz/blues/pop duo.

—jack