Couch Potatoes// Living Room Songs

I would never identify myself as a hippie but I do have a dream that fits pretty snugly into the stereotype.

In it, fifteen to twenty friends from around the world, accumulated through years of travel, experience and adventure, come together to form a musicians’ commune on the shores of Lake Malawi. Our homes are built of branches and reeds directly onto the sand with windows large enough to let in a generous breeze. Ladders are permanently stationed against the mango trees that populate our piece of shoreline in anticipation of that time of year when mangoes you can peel like bananas and bite into like peaches are on every branch. And in between mango feasts, nightly grill-outs and scuba diving excursions, this collective of musicians and friends let their creativities collide. Groups of three or four might form bands, others might want full control of their songwriting, but everything still, at its most basic, is intensely communal. If someone wants to try out a new song, but needs a bass player or drummer, there is at least one of each not too busy going for a walk or contemplating the clouds. Every year this group hits the (worldwide) road and tours every continent, maybe picking up some more friends and neighbors along the way.

This, like I said, is a dream – and probably an impossible one – but that night, in my Cambridge living room, we came pretty damn close to it. Sure, some of the key elements were different – we had pale ale instead of mango juice, frozen streets instead of burning sand and a view of a gray parking lot instead of the lush shores of Mozambique. But we were pretty damn close.

I am a recent transplant to Boston and was an outsider to the Berklee music scene when Jack showed up in January. But the evening was the perfect steadying of my unsure musical legs. I was friends with everyone in that room before that evening, but the vulnerability that comes with sharing one’s music – not just listening but participating and combining – took it to whole new levels. Friendly People was an idea for a band before that night, but really leapt out of our minds and into our ears during those musical hours (shameless promotional plug: stay-tuned – our debut EP will be released very, very soon). 

Maybe the 42 beer bottles, mini keg and fifth of Makers that were collectively consumed that night have drastically distorted my memory of it and added far too much sentimentality to it, but in my eyes and ears at least, musical egos totally disappeared and every note suddenly belonged to every person in that room.

“We should do this again sometime,” we kept saying, over and over again through the course of the evening. Well, I’ll say it again, gawd dammit, and this time with one slight addition – “…in our commune on the shores of Lake Malawi.”