My garden is slowly dying. It dawned on me yesterday as I harvested a handful of cereal box textured green beans bound straight for the compost bin. There is an invisible enemy wreaking havoc on those beans, the squash pollinated indecisively, the herbs simply refuse to grow, and the tomatoes are all falling off the vine half-blackened underneath.

I want to blame it all on slugs, those nasty leopard print nocturnal villains. At least then I could point the finger at my laziness to simply purchase some cheap beer and set it out in a tin can. I don’t really want to spend any money on cheap beer, and there’s the hope that some hipster friend will invite me to a party where I can wait til everyone gets drunk and then sneak a giant can of PBR out to the car. When it comes to crappy beer, I’d almost rather light some money on fire and see if the flames are a better slug deterrent. It would save me the trouble of finding a tin can.

All that is to say that sometimes you think you’re really good at something when, bang, your beans die, or your basil withers, or you hear your musical aptitudes captured on tape in a way that makes you decide they are musical ineptitudes and how on earth did you convince yourself that you should be singing live ever? I won’t be so transparent as to point your web browser to the recording in question, as the assignment for blogging this week was to “Make People Want To Come To Our Show,” but I will mention the unique results of this round of self-awareness which are to a.) quit the amphetamines and b.) conjure up a voice teacher. Lessons start in 2 weeks, but until then I am retraining my ADD tormented cognitive pathways to respond to coffee, which comes with the exciting bonus of restructuring my weak and indecisive digestive plumbing.

It has been a melancholy few days, then, feeling rather dramatically that everything I touch turns into a pile of dust. Or at least a pile of compost. Singing compost, actually. There’s an image for you.

From a very young age I have understood that special bands have albums I can associate with deeply personal, wordless emotions: Margot & the Nuclear So and So’s pack a one-two punch of despair and elation on The Dust of Retreat; Wilco’s Summerteeth is for lying on my back in the dark at the end of a long, loveless day; and Matt Pond PA’s Emblems delicately encapsulates the end of a heartbreakingly perfect summer before fall and grown-upness set in. I’m always amazed, then, when our songs provide enough leverage to pull me out of a deep funk. How many times have I played Long Coats, No Energy over and over and over? “Not nearly enough!” say my bandmates. Yet something in the music of Good Night, States has patched this week’s leaks in my under-filled container of self-assurance.

So whether you’ve been living on the heights, bogged in despondency, or are just surviving a khaki-pants bland sort of existence, I do hope you’ll come see us on Saturday, and that some part of the evening will change, if even for a few minutes, the way you feel about life. And if you can’t make it, well, maybe you should join me in my garden infirmary sometime. We can sing out of tune and watch the slugs get drunk.

Tags: cheap beer, Drunken Slugs, dying gardens, hipster friends