You Know I'm Not Going Anywhere, Nate

I sit here at my desk in my office (which is also my living room) (which is also my daughter's playroom). I am unemployed and looking for work in my chosen field during a global pandemic which has greatly enhanced a need for my soft-skilled toolset while greatly reducing all business desire or ability to hire. I am on week four of a stay home order, which isn't as hard for me as it is for you, probably. In truth, I feel more community with my fellow man now than I usually do, because everyone is now a little more like me; constantly on edge, worried about an invisible problem that is both nowhere and everywhere, wanting to see friends but unable to do so, getting burned out on technology. This is what it feels like to me all the time, more or less.

So I sit here and I listen to the Districts. I saw the Districts play a show in a record store once. This was in 2013 at AKA Records, which used to be on 2nd Street near Old City and is now nowhere. AKA Records was a great place to buy whatever record Pitchfork was promoting that month. The staff was surly and unhelpful and seemed to be acting in a vérité version of High Fidelity every time I went in there. Anyway, I took my then-girlfriend / now-wife to see the Districts on a date. The store was packed. We watched three songs and left.

I fundamentally don't understand rock music as background music, rock music as vibe. It would be rude and incorrect to say that You Know I'm Not Going Anywhere is purposeless, it's more accurate to say its purpose is opaque to me.

This Districts are not the same Districts I saw in 2013. Back then, the sounded like a more stoned Dr. Dog. Now, they sound like a less chill Local Natives. They've got more electronics going on now; Drums that are meant to sound like drum machines, guitars that are meant to sound like keyboards. "Cheap Regrets" sounds like LCD Soundsystem, Wolf Parade, and Grizzly Bear. It's the best song on the album. It's the least their own.

The sun is out and the wind is blowing an invisible illness across the skyscrapers, the row house bricks, the discarded trash, the walked dogs, the parked cars, the sleeping homeless, the closed restaurants. I am unemployed, looking for work, and listening to the Districts. I might as well be listening to a chill rock playlist on Spotify. I recognize the setting, but not the result. I recognize the tools, but not the product. I hear the sounds, but not the music. I could listen to this all day. I could never listen to this again. You know I'm not going anywhere.