Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros!

What are friends good for?  And just how can you call someone you recently met "a friend?"  Well, friends help you open your eyes and heart to new ideas and experiences.  And there is no time and space in this kind of thing.


You can meet someone from totally different circumstances, someone who grew up in another space-time continuum, and still find that there are deep affinities and resonances that transcend biography.  When it happens it feels like destiny or magic.


Anyway, this is a roundabout way of saying that my new friend, the Old Raven, turned me onto a band I never heard of called Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros.  The first time I heard their music, something just clicked.


Here's the origin story of the band and disc:  "After breaking up with his girlfriend, moving out of his house with his lifelong friend Nicholas Raymond Kellen, and joining a 12-step program for addiction, Ebert began work on a book about a messianic figure named Edward Sharpe.^[1] According to Ebert, Sharpe "was sent down to Earth to kinda heal and save mankind...but he kept getting distracted by girls and falling in love."


I immediately had to order up their debut CD "Up From Below."  I just love this disc.  Yes, I opted for the real deal CD.  It is big and rollicking, raucous, and funny, and thrilling.  It's overstuffed with great sounds!  How did I miss these guys?  Who knows?! But someone turned me onto them just in time.  And that's what friends are for!