where everything's familiar and sincere

When I'm feeling melancholy, or hermetic, or faithless, or overly complacent, or soul-crushingly passive, or any combination of the above with a store of added afflictions imminently available, I like to watch this video. I mean, I do other stuff too (i.e. inhale jars of peanut butter, sob quietly in a locked stall, etc.), but there's something kind of magical and healing about the earnestness of this band and this performance. Defiance, Ohio are unrefined, scrappy, and honest; and watching them play this song (though unfortunately entitled "Hair Pool") helps me understand that, even when my own energies seem to be dissipating, there is still so much sweetness abounding in this world (or on YouTube, whatever) just waiting to be shared.

In any case, if watching the delightful drummer-turned-maraca-shaker in the upper right doesn't make you smile, your cause is indefinitely lost.

P.S.: This performance is a part of the Pink Couch Sessions series, in which an awesome amount of awesome artists you've never heard of play acoustic versions of their awesome music; and it's all done on this dude's pink couch in his Brooklyn apartment. I HIGHLY recommend you spend several hours (/days) checking it out. Who needs Prozac when you have folk punk?