event

Like a good multivitamin, Caleb Nichols’ writes the experience of a micro-mushroom-dosed pizza for your gay date night meets the magnesium/iron combo of queer laughter and queer tragedy. It turns out that a childhood Beatles fascination grows well next to the sounds of the golden state, weaving vivid guitar into operatic commentary veiled in a true California partly-cloudy forecast. Is it smog or is it an alternate dimensions’ Paul McCartney in drag? 

For Nichols, probably both. From their mobile Book Bike project, “a literary bee, bumbling around my rather hetero hometown of San Luis Obispo, pollinating different places with small bits of queer poetry,” to their earlier work in music with Soft People, their projects aim to establish a different relationship to an overwhelmingly normative world. In spaces that have been written by and for straight people, they take their own experiences with complexities of being and make them something representational, celebratory, aching, and accessible.

While any good art is, to some degree, an articulation of self, Nichols’ carves out a specific perspective through their collaborative efforts. Even their PhD program in queer ecopoetics takes a serious look at how their life and that of those around them are affected and constructed by desire for expression. In their newest album, “Ramon,” Nichols' slaps a bandaid on the stab wound of capitalism and hauls us along with them, making room for a few of the many faces of queer sounds while the ship is, to put it lightly, listing. "You learn early on that no one is going to do it for you, or that it doesn't exist, so you need to do it yourself with your friends." And do it they did–focusing on the concept of reinterpretation and understanding, using theatrical lyrics to paint vignettes of white rabbit adventures and very real social pressures. They measure it all through sometimes punchy-bright, sometimes pensive-plucky instrumentation. A self described “rock opera” in true DIY spirit: made by and for the people it stands to represent. 

Each track is a three to four minute romp inside a specific emotion, playing out theatrical puzzle pieces that build on each others’ sounds. From “She’s The Beard,” a good old fashioned chaotic stomper in which lovers Ramon and Jerome first set eyes on one another, to the title track “Ramon,” a finger-plucked “I don’t want you but I don’t want anyone else to have you either” heart wrencher, Nichols’ turns it all into cohesive collection of ups and downs. There’s so much to be said about the perfectly fuzzed strings and how they fit seamlessly into powerfully catchy lyrics, versatile and relevant percussion, etc. There’s also so much to say about how fun it is to just listen to it happen.