Well That's Cool

Hold On Photon’s debut album

I had thought about discussing Tuscaloosa’s CBDB, (you know, those purveyors of joyfunk) but my mind went elsewhere.  They’ll be playing in Tuscaloosa again soon enough.  Probably tomorrow, so there’s no worries on a time frame for that column.

Instead, I got lost in the website for Hold on Photon, and if you click on that link, you probably will, too.  It’s an amazingly fun site for a musical artist to have, what with the playlist on consistently awesome Tom Petty songs to the weird and sometimes hilarious list of “frequently asked questions.” 

Now, cool website or no, I would not have stayed on it much longer than a few seconds if it wasn’t for the first piece of music I happened upon, “Helena,” which turned out to be a nice, subtle tune played in a hushed fashion with plenty of dashes of nostalgic sadness thrown in for good measure.  In other words, it was great.  It was a beautifully simplistic number that I wanted to hear a few times, so I did just that while I clicked away at all of the neat buttons on Hold On Proton’s amusing site.

As it turns out, Hold On Proton is just one guy named Sean Glass out of Helena (I’m not surprised by that one bit!) who, accordingly to his bio, recorded his first album, Lucky Wind, with one microphone in a tiny filing room during lunch breaks.  If this all turns out to be true (I’m not about to get caught up in the “fooled ya” Internet shit here), it is really the epitome of the do-it-yourself aesthetic that even some of the hardened punks strive for — except that this guy has a job, which happens to be around Tuscaloosa apparently.

Hold On Photon (Sean Glass, if you’re nasty)

And all of that is well and good, but here’s the catch: a lot of his songs are keepers, many in that sparse singer/songwriter method mentioned above.  Granted, he could at times put a metronome to good use, but that also adds to the music’s whimsy.

His quaint songs have a tinge of something deeper throughout that I couldn’t put my finger on until I found out that Glass had two brain tumor operations.  I didn’t need that to add weight or to add to my enjoyment of the music; I would’ve liked it nonetheless.  It is an interesting fact, though.

There was a downside: I couldn’t find a Facebook page for Hold On Photon and I didn’t see any show dates on his page.  Tuscaloosa could use more from the acoustic genre that isn’t two assholes belting out “Brown Eyed Girl” for the countless time.  Maybe Hold On Proton could venture down after work before he heads back to Helena.  Maybe he could put on a quick show at the Bama Theatre, Green Bar, or Egan’s one early evening.  Maybe we could celebrate the DIY attitude when there’s a lot of talent and craftmanship behind it.  Or maybe none of this will happen.

Even if it doesn’t, I can still go check out CBDB next week.

Signed,
Wellington Riverbottom