A couple Julys ago, I was invited to a concert at the Drummore Bay Concert Hall, a meticulously restored grange hall in Phippsburg. We parked between spray painted fluorescent lines on green grass in the side yard of the now 118 year old hall that sits proudly on the main road.
It was like we had just walked into someone’s living room, the way everyone was talking with everyone else. Single pane, wavy glass, six over six windows looked out to the woods while old lanterns, small acrylic paintings, ceramic tchotchkes, and of course a well-used dart board, the old, good kind, graced the walls.
We sat in the front row, 3 or 4 feet from the stage. Microphones and guitar stands were set up. A checkerboard and a pair of crossed wooden oars were on the back wall. I loved being in that space with my friends, talking to folks I had never met like they were family. Turns out two of them were family, Toki and John, the parents of Sean and Jamie Oshima, the band.
Hearty and thrilled applause ushered the two young men onto the stage carrying guitars and wearing skinny jeans and giant smiles. They said humble hellos and went right into “The Way It Goes.”
I had never heard these two before. Whatever I was expecting, and really I am not sure I was expecting anything beyond fun, their music went right through my ears and into my heart. Joy, brilliance, happiness, love, whatever else you want to call that thing that happens when something resonates deep, deep inside, in a place you didn’t know about before.
Sean was singing the refrain, “I sometimes hit the road. Without a second thought I go. ‘Cuz I lose myself to the things that I don’t know and that’s just the way it goes.”
Suddenly I was 25, traveling in my 1968 VW bus, driving through the southwest, windows rolled down, sun on my arm, listening to Van Morrison, the Beatles, Crosby Still and Nash, and a hundred mix tapes my friends had made for me before I hit the road. The cassette player was wired into the dashboard radio and sitting on the floor next to the gear shift.
“Calling your name…Do you want me? yeah yeah yeah You’re all I need… yeah yeah yeah…” Their voices, in perfect and comforting harmony, sang of love, life, pain, joy, and wisdom. With guitars, simple percussion and mandolin, they built perfect vessels to set their lyrics sailing, and we sailed with them. I melted a little inside remembering my childhood babysitter saving up her money to go see the Beatles last concert, and how she cried when she told me the story of seeing Paul and John sing together. “It was like they were singing just to me,” she sobbed.
“I’m counting birds moving faster than I can with words…” Sean sang. It wasn’t just me floating in soft sunny memories during the concert. We were all right there in the present watching those two onstage making amazing music with their voices and their instruments, and we were also in our own reveries of a thousand Julys ago, maybe in love, the world and its treasure waiting for us to step into life and fall and soar.
In Magpie, the refrain says, “They say one’s for sorrow and two’s for joy, three’s for my baby and four’s for this boy…” It’s Sean’s spin on an old nursery rhyme. The way these two weave a past they never lived with a present in which they both stand tall and beaming makes me believe that the universe really is our oyster and these two are generously handing out pearls, no questions asked.
I have seen the Oshima Brothers several times since, following them like a grandmotherly groupie. I am not alone. My sisters and friends join me. We watch them in awe, but they don’t let us stay in that other-worldly place for long. Their sibling repartee and contagious laughter keep us firmly on earth, tapping our feet, nodding our heads, whooping and clapping after each song. They remind us that there are so many choices of ways to use our hearts and share our time.
On inside of their self-designed and self-titled CD, the last words are “Shout and Spread Joy.” Though I do not raise my voice often, in my own way I am shouting Thank You to these two, and to so many other young musicians for following their hearts, leading with their spirits and sharing their pearls. They remind us that we all, no matter our age, no matter what else is going on around us, have so much to look forward to.
You can see and hear the Oshima Brothers here.