Strand Of Sterling
The beer touches my lips, my headphones are on and I’m listening to the one Timothy Showalter — leading his band, Strand of Oaks.
“And that’s where I drank myself to sleep just to get some company.”
Stooping to an alcohol induced coma just to get some company in our dreams.
I slouch back in my couch, “Sterling” has been on repeat. The strumming of folk-rock bleeds through the fingertips of his second full-length album. Befittingly, it’s a song that’s the semblance of my 27 years of existence. You read up on Mr. Showalter and realize the destitute life he’s been through, near-death car crashes, an exterior affair at the expense of his high-school sweetheart, his house burned down — the sleeping on park benches — the ulterior motive to create great music that talks of the unchaste human.
“And this year I’m gonna work on stability.”
He’s a storyteller, a master electric infused acoustic folk-rocker.
A magistrate of new-found rock chords, amplified pedals, melodic drums, tats that tell of struggles, and a beard that tells of a rock-lifestyle.
But at the end of the day these adjectives are just a scab of the pedigree.
Sterling for me is a song about life, as much as it is about the waning and the wanting to be a better man, through the demons that arise through being awake — as well as the surmise of our dreams — wanting the integrity of our grandfathers.
“And I hope one day to have half as much of my grandpa’s integrity.”
At least for me. My grandfather was, and is to this day a man of much integrity.
These songs that Strand of Oaks writes and produces, are for me — a fight through life for a man’s man.
