What Lack of Love Does

Somehow I must have seemed like a good sipping partner.

Wine date #1: Cafe Caturra with a glass of Santa Julia Torrontes, a friend and her Baltimore beau and a roaring fire despite the open door and 50-degree temperature outside.

Suggested soundtrack: Animal Collective ("Walking around in our summertime clothes, nowhere to go while our bodies glow").

Wine date #2: The Belvidere at Broad with a glass of Prosecco, hordes of people headed to see "The Lion King" and a DJ telling me about his glorious walk in today's sunshine.

Suggested soundtrack: The XX ("Wanna find myself by the sea, in another's company").

Wine date #3: Ipanema with a glass of Analissa Primitivo, a friend in the cutest earrings and a discussion of being an independent woman when given no other choice.

Suggested soundtrack: The Helio Sequence ("Lately, I don't think of you at all, or wonder what you're up to or how you're getting on").

The evening concludes at Strange Matter for music and a light show.

The crowd is good-sized but not packed, probably because there are several other good shows going on tonight.

First up is Airstrip out of North Carolina and when I ask a musician friend what they sound like, he responds, "You know that North Carolina indie band sound? Yea, that's what they sound like."

Damn if he wasn't right on. The Chapel Hill foursome's music covered the 80s and the 90s despite issues with broken guitar strings and being out of tune.

During the break, Matt of Snowy Owls asked me to help him carry shots to the stage and the imbibing of those shots began their set.

They covered Superdrag (a nod to Matt's Knoxville roots) and fuzzed out hard while continuing to win the crowd away from their drinking and talking.

The Cinnamon Band played last and they had a bunch of drunken die hard fans in the room singing along to almost every song.

They covered Nick Lowe's "What Lack of Love Has Done" as well as doing both the A and B sides of their upcoming single.

"Easy does it doesn't cut it when you want someone."

Hey, they said it, not me.

After their set, I chatted with friends, one of whom inquired what I thought of the Cinnamon Band.

"Her answer has nudity in it," my girlfriend said to much laughter.

Because I first saw the Cinnamon Band unplugged, I still get a kick out of hearing them full-on electric and I said so.

I did not so much as mention naked anything.

There was some discussion of which instrument can win a person's heart; I heard a case for pedal steel guitar and I know someone else who would say sax.

I'd be inclined to go with the vox as the irresistible instrument for me.

Words. It always comes down to words.