The Loop : Zachary James Dodds - Words, Cranes & Marks

Zachary James Dodds - Words, Cranes & Marks (2005)

I met Zach Dodds in December of 2006. It was finals week, and as was the torturous nature of French class, I had a Friday evening final to take of the very last exam of the fourth and final semester ASU required. (by the way, to this day I only know approximately four words, counting up to 100 and how to ask where the bathroom is and tell people I'm going to the movies)

I was totally anxious the entire time because that night was also "The Winter Formal" at The Sets, one of many creative ideas thought up by local promoter Psyko Steve. I was all dressed up for my final, getting funny looks while explaining to my friends there that I had to finish because I had to go to a rock show. I wanted to get there early to catch Alcholiday, my newest band buddies who put on an amazing show. After tearing through the exam, I made my way to The Sets and found myself there . . . early. WIN! No one I knew was there yet and at the time I was still on the OTHER side of the 21 and over rope (sad!) so I wandered around a bit. I ended up sitting down near Stiletto Formal's merch table (because I was dumb and opted t0 wear heels) when a guy walks up to me and says, "Hey, I see you around a lot at ASU right? You're at a lot of the music things?" (which happened a lot to me, by the way. It sounds egotistical, but it's true. I was told I had recognizable hair) He introduced himself as Zach Dodds, and we ended up talking a bit, realizing that we had a lot of mutual friends from Saguaro High School and such. At that point, a photographer from The Arizona Republic comes up and asks us to take a picture together. Since we had only met a few minutes earlier, it was sort of strange, but we smiled and took one, albeit far apart. A couple days later, a friend who worked at the Tribune sent me a message to the effect of "hey, you're famous!" and pointed me to the picture online:

This is not the original one, since we both didn't know each other, we each cropped each other out to use for our social networking. I could have pieced it back together, but its kind of funnier this way.

A few weeks later, I started working with this guy named Chad on his project called The Via Maris. We were discussing his album and live show and he mentioned that he usually has a few friends who play with him, including a guitarist named Zachary James Dodds. I laughed because of the way he and I had met and Chad encouraged me to listen to his music. I checked out his MySpace and played a few songs on my radio show. He ended up playing with Chad, occaisionally opening up with his own material. I remember paying him $5 for a copy of his latest EP Words Cranes and Marks and his very first CD that he released in high school called Wind For Sails. We quickly became good friends, sharing Chipotle adventures and music movie marathons. We ended up having a ton of the same friends, as it happens in Arizona and I became a huge fan of his music.

Aside from that long story, this short EP speaks more volumes than so many artists' full LPs. I read once that Zach "sounds too world-weary for his age", and with some of the imagry he draws and sophisticated language made it very clear that he was not just some young singer/songwriter. His musical sensibilities are unmatched, having graduated well above some of his whiny emo peers even in his high school record and creating a rich and amazingly produced folk record. His voice is rich and deep, which I think creates an inviting tone for the entire EP. He is working on a new set of music under a different name, but I'm sure his character will create the same tone, no matter what genre.

My story of meeting Zach is probably not unlike how a lot of people ended up meeting him, because it is his nature to be kind and friendly to people. This translates into his music perfectly, which is likely why it catches your attention right off the bat. He is a person who is so happy in life, no matter what he's doing, and finds the good in everything. There is no way that that couldn't be reflected through his music, which is articulate and unconditionally happy. Not only did we have a lot of mutual friends, but he has a lot of friends in general just from being perceptive and open to everyone. I can honestly say without a doubt that there is not one person who can say they don't like Zach Dodds.

Not only is he now one of my greatest friends, but I am proud to share his music with everyone, about someone who has made an impact on my life in my two favorite ways : friendship and exceptional music.

As it turns out, there aren't any videos of Zach perfoming any of the songs from this EP, but coincidentally this is my favorite song of his called "My New Friends" from a later EP (that is now out of print, but streamable on MySpace)