Adam Sandler may have cornered the Thanksgiving market in 1992 with the only universally recognized Thanksgiving song of the past century, but I’ll spare you from hearing that song again when we all know it’s the only thing any radio station will be playing today.

Did I choose this song specifically because the band’s name mentions Indians? Yes, yes I did. Does the band’s name have almost nothing to do with the Native American dinner guests that joined the pilgrims on the first Thanksgiving (according to most elementary school textbooks at least)? Yep, that is also a fact. However loose the song’s relationship to this holiday may be, I figured that we’re all going to need something to wake us up from that heavy dose of tryptophan that the unhealthy amount of ingested turkey will surely bring.

You may be asking yourself where a goofy name like “From Indian Lakes” actually comes from. As a preface to the explanation, I’d suggest you stop asking that question unless you’re fully prepared to do some deep research. An absurd percentage of alternative bands have seemingly nonsensical names, and at some point you just have to accept it. That being said, the singer, songwriter, and general brainchild of From Indian Lakes is Joey Vannucchi, and he is the creative proprietor of the peculiar name. Vannucchi grew up in North-Central California near Yosemite National Park where he had no electricity for most of his childhood. Without any television or neighbors around to make noise complaints, he would play the drums for hours on a daily basis while simultaneously teaching himself a slew of other instruments. After playing in numerous bands during his adolescence, he began recording songs in a friend’s studio in Indian Lakes, CA at the age of 20. He eventually released those recordings onto Myspace titling them “Songs From Indian Lakes”, and the rest is history, ignored or otherwise.

With the lifestyle Vannucchi has lived, I’d expect him to have emerged as a soft, sensitive, and acoustically inclined singer/songwriter. Hell, what else would you expect from a man who lived in the middle of nowhere as a musically inspired Walt Whitman-type, learning through woodland seclusion? Seclusion however, does not equate to softness or silence. Vannucchi’s methodology of constant musical practice put a damper to the quietness associated with solitude. Rather than reflecting the tranquility of being alone, From Indian Lakes presents a raw silence-breaking ominousness in their music. They’re calm but focused, as if they’re content with stress and directly questioning all of life’s problems with a straight face. They’re masters of the sensory and right to push the value of feeling all there is to feel without hesitation or fear of confrontation, as tough as that may be.

That’s not to say today is a day to “face” whatever awkward yet pertinent issue has been bothering you or your family lately. Let’s save that argument for a more thankless day, shall we? Enjoy your turkey day friends, and all the glutinous bingeing that comes with it.