Mason - Love hurts, and local musician Aylius' acoustic guitar is the perfect illustration.
Just more than a year old, the guitar is scratched and worn, almost to the point of creating a hole above the pickguard. But the intense, wearing relationship between Aylius and his Martin D15 is mutual.
His fingers are calloused and blackened from its strings, but for Aylius, it's just another way to show his guitar is his one true love.
"It's starting to look like a Willie Nelson guitar," he said, touching its gnawed wooden face with pride.
Born and raised in the Lansing area, Aylius, who ditched his given name of Juan Valdez and goes by Aylius professionally as well as to friends and family, hasn't traveled far from home.
"I hate this state," he said shaking off the cold as he entered his dark apartment. "But I love the summers here, so I guess I'll stay."
Come the first nonfreezing days of the spring, Aylius will take his usual spot on the corner of M.A.C. and Albert avenues where he'll be approached by random, impressed passersby and hit on by drunk women on their late-night treks home from parties.
"I usually get out there by 2 in the afternoon and sometimes stay until 2 in the morning," he said. "Girls will come by and grab my face and tell me how good I am, but I'm too busy, I'm in the zone. Once they leave though, I'm like, 'Damn, I shoulda said somethin.'"
All that late-night drunken debauchery, his failed attempts at picking up women and conversations he has with the gothic crowd that shares his corner are among the things fueling his writing.
"I'm a people person, that's what I've realized," he said. "That's where I get my inspiration."
And his newest album, "Rationally Explicit," is nothing but inspiration from his fellow man.
After unsuccessfully striking up a conversation with a strange woman outside of a bar one night, Aylius penned the song "Miranda."
"She didn't even give me the time of day," he said, rolling his eyes and mocking her attitude.
But that's a small price to pay for a motive, he says.
"Don't start trippin' on me/As I turned to walk away she said/Hey I'm sorry/Well now let's start all over again/What's your name/I like your earrings and your shoes/She said my name's Miranda and I've had one of those days/I said it's all right/I know what it's like to have one of those days/If you wanna talk Miranda I'm all ears," he sings softly into his microphone as the warm guitar melody fills his tiny Mason apartment.
After a divorce from his teenage sweetheart left him paying child support for his two beloved daughters, Aylius decided there was only one other thing he wanted to spend his money on.
"This is my groceries," he laughed, pointing at the recording studio he set up in the living room of his Mason apartment.
Smoking a cigarette, Aylius leans over his guitar, tuning it to open E. He's not new to the music scene, having played bass for a local band for years, but his acoustic interest sprung up mostly within the past year, he said.
The 34-year-old has dealt with many things in his life and said he has a pretty good grasp on such things as relationships, now letting his frustration with them take over in the form of song.
"You're trying so hard to convince me/With that look on your face/The things you do with your body/You don't understand/The man I am/All the things that I want/The places I want to see," his voice stands firm in "Only Sex to Me Destiny."
Too often, acoustic-based music in college towns follows the same format of verse, chorus, verse, whine, bitch, whine - and while Aylius' music might be faintly reminiscent of such a standard, you'd be hard-pressed to find another local artist with such intensity, honesty, compassion and sincerity.
Suggested listening: Get a group of friends together who have never heard Aylius and experience his music together for the first time.
If you liked this, you'll also like: Neil Young, Bob Dylan and Sublime.
Previous albums: Street Songs
Where to find: www.cdbaby.com
Price: $8.00
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