This trip out just hasn’t been very nice. The accident on the drive up took a lot out of me, leaving me in shock in a way. I hate the senselessness of it, knowing that it’s all fun and games until someone drives their 18-wheeler through your passenger seat.
Heather and I have both been stressed out ever since leaving Maryland, and we take it out on one another. We both have been forgetting little things here and there, and we both feel stupid when we forget little things here and there.
Last night we’d almost recovered. An open mic at a spot called the Infra-red Lounge. It’d been hard to find – neon light covered by sheet metal, the front of the bar covered with a closed folding down security door – Heather had seen it, but I hadn’t (colourblind people just don’t respond to red neon sometimes, unless it’s shaped into letters), adding to our tension.
But the talent inside really helped the night. The stars of the evening included an amazing performance by a guy named Mike ____ (I’ll dig up the last name in a sec) who was a spectacular vocal cross of Chris Cornell in his prime and Jeff Buckley. He started beautiful and then struck out for those intense Seattle screams.
Amazing.
Another performer, Stu, was the epitome of aged rocker. Grizzled and yet youthful with a greying pony-tail, he played old rock style solos of guitar screaming agony up and down the fret-board. It’s people like that that keep me hoping I can do this for a while.
But conversations with Stu were sobering. “New York City’s saturated with musicians” – so we’re treated like shit. A dime-a-dozen commodity means you’re useless. And indeed, we’re seeing that. The first time we were in New York we saw that people were very willing to listen, but totally uninterested in buying CDs. We landed shows though… and we haven’t played those shows, so perhaps there is space for optimism.
But only if there’s a dramatic change in the headspace of people at actual shows. At the Orange Bear, we get 20% of the bar. And at Tobacco Road, our big deal is that all CDs have to be sold through their concession stand and we get to keep 90% of our CD sales. The more I think about that the more it pisses me off.
The gigs were easy to get, and maybe that says it all, but New York City – it costs us $8 round trip to get anywhere (subway fare), the subway is utterly bizarre and unnavigable.
(Jayson’s screaming “There IS no GOD!!! Wait… there IS a God but He’s an ASSHOLE!!” – wow, something dramatic must be going down)
Parking is some $20/hour in many garages, the whole city is a huge waist-high bar built for people to bend over. New York City is an anal rape station.
After the open mic, it took us 2 and a half hours to slowly make our way home because of construction. Christ, we were helped home by a guy from Georgia, Russia. Then we had to move the car (twice every 24 hours!) – which had been broken into.
The beautiful icing.
They left my amplifier… just too heavy to be bothered with, but they ripped apart the centre console to get the stereo out. Heather’s CDs, a small little tray of cassettes (MAN! Who steals CASSETTES!!?!) and my DC/AC power converter. We’ve got a lot of very quiet driving ahead of us now, and it just fills me with this helpless anger. There’s no way to direct it, and no-one you can be angry at, and nothing even to be really learned… except that maybe New York City has been just too expensive to be bothered with.