We had such a good night last night – why do I get the ugly dreams now?
At the moment, Heather and I are careening into the sun via the straight and shiny Massachusetts Turnpike. I-90 is surrounded by high walls of stone and filled chock-full with moderately insane New England drivers shifting and weaving… I’d compare them to stockcar racers except that I’ve learned (thanks to John McCrea’s tour journal) that THEY’RE not allowed to aim for the driver-side doors. New England drivers just don’t care. I’m glad they can’t broadcast their thoughts into my brain, too, because then on TOP of having to worry about the physical danger, you’d hear that accent over and over again… threatening. There are few accents better for the expression of anger, and at the moment the only one that comes to mind is Klingon.
Heather’s singing Christina Auguliera’s “Ain’t No Other Man” and doing her best to salve the troubles of the road. She’s not too far off. We SHOULD cover this…
Anger is something new to me this week, however. Last Saturday was close to perfection: returning to Putnam once again and wandering the antique stores until it was time to set up at the Victoria Station Café. Incredible sunshine, cool weather and the first couple of fallen leaves… sunset in autumn in Putnam is something you’ve got to experience. It’s sort of a shame how there can be so many fine little shops packed into an area and yet you STILL can’t find any little exciting gifts that speak to you, but Dave’s made new soup and the taste is so very, very fine.
In any case, setting up slowly for the Victoria Station gig, hoping people come out – and I’m prepped for disaster because we push back our start time by half an hour and still have none of our regulars. Moments later we fire up, and it’s like the actual music is what draws them in. Mike and Ari and Lance and even Katie materialize as we get into our groove. Perhaps another example of people expecting us to have an opening act? I have no idea. Maybe they just think I’m too affectionate before gigs and they want to wait until my hands are full? Anything’s possible.
Victoria Station is high energy. We’re monsters and Mike even comments on how he Loves it when we click into our “rock out” mode. It looks like I’ve gotten away with still not having learned the Transformers theme song, at least.
Sunday night it’s back to Boston to play Danielle Miraglia’s songwriter showcase at the Burren in Somerville , MA . We show up and the first face to greet us is Kyle! We’d forgotten that he’d moved to Boston , and it sort of floored me to see him sitting at the bar. His hair is long and luxuriant and I’d forgotten how nice it is to see him. Hell, I’ve known him far longer than I’ve known Heather – it’s just really great to have him around.
My excitement was sort of shattered a couple of seconds later when I realized that once again the acts before us were full out bands with drum-kits and bass players and electric guitars. I’m beginning to have less of a complex about this, but I still hate seeing the line up… lining up… and realizing that the volume level is going to drop the moment we hit the stage, AND that we’re only going to hit the stage after the audience watches the drum-kit get broken down for 20 minutes.
Whatever. Everything goes swimmingly despite my concerns – it turns out that it’s Danielle’s birthday. There’s chocolate cake. There’s tequila. Tom Bianchi walks in to play bass for Danielle. Shawn Snyder (I’d forgotten he was in town TOO!) walks in and gives us a big hug. Hugh McGowan is working the bar, Whitney came with us. It’s awesome, we’ve got a room full of Lovely Lovely creatures. Inspired, we step up on stage and tear the roof off.
It turns into one of the nights where we just want to stick around and listen to everyone, and we’re well rewarded for our time: not only does Danielle play a full set with a percussionist and Tom playing bass, but Ryan Montbleau shows up and plays a solo set at the end of the night. An incredible, incredible night.
Monday, Tom had asked us to stick around another night to play his new open mic at the Lizard Lounge. I’m a little worried about it because it’s set up as a contest as well, but I’m arrogant enough to be sure we’ll make a good showing of ourselves – and Hell – I’m not going to turn Tom down. I generally hate the competition that such things engender, but I’m actually pretty impressed at how casual it all is once we get there. Tom’s really, well, one of the best hosts you’d care to encounter and I think I’m getting a better feeling for truly how central he is to the scene up here. He’s the middle of a whole lot of stuff and everyone (rightfully) adores him. He keeps things flowing and fun, and it turns out that the majority of the acts there that evening are there at his request. We encounter a couple of familiar faces (Shawn Snyder’s on stage when we walk in, Austin & Elliott are up later, I recognize them the moment they start playing their creepifying music) but mostly it’s brand-new and DAMN what an amazing group of players.
Though I really need to just ask Tom for the night’s list, because most everyone was simply so spectacular, there were a couple of gems that really stood out. Shortly after Heather and Whitney and Kyle and I sit down, “T. Mule” takes the stage – he’s intense and frightening and a cross between country and Satan and was right up there for my personal picks of the night. His first tune was a great country dirge about hunting down his father (and laying him down by his momma, but momma would never take him back) and the second one was apparently about marmalade… I waited for this to become a metaphor, but really, I think it may just have been a tune for the sheer Love of breakfast foods.
The person who really floored me though – Amber Rubarth. Cute and unassuming (Whitney turns to me and says she looks like Fievel the Mouse) she steps up to the microphone and lays down charm like I’ve never seen. I explained to her after her set – there are plenty of people who I watch and listen and admire what they do. There are a good number of people who I kind of wish I could DO what they do… it’s very rare that I meet someone who makes me wish I WAS them so I could’ve experienced the feeling of being inspired to create what they’ve created, and the joy of creating it, and the joy of disseminating it. What beauty lay within her… an amazing poet and a personal feel that’s probably displaced Antje Duvekot as the most “intimate” performer I’ve ever seen… meaning that both on and off the stage, I just felt that she was a genuine creature. There wasn’t the normal wall of politics / but my CD / what can you do for me / who are you that I feel is so typical a veneer at least on SOME level for most everyone I meet. I felt like she was really just telling me anecdotes and listening to me in return. I was tongue-tied and stupid while trying to express this, but she smiled winningly nonetheless and we were on soon so there wasn’t much more to say…
Playing the Lizard Lounge is intense. It’s a three-sided stage, with the majority of your audience to the front and to your left. You’re surrounded. You’re also surrounded by… you… with speakers the same size as the mains pointed back at you as monitors from all directions, you’ve got everyone’s eyes on you from everywhere, and you’re also surrounded by the sound of you. Good monitors can make you feel larger-than-Life, but this set-up just inflated me. We played really well, and there’s something about hearing everything you do so loud and clear and LIKING it that can really inspire. I felt GOOD. Will doubled and trebled in it’s usual intensity as we pummeled the audience with it, and then Illinois is Overflowing soothed any wounds. It was gratifying to step off the stage and realize that we truly belonged here. Amongst all the talent, we were being accepted as peers and as something great.
And of course the fact that Amber was appreciative too warmed me to no end. We got to talking at the bar as I was sort of packing up, and nearly missed the announcement that we were both finalists at the end of the night. We got to play another song and we won “most likely to break a string and need donuts” (winning us a prize of strings and a gift certificate for donuts – and winning ME a stolen kiss from Tom), and Amber took first prize completely deservedly. I’m currently smitten and we’ve made plans to someday tour together in Nebraska . Being from LA, it’s roughly the middle.
Monday night, after getting back from the open mic, staying up with Whitney (or more fairly, keeping Whitney I up), I slept and dreamt of playing yet ANOTHER gig where a full band is opening for us. A friends’ group who doesn’t even HAVE a drummer in real Life… in any case, halfway through their set, their drummer is going on about how much ilyAIMY sucks and is asking the crowd “Wouldn’t you rather just see us play the rest of the night?!!” and is insulting my Alvarez of all things… I wait for him as he gets of the stage, knock him down and stripe him across the chest with a knife before using my butterfly knife to harvest three of his fingers. I’m in the middle of crunching off a fourth digit when I wake up rather disturbed.
Get up, shower the dream off. Have a conditioner explosion in the shower. (I know, some readers are probably saying “‘conditioner’, RIGHT rob…” but really, the dietary change required for any of my natural excretions to smell of tangerine would be pretty extreme) Some pocket of air got into it or something and it got bloody well everywhere. Erf.
Later, sitting at the Space, waiting to sound check. Unfortunately, they’re having some problem with their reverb module and one of the sound guys is fooling with it. It makes a lot of really cool sounds, but apparently the desired noise is eluding him, as we’ve been doing this or about 20 minutes. I’m glad we’re easy to sound in, but they seem awfully disappointed. I’m pretty clueless about what’s wrong. The actual open mic is low-energy and very, very sparse. It doesn’t keep the audience from being low-energy about us, which is nice (Of course, I make them all smile… not by being funny, but by saying “look, this is the way the night felt, this is going to sound stupid, but before we start – bloody well GRIN) and we end up playing for twice as long as the normal half-hour showcase slot which IS kind of nice. The audience responded in kind and we sold a good number of CDs, made decent tips… but it would’ve been cool to feel like the one night we’re in town wasn’t the one night everyone chose to avoid the Space.
After the show, a lot of the regulars and staff all go out to a local diner. We tag along… Rob Messore (really amazing guitarist, host of the open mic, and generally cool guy – even cooler when I find out more about what sort of stuff he reads) sits at the end of the table and fiddles with his guitar and his bowl of grits, Shawn Snyder and Heather and I all swap road stories as the other half of the table gets into it over UFO conspiracies. Good omelette. Heather finally gets eggs benedict. A large group of people actually all put down enough for their food. Life’s alright.
We retired to the Space to sleep. Shawn’s with us because it’s now 1.30am and it’s this or driving the two hours back to Boston . Rob comes in and we all start talking well unto 3am . We talk about books and songwriting and Ellis Paul and names drop and we pick them up again. It’s maybe a lot closer to what I want more of our nights to be like, and though at one point Shawn remarks how all of it makes him feel pretty green – I think that with experiences like this – well, it’s taken us three years to get here and I think he’s getting things pretty well after his first three months. He’s doing just FINE.
It’s now morning at the Space, rapidly approaching noon . I’ve slept under the watchful gaze of the silver Space stage girl, and wasn’t nearly as creeped-out as I thought I might be. I think Steve, the owner, is floating around somewhere upstairs, but nothing much is happening and I’m just sitting in the dark, waiting for movement from my compatriots…
Oh, and to whom it may concern, I’ve just seen Shawn without his shirt on, and ladies, you could do a LOT worse!
