I’m letting my phone have its way with our earballs and it’s spitting admirably randomized selections from my collections at us. Richard Shindell fades to Sol.iloquists of Sound to Gillian Grassie. Now Danzig is gracing my speakers, wailing away in his blues punk Elvis Muppet ways. He probably wouldn’t think that was very funny, but the nice thing about Glen Danzig is that if I climb up on a chair I can usually outwait him safely out of reach.
The day is grey and so are moods on a long drive up to Oswego. We’re running tight on time and rushing doesn’t get us anywhere. Still, a hot dog that was denied me due to misaligned schedules on our last trip through the area has been snapped up and swiftly enjoyed. Maybe it’s just me in a difficult mood but I do sometimes wish I’d brought headphones for the car.
Whatever. The more I think about the show tonight the better I know things are going to be. Seeing We’re About 9 do their thing always puts me in awe. The harmonies and the writing are simply like nothing else on the scene… anywhere. Or that’s ever BEEN on the scene. Maybe I’m overstating, but I’m not sure that I am.
One of the guys from Our Times was helping us out to our car and then asked me if I wanted to see something really freaky…. I don’t know that I ever really said yes, but he pulled me over to the edge of the parking lot and shined his flashlight into the adjoining field…. which promptly illuminated absolutely nothing. Being of the era of shaky cam horror movie stupidity I used my camera flash instead and highlighted a trio of dogs staring at us. Apparently they’re just dummies set up to scare off whatever it is that digs up fields in NY… maybe the road weevils are looking into branching out from feeding on asphalt?
Feedback swells as Tool takes over the stereo. In our current performance place I can’t get away with lines “I need to watch things die” but sometimes I feel like I’d like to get a little fiercer in my statements. My writing runs up against a brick wall sometimes as I feel like I just can’t say certain things on stage. I’m spending a lot of time being very, very, very angry and thinking I want to roar.
Heather’s constantly apologizing for “trapping me in the folk scene” on this trip – and even though we’ve certainly been immersed in the FRFF / NERFA crowd I don’t feel particularly trapped by it. I feel like it’s definitely part of what ilyAIMY is, and not just Heather’s half of it. I dip into it and am informed by it – and for as formative as Tool and Alice In Chains and Rage Against the Machine and Metallica were (and are) for me, it’s also WA9 and Richard Shindell and the Indigo Girls and Joni Mitchell singing in my soul.
Gordon Nash has posted another of his blog entries claiming he’s mostly run out of things to say about us, but adding that he just doesn’t understand why we’re not famous, selling out rooms and getting radio airplay.
I’ve got theories. It’s probably a vast combination of things that sprawl from the band name to the subtle nuance of playing weird instruments to the fact that we’re simply in-between a lot of things to the fact that I’m getting old…. All that said, we’re being supported in ways that we never were before and by people that I never dreamed would take an interest. Folk DJs and folk artists perhaps see in us a little bit of their own neglected sides that wants to rock out and get a little loud. The jam sessions we’ve had with Pesky J. hint at that. There’s a little growl trapped in everyone that is screaming and clawing to get out.
Just as I’m sure there’s a Lovely little Love song inside me somewhere, just waiting for the right time to poke it’s soft muzzle forward.
In any case – last night was a marvelous show, and exactly the kind of show I want to be doing. The support of Martin and the Our Times Coffee House is exactly the kind of team I want on my side. A leader of a local folk music community who’s excited by things that are new and different, and a folk flock that’s excited to see what that leader brings them… I’m sure I’m overstating things but last night I felt celebrated. There was a small collection of people that’d seen us before, and each had a collection of people that they’d gathered to them to see us.
It’s the way it’s supposed to work.
But man, we’ve been working at it for sooooo long. Sometimes it’s discouraging – but last night was fun, raucous and rambunctious. I felt like my mental filter only had to be lightly engaged (though we did play the “folk” version of a couple of songs) and I really enjoyed everyone that I met. Jamming with Martin on Slight Departure was a joy and we had Mackie Thumps pointed right at us and that’s NEVER a bad thing.
Tonight’s one last show in NY and then racing back home. Tomorrow night we’re back to our regular stomping grounds though in an irregular fashion (playing a Saint Patrick’s Day show)
