I watched some great music last night. A man who was unexpectedly spectacular who I wasn’t there to see, and another man who I’d gone to see for all the wrong reasons who satisfied me intensely. What an awkward and strange opening sentence.
Jack Williams and Ronny Cox played at Institute of Musical Traditions and I went for all the wrong reasons. I didn’t go for the music, I went out of fanboy eagerness, wanting to see the actor who’d played the villain in Robocop and Total Recall and as a nefarious, clean-cut force of evil in too many other shows to name. If I’d had an ED209 for him to sign, well, it could’ve been very embarrassing for EVERYONE. As Ronny Cox wandered the audience ahead of the show, greeting everyone around him, it was sort of strange to see that face that never smiled on screen (unless it was in evil victory) simply being FRIENDLY. I’m unfortunately the shyest fanboy ever and couldn’t really have very intelligent conversations with him. We talked about Ellis Paul (he is regularly backed by Ellis Paul’s accordion player, we’re opening for Ellis Paul in November) and we talked about Deliverance (he was in it, I’ve never seen it) and we talked about Jack Williams (we both agreed, he’s amazing) – but all in all I wanted to grill him on details from these sci-fi worlds of my past, what it was like to work on Star Trek, how he’d fallen into that kind of characterization, how he got started in acting – and what drew him to music? Not all too far from my own world – trained in visual arts and lured away by the syren of guitars and vocals and awkwardly trying to balance both…
Watching him perform I got the creeping feeling that I was watching him on television, that I was watching a scripted performance – that everything, no matter how genuine, every gesture and guffaw and spark of inspiration, had been practiced in a mirror. Not because there was anything in his performance that spoke to that, but simply because of who he was. It was distracting and eventually kind of creepy, like I was watching something that wasn’t real… and of course that made me think that there was nothing genuine, nothing original in the night. He must’ve chatted about Ellis Paul and Deliverance and Jack Williams with a hundred, or even a thousand people before. I didn’t have anything original to say and he had responses queued up in his head, emotions and expressions on call… in general I think too much. If I’d been able to disengage my brain a little more I could’ve watched his performance and seen what I was SUPPOSED to see (and what was probably there) – i.e. a man doing what he Loves with his best friend, enjoying the Hell out an attentive audience and the fingerboard antics of a truly great guitarist, telling tales from his Life and the road, just as every road warrior does.
I DID Love the fact that he was looking forward to Tuesday. Because Tuesday was his day off – and he was going to get to do laundry. Travelling in a little Dodge Sprinter up and down the East Coast – it’s part of the Dream, man!
Jack Williams was an entirely different experience. His performance DID come across as perfectly polished, scripted and immutable – but he did it SO well, so seamlessly that I didn’t care. There was no question that any of it was off-the-cuff, it all fit too perfectly with even the introductions fitting rhythmically into the wandering guitar riffs he used in between his tunes. Normally, the sensation that what I’m hearing has been repeated a hundred times before and will be heard exactly as I’m hearing it by the next hundred audiences, normally this would really, really turn me off. But Jack Williams’ set was like one long song, or a concept album. The spaces in between the songs, the tales at the beginning of each piece, all of these were as much a part of the performance as the songs themselves and you almost felt like you were supposed to hold your applause till the end.
He had perhaps the best introductions to his songs of any performer I’ve ever seen. A great guitarist and vocalist, I Loved that his songs were often as much about negative space as they were abut swift runs and clever chord voicings. He had a Lovely sustain to his old, beaten guitar that he abused and used, breaking out of steady rhythms for a single, crystal note that just whirled off into the room. He reminded me of Monty Montgomery, but perhaps a little less bluesy and a little more tasteful.
Oh – and the guitar! Stained and pitted, I’ve NEVER seen a pickguard that had just been pulled apart like his. I’m not even sure how that happens! It looked as if the instrument had been left in the rain. The Martin logo was entirely worn off (I’m assuming from the shape of the head that it even WAS a Martin) and there were stains of decals, or SOMETHING on the surface in the unlikely shape of stars and flowers. But the tuning machines were bright and beautiful and probably brand new. You could see your face in the unmarred chrome.
All in all, a great night. I’m glad I saw some friends in the audience so that today I’ll be able to relive it. “Remember when he did that THING?! On the wheeeee? And that STORY! And then they played TOGETHER!!” And all I want to do is PLAY.
