The theater is amazing- like a Vaudeville scene in a Tim Burton movie. We are the first of 5 bands. It’s a crazy long night. The owner of the theater was very kind- very interested. Didn’t complain. Talked of things and people that were inspiring to her.
So there were a lot of people sitting in the pews as we got ready to play. And the audience loved it. But the host was somewhat of a dick to us. Obviously didn’t care to listen- he was wandering about and talking through our set. Before the last song- ‘All the Time’- I asked the sound guy: “Do we have time for one more?” (knowing that we did- as we have our sets timed meticulously at this point). Thumbs up from the sound guy. We begin our plodding doomsday intro to the song. A few bars in , our ungracious host storms up to the stage, waving a chubby finger. He gruffly interrupts the song to tell us that we only have time for one more song! It is apparent that we weren’t appreciated by the host. That can be a buzz kill. But the audience ate it up- and it was a beautiful space to play.
A toast to the full moon and an evening invitation lead us to the empty barn, where sound batters back and forth between the rafters long after the moment is over. Time stretches long and warbley. We have our third spontaneous sound orchestra of the trip, but I’m getting ahead of myself. Always ahead or behind, that’s part of the pathology of changing so rapidly, powerfully...I have not caught up with last week even, and this one will be no less poignant.
I’ve never seen clouds like these, in tiny bits arranged into a triangle pointing at the moon. As soon as I look back, they’ve shifted. And again. And again. Aniche. We four amble on, breathing into radiance like puppets who’ve only just discovered our strings. I needed this, knew it was coming, and I’m happy it’s here. The Rightness that’s been following us seems to have become another character here with us, Henry the Cat, who entertains us with his antics and knows more than we do about these strings.
I am awoken from a sound sleep to a loud drunk girl pointing at me and shouting- “Look there are people sleeping everywhere!!” I say to her- “I just woke up to someone pointing and laughing at me. I don’t even know where I am!” “You’re in Burlington.” she says, and I fall back to an angry sleep.
After each performance I wanted to disappear into total anonymity. The funny thing is that we got a lot of praise and compliments- and it didn’t matter. I just wanted to hide away. So I hung out a while and listened to the host play his set. He was gritty and soulful. Angry. Great musician and singer. His banter was nervous. He mumbled broken sentences and paced about- complained about his guitar strings, sputtered apologetically between songs. He was the King when he wasn’t on stage. But when he got up there, he looked like a gigantic 4 year old with a beard and guitar. The bucket came around and I tipped him my last dollar. Later in the night, during the next band’s set, he called me cheap for not putting any tips in the bucket. But what can I say? “I can’t tip them because I gave you my last dollar!” A likely story. I just had to accept the insult. Actually- I acted as if I didn’t hear it. He walked away. I didn’t say bye when I left that night.
There is a white wooden bench atop the world. We sit for awhile and balance the scales, open and uninhibited. Walls fall down. There is no choice but to feel it.
Henry stays with us all the way home. We wind up again in the barn, toying with voice and vibration. We are closer, and will contend with all these heart-magnets sooner or later. Tonight was a pinnacle and tomorrow, a fall, though I don’t know it yet. This carnival has more funhouse mirrors than I’m accustomed to. And landmines underfoot. And thought-mines and feeling-mines, all covered under the details.
My desire to disappear consumed me and before long I could resist it no more. I said a vague and mysterious goodbye to my friends and vanished in the night. I rambled around the streets of Brooklyn- full of hopeless despair. I rambled past Ceol and dropped in. E.W. Harris was out back. Exactly the guy I needed to see. He is such an inspired creative odd ball of boundless brilliance. I just wanted to listen to him talk about crazy shit for a while. And he did. He talked about Mobile, Alabama as an epicenter of Avante-folk- and open minded freak flag bubble in the infamously narrow and bigoted state. He talked about his post-apocalyptic concept band. He talked about Phillip glass’s ‘Einstein on the Beach”. It was music to my ears. He put me on an F train and sent me off at the ‘Jay-Metrotech’ stop. “Just walk straight to Myrtle. If you see the alligator eating a headless baby- you know you’re on the right track! “ The train pulled away. I exhaustedly emerged from the subway into the hot night. I saw neither alligator nor headless baby.
Eventually I get to Clinton. My guitar is heavy and I am drenched in sweat. Every ten steps I switch hands. I walk a bit more- but everything is unfamiliar. That’s because it’s Clinton Street! I need Clinton Ave. It’s one thirty in the morning on a Wednesday, but there are people out everywhere. I start asking around: “How do I get to Myrtle and Clinton Ave?” Nobody has ever even heard of it. A few people get wide eyed and gasp. “You’re in the wrong part of town!!” I was so hot and tired I couldn’t even comprehend walking any longer. I wandered. Lost. I went into a bar and asked the bartender. My sweaty skin shimmered in the air conditioning. He walked to the other side of the bar for a moment. Then motioned me over. I was greeted by a sharp looking loud guy- dressed like a millionaire- hair all slicked back- constantly moving and bouncing- thick NYC accent. He, in his element- cool, collected and in control. Me, out of my element- haggard, disheveled, glassy and vacant stare.
“Where you goin'?” he sounded like Joe Pesci. “Myrtle and Clinton Ave.” was my humble reply. As I anticipated- he was astonished. How could I be this lost? How did things go so very wrong?!
I’d forgotten the briefcase at Banjo Jim’s the night before and had to take the bus back down to get it. It was all rigged up for the computer samples and padded with blocks of styrofoam wrapped up in patterns of electrical tape. When the bartender found it there at the end of the night he thought it was a bomb. “What the fuck man? Who still owns of one those old things? You gotta be careful with that thing - I wouldn’t open it on the subway if I were you.”
But everyone got a good laugh and the city remained on guard...
“Look at my finger!” He commanded- and pointed out at a 45 degree angle. “Look at it!! Clinton is two blocks that way. Take Clinton to Myrtle- but it’s 2 miles. You don’t look like you’re in any condition for that kind of walk.” I stood there- shimmering. “Huh?” he laughed. “You all right? You need to sit down?”
So there were a lot of people sitting in the pews as we got ready to play. And the audience loved it. But the host was somewhat of a dick to us. Obviously didn’t care to listen- he was wandering about and talking through our set. Before the last song- ‘All the Time’- I asked the sound guy: “Do we have time for one more?” (knowing that we did- as we have our sets timed meticulously at this point). Thumbs up from the sound guy. We begin our plodding doomsday intro to the song. A few bars in , our ungracious host storms up to the stage, waving a chubby finger. He gruffly interrupts the song to tell us that we only have time for one more song! It is apparent that we weren’t appreciated by the host. That can be a buzz kill. But the audience ate it up- and it was a beautiful space to play.
A toast to the full moon and an evening invitation lead us to the empty barn, where sound batters back and forth between the rafters long after the moment is over. Time stretches long and warbley. We have our third spontaneous sound orchestra of the trip, but I’m getting ahead of myself. Always ahead or behind, that’s part of the pathology of changing so rapidly, powerfully...I have not caught up with last week even, and this one will be no less poignant.
I’ve never seen clouds like these, in tiny bits arranged into a triangle pointing at the moon. As soon as I look back, they’ve shifted. And again. And again. Aniche. We four amble on, breathing into radiance like puppets who’ve only just discovered our strings. I needed this, knew it was coming, and I’m happy it’s here. The Rightness that’s been following us seems to have become another character here with us, Henry the Cat, who entertains us with his antics and knows more than we do about these strings.
I am awoken from a sound sleep to a loud drunk girl pointing at me and shouting- “Look there are people sleeping everywhere!!” I say to her- “I just woke up to someone pointing and laughing at me. I don’t even know where I am!” “You’re in Burlington.” she says, and I fall back to an angry sleep.
After each performance I wanted to disappear into total anonymity. The funny thing is that we got a lot of praise and compliments- and it didn’t matter. I just wanted to hide away. So I hung out a while and listened to the host play his set. He was gritty and soulful. Angry. Great musician and singer. His banter was nervous. He mumbled broken sentences and paced about- complained about his guitar strings, sputtered apologetically between songs. He was the King when he wasn’t on stage. But when he got up there, he looked like a gigantic 4 year old with a beard and guitar. The bucket came around and I tipped him my last dollar. Later in the night, during the next band’s set, he called me cheap for not putting any tips in the bucket. But what can I say? “I can’t tip them because I gave you my last dollar!” A likely story. I just had to accept the insult. Actually- I acted as if I didn’t hear it. He walked away. I didn’t say bye when I left that night.
There is a white wooden bench atop the world. We sit for awhile and balance the scales, open and uninhibited. Walls fall down. There is no choice but to feel it.
Henry stays with us all the way home. We wind up again in the barn, toying with voice and vibration. We are closer, and will contend with all these heart-magnets sooner or later. Tonight was a pinnacle and tomorrow, a fall, though I don’t know it yet. This carnival has more funhouse mirrors than I’m accustomed to. And landmines underfoot. And thought-mines and feeling-mines, all covered under the details.
My desire to disappear consumed me and before long I could resist it no more. I said a vague and mysterious goodbye to my friends and vanished in the night. I rambled around the streets of Brooklyn- full of hopeless despair. I rambled past Ceol and dropped in. E.W. Harris was out back. Exactly the guy I needed to see. He is such an inspired creative odd ball of boundless brilliance. I just wanted to listen to him talk about crazy shit for a while. And he did. He talked about Mobile, Alabama as an epicenter of Avante-folk- and open minded freak flag bubble in the infamously narrow and bigoted state. He talked about his post-apocalyptic concept band. He talked about Phillip glass’s ‘Einstein on the Beach”. It was music to my ears. He put me on an F train and sent me off at the ‘Jay-Metrotech’ stop. “Just walk straight to Myrtle. If you see the alligator eating a headless baby- you know you’re on the right track! “ The train pulled away. I exhaustedly emerged from the subway into the hot night. I saw neither alligator nor headless baby.
Eventually I get to Clinton. My guitar is heavy and I am drenched in sweat. Every ten steps I switch hands. I walk a bit more- but everything is unfamiliar. That’s because it’s Clinton Street! I need Clinton Ave. It’s one thirty in the morning on a Wednesday, but there are people out everywhere. I start asking around: “How do I get to Myrtle and Clinton Ave?” Nobody has ever even heard of it. A few people get wide eyed and gasp. “You’re in the wrong part of town!!” I was so hot and tired I couldn’t even comprehend walking any longer. I wandered. Lost. I went into a bar and asked the bartender. My sweaty skin shimmered in the air conditioning. He walked to the other side of the bar for a moment. Then motioned me over. I was greeted by a sharp looking loud guy- dressed like a millionaire- hair all slicked back- constantly moving and bouncing- thick NYC accent. He, in his element- cool, collected and in control. Me, out of my element- haggard, disheveled, glassy and vacant stare.
“Where you goin'?” he sounded like Joe Pesci. “Myrtle and Clinton Ave.” was my humble reply. As I anticipated- he was astonished. How could I be this lost? How did things go so very wrong?!
I’d forgotten the briefcase at Banjo Jim’s the night before and had to take the bus back down to get it. It was all rigged up for the computer samples and padded with blocks of styrofoam wrapped up in patterns of electrical tape. When the bartender found it there at the end of the night he thought it was a bomb. “What the fuck man? Who still owns of one those old things? You gotta be careful with that thing - I wouldn’t open it on the subway if I were you.”
But everyone got a good laugh and the city remained on guard...
“Look at my finger!” He commanded- and pointed out at a 45 degree angle. “Look at it!! Clinton is two blocks that way. Take Clinton to Myrtle- but it’s 2 miles. You don’t look like you’re in any condition for that kind of walk.” I stood there- shimmering. “Huh?” he laughed. “You all right? You need to sit down?”
It was 100 degrees in the city and I got a head rush after standing up too quick in the park where we sat and watched. If there was nothing else to do today we would have just sat and watched. Like that old man we passed somewhere on the Lower East Side. He’d probably been sitting in the same chair for 60 years taking in the street from the pinpoints in his dark and heavy eyes, face like hardened plaster. We passed his world lugging our gear to the subway, the suitcase and guitar barely making it through the turnstile.
Lightning bolts and bodies of water, lush tree life lining asphalt interstate. If I don’t watch out, I might accidentally spend my life complaining about the weather whether it’s hot or cold. The hardest thing to remember is that it’s always the right temperature, no matter how it feels on skin.
