Rufus Wainwright will always hold a very special place in my heart. Melody introduced me to him right after we met in 1999. I am used to being the one with the hot album in my pocket so I was pleasantly shocked to hear undeniable genius issue forth. In her Ford Taurus on the way to the Raleigh/Durham International airport, we listened to impossibly romantic and simultaneously vastly sad song after song after song.
In another post I'll articulate why this perfectly matched what was going on between Melody and I, but suffice it to say Rufus became the soundtrack to my life. He influenced my songs, the way I sang, the way I wrote lyrics, the way I listened.
I've been lucky enough to see him perform three times in wildly different settings.
Rufus # 1: CBGB's
Which is now closed. I don't remember how I heard about it but an AIDS benefit was happening at CBGB's. All sorts of queer bands were going to try to put up with the filth that was CBGB's. I know everyone is all nostalgic about CBGB's but to my mind it had long outlived its storied past. Clean the fucking bathroom already. David Byrne is not coming back to pick up his shit.
A boatload of horrible music happens and then a grand piano is wheeled out onto the stage. It looks like a tophat on a hobo.
Rufus shrugs his way onto the stage wearing what looks like a chain mail shirt and girl jeans. He sits at the piano and is visibly aghast. This piano pains him, like fringe on a suit jacket. But it is for a good cause so he summons his will and begins to play.
No frills, no accompaniment. He is staggering. He plays a new song 'Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk' which I take as some kind of omen because I'd very recently had a meltdown after spilling some while smoking the other. He does a few of the songs from his first album, which is by now a classic in my mind, as familiar as anything in my collection.
He grimaces at the noises the piano makes while he plays, small irregularities of sound that we can't hear but are unbearable to him. He is clearly thrown by the force of adulation rushing at him from the crowd. He seems to almost resent their love, like the aging high school jock who blows up at his friends when they start reliving the big play.
Overall it is a night of contrasts; the cesspool of CBGB's put against the refinement of Rufus' music; the pull of the masses vs. the lone singular voice of their hero.
Rufus # 2: With Tori
By now Melody has moved to NYC and we can finally openly enjoy Rufus, not weep in private to him separately.
He is opening for Tori Amos at The Beacon Theater. For Melody, seeing Tori Amos for the first time is akin to me seeing The Replacements for the first time. Add Rufus and 9/11 to the mix and it became a Holy Grail kind of deal.
Rufus seems to have relaxed into the spotlight a bit. He is much more at ease which could also have something to do with the gorgeous piano he gets to play. He also has a guitar on stage. At one point in his set he is wearing a Future Farmers of America hat and joking about how odd that is. The whole show has an intense feel because it is October 2001 and every event in NYC has an extra edge.
Maybe the size of the room relaxes him, makes him feel less under a microscope. Maybe he hated the dirt at CBGB's. Maybe he just got happier. Maybe 9/11 had opened him up in a new way. He later wrote about it in an amazing song called 11:11 where he notes that 'everything really does happen in Manhattan.'
I don't know what had changed, but the chip on Rufus' shoulder was gone. Let's just say that Tori had a tough act to follow.
Rufus # 3: Gayboys at the Hollywood Bowl
When I heard that Rufus was bringing his Judy Garland Carnegie Hall Tribute show to the Hollywood Bowl, I knew I had to take Melody. Her love of Tori and Rufus pales in comparison to her Wizard of Oz fascination. I know, I know, all girls love the Wizard of Oz, but Melody in her usual fashion always took it a step further.
She insisted on dressing up as Dorothy to go to the supermarket as a child. She actually has red slippers. Now I don't want to paint her as one of those annoying kooks who latch onto something and use it to define themselves. The very fact that she introduced me to Rufus Wainwright should be a testament to her taste and wisdom.
But this is a girl who didn't dream of being a princess, she dreamt of being Dorothy. So there was no way we were going to miss Rufus singing Judy Garland at The Hollywood Bowl. In addition, Melody was still relatively new to LA and hadn't been to the Bowl yet. I love killing many birds with one stone so I snapped up tickets.
Let me set the scene for you. A gorgeous Los Angeles night. An outdoor arena. A modern gay icon recreating THE performance of THE gay icon of all time.
There were picnic baskets, monogrammed. Watercress and cucumber sandwiches. Chardonnay. Bowties. Cologne. Not a single unironed shirt. Silk socks. Lisps. Purely cosmetic eyeglasses. Cufflinks. Tasteful pleats. Decorative sliced fruit laid out on checkered tablecloths. Squeal after squeal in response to Melody's ruby red slippers.
I was an interloper. An outsider. Oh, the looks I got! If it hadn't been for Melody's shoes I would have been ostracized completely. As it was my presence was merely puzzling, as if I were a machine shop gearhead at a Latin club meeting.
Rufus didn't disappoint them. The tribute element of the show allowed them to fantasize right along with him. They were Judy. They were playing The Hollywood Bowl. They were the apex of culture and refinement.
I fought the urge to smell my armpit and grunt.
Instead I sang along to 'Chatanooga Choo Choo' and took a picture on my cell phone of The Bowl lit up like a rainbow. I was the luckiest one of all. I got to take Dorothy no place like home.
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Monday, March 3, 2008
A Silent Moment
My routine has been thrown off a bit today and I didn't get my post out by morning. As anyone who knows me will tell you, I am a creature of habit. This change has left me unable to narrow down my list of topics to choose.
I toyed with the idea of performance in huge arena spaces versus more intimate gatherings. I remembered Prince bouncing from instrument to instrument at Jones Beach on Long Island and briefly started a post called 'The Special Effect' because he seemed computer generated. I remembered a band I loved in college called That'll Learn Ya and how I actually witnessed their break up on stage at Club Baby Head.
Nothing seemed to warrant the full treatment.
I'll be back tomorrow with something that I feel strongly about.
I toyed with the idea of performance in huge arena spaces versus more intimate gatherings. I remembered Prince bouncing from instrument to instrument at Jones Beach on Long Island and briefly started a post called 'The Special Effect' because he seemed computer generated. I remembered a band I loved in college called That'll Learn Ya and how I actually witnessed their break up on stage at Club Baby Head.
Nothing seemed to warrant the full treatment.
I'll be back tomorrow with something that I feel strongly about.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Shrooming the Cure
I have been known on occasion to state my opinion rather forcefully. Ask Larry to reenact our debates about Jessica Lange in 'The Music Box' or Mike to chide me for denouncing U2's 'Achtung, Baby' with supreme vitriol. Now, I don't think I'll ever change my mind about 'The Music Box' but I don't even remember knocking 'Achtung, Baby' and think it is a masterpiece. So I am often WRONG and self-contradictory.
Throughout high school and college, I scorned The Cure. I found his voice to be unbearable, the lyrical content at once pretentious and childish, and the hair an abomination.
Boys don't cry? I'll make you cry Robert Smith. You dare to write a song based on Albert Camus' 'The Stranger'? 'Killing an Arab'? Really? You really think you are qualified to do that?
I was in the minority even in my crowd. Most punks had a soft spot in their hearts for The Cure. Robert Smith had played in Siouxshie and the Banshees and she got all the little Mohawk boys gaga over her. She bared her tits at 15 and that meant that anyone associated with her had to be cool.
It is easy to forget how huge The Cure were. They played ARENAS people. During the summer of 1989 they toured the world on The Prayer tour. The song 'Pictures of You' was ubiquitous that summer, an epic wrung hankie. My theater crowd was enraptured by this blatant self-immolation/pop confecture and eyeliner started to pop up on faces that shaved.
I spent an awful lot of time deriding this band and those who enjoyed it. I took pleasure in deconstructing the music to the point where it seemed absurd that anyone might take an interest in it. I played mopey alternatives to Cure fans, tearjerkers by bands that I liked, just to show them how it could really be done well.
The Great Woods Arena announced that The Cure would be coming for 2 nights in August. It seemed as if everyone I knew was going. I didn't give it a second thought. Then, the day of the concert, I got a phone call from my friend Chris. An extra ticket, did I want to go, he knew how I felt about The Cure but it would still be a good time, etc., etc.
They all lived just down the street from my parents house on the bottom floor apartment. This house would later be famously run into by a drunk driver at the height of a bong fest. I wasn't there for that party and the feverish cleaning that happened to rid the house of contraband before the police came to investigate the car stuck to the front door.
But I was there for The Cure. They were partying all day. I got there in the afternoon and was offered mushrooms of the kooky variety. I'd never done mushrooms and was quite nervous. But my friends were veterans and described to me in great detail what would happen to me. I pondered while sipping coffee. Hmmmm....
To be quite honest I didn't have to think long. I took what was offered, a very modest amount in order to keep me from being overwhelmed. These kinds of stories are why I originally only wrote fiction on this blog, but now that I've gone down the rabbit hole I might as well admit that I ate the seedcake.
The effect didn't really set in until we were in the parking lot of Great Woods. Up until then I'd merely felt stoned. It was a cool August evening with crazy clouds hinting at storms but merely bulging gray from out of white. My ticket, the one that someone had declined, was coupled with another just under the shed roof. I had to sit with a stranger, a girl whose name I have completely forgotten and might never have really known.
Heat lightning and gusts of wind gave the evening an ominous note that perfectly mirrored the aesthetic of The Cure. A curious darkness fell, cut by the deliberately moody light show. Slight moments of hallucination began to happen to me but the power of the music and visuals kept it from being overwhelming. As is often the case, I began to think that I'd been wrong about The Cure.
The sound had shape. The live sound added layers of meaning and depth to songs that I realized I knew by heart. I knew I had some apologizing to do to all The Cure fans I'd belittled over the years. Was it the shrooms? Did it matter? All of a sudden, I couldn't help but think that 20,000 Cure fans couldn't be wrong.
So if you ever find yourself in a debate with me and I'm tearing something apart, just remember that I'm like the weather in New England. If you don't like what you're getting, just wait five minutes and everything will change.
Throughout high school and college, I scorned The Cure. I found his voice to be unbearable, the lyrical content at once pretentious and childish, and the hair an abomination.
Boys don't cry? I'll make you cry Robert Smith. You dare to write a song based on Albert Camus' 'The Stranger'? 'Killing an Arab'? Really? You really think you are qualified to do that?
I was in the minority even in my crowd. Most punks had a soft spot in their hearts for The Cure. Robert Smith had played in Siouxshie and the Banshees and she got all the little Mohawk boys gaga over her. She bared her tits at 15 and that meant that anyone associated with her had to be cool.
It is easy to forget how huge The Cure were. They played ARENAS people. During the summer of 1989 they toured the world on The Prayer tour. The song 'Pictures of You' was ubiquitous that summer, an epic wrung hankie. My theater crowd was enraptured by this blatant self-immolation/pop confecture and eyeliner started to pop up on faces that shaved.
I spent an awful lot of time deriding this band and those who enjoyed it. I took pleasure in deconstructing the music to the point where it seemed absurd that anyone might take an interest in it. I played mopey alternatives to Cure fans, tearjerkers by bands that I liked, just to show them how it could really be done well.
The Great Woods Arena announced that The Cure would be coming for 2 nights in August. It seemed as if everyone I knew was going. I didn't give it a second thought. Then, the day of the concert, I got a phone call from my friend Chris. An extra ticket, did I want to go, he knew how I felt about The Cure but it would still be a good time, etc., etc.
They all lived just down the street from my parents house on the bottom floor apartment. This house would later be famously run into by a drunk driver at the height of a bong fest. I wasn't there for that party and the feverish cleaning that happened to rid the house of contraband before the police came to investigate the car stuck to the front door.
But I was there for The Cure. They were partying all day. I got there in the afternoon and was offered mushrooms of the kooky variety. I'd never done mushrooms and was quite nervous. But my friends were veterans and described to me in great detail what would happen to me. I pondered while sipping coffee. Hmmmm....
To be quite honest I didn't have to think long. I took what was offered, a very modest amount in order to keep me from being overwhelmed. These kinds of stories are why I originally only wrote fiction on this blog, but now that I've gone down the rabbit hole I might as well admit that I ate the seedcake.
The effect didn't really set in until we were in the parking lot of Great Woods. Up until then I'd merely felt stoned. It was a cool August evening with crazy clouds hinting at storms but merely bulging gray from out of white. My ticket, the one that someone had declined, was coupled with another just under the shed roof. I had to sit with a stranger, a girl whose name I have completely forgotten and might never have really known.
Heat lightning and gusts of wind gave the evening an ominous note that perfectly mirrored the aesthetic of The Cure. A curious darkness fell, cut by the deliberately moody light show. Slight moments of hallucination began to happen to me but the power of the music and visuals kept it from being overwhelming. As is often the case, I began to think that I'd been wrong about The Cure.
The sound had shape. The live sound added layers of meaning and depth to songs that I realized I knew by heart. I knew I had some apologizing to do to all The Cure fans I'd belittled over the years. Was it the shrooms? Did it matter? All of a sudden, I couldn't help but think that 20,000 Cure fans couldn't be wrong.
So if you ever find yourself in a debate with me and I'm tearing something apart, just remember that I'm like the weather in New England. If you don't like what you're getting, just wait five minutes and everything will change.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Just Before Sonic Youth
My college years were inextricably linked to my high school years in many ways. I went to college in my hometown. Every school break we had, my old friends would come streaming back into town and we would catch up. This usually meant drinking way too much beer at someone's house and then moping around the next day drinking even more coffee, or in Justin's case, whatever he liked to drink for a hangover.
Late one summer, my friend Mike, the one who got U2 tickets for me, urged everyone to go see Sonic Youth with him. In New Haven? I seem to remember seeing them in New Haven twice over the years, the only two times I ever went to Toad's. This was the first time I'd seen them and I was quite excited.
Sonic Youth are The Rolling Stones of the American Underground. They seem to have always been there and so it is quite easy to take them for granted. But turn your thoughts back to the '80's and see just how truly bizarre and unique they are. They covered Madonna, shepherded Nirvana into their spotlight, kept the same lineup for over 20 years, and managed to incorporate the marriage of their two main singer/songwriters Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon into the dynamic of the band.
But this post is about S.C., the girl I dated when I was a senior at South Kingstown High School. She was a year behind me and from the wrong side of the tracks. I use that outdated phrase deliberately because it perfectly encapsulates the differences between us.
There was a wide gap between us culturally. But young love sometimes feeds on these factors. The romance was intensified by the differences in our lives. She had no intention of going to college. I never entertained the notion of not going. She deeply mistrusted her parents but spent a lot of time with them and considered her mother to be her best friend. I trusted my parents implicitly but would never have called them 'friends'. I still wouldn't. They are my parents! I wondered at the fact that she felt constantly betrayed by her 'friends'.
She also had a bit of a 'reputation'. She'd dated an older football player and rumors had gotten around. She had nothing to worry about from me...I could barely put my arm around her without breaking into a sweat. We kissed and petted from fall to spring.
She broke up with me a month before my senior prom. She wrote me a letter and poem that I still have somewhere. In essence, she was reading the writing on the wall. She knew I was going to college. She would be in high school for the next year and then going out into the real world and getting a job. She was letting me go. I was devastated.
But she'd been right. I quickly moved on and dove headlong into college life the next year. Even though I was still in my hometown, I didn't hear anything about her. Our circles were vastly different and her name simply never came up.
I'm sitting in my room listening to Sonic Youth's 'Daydream Nation' in anticipation of the evening entertainment. The phone rings at my folks house. Either I answer it or my mother calls to tell me it was for me.
It was S.C. She wondered if I could come over right then.
It had been at least 2 years since I'd seen her. I was waiting for Mike and Justin to come get me. Instead I found myself speeding out into the woods to her house which held so many memories...sneaking in her bedroom window, having my first cup of tea, parking and making out at The Great Swamp. I was young too but I distinctly remember being in awe of her youth and beauty. Her skin seemed impossible.
These moments flooded me as I approached her driveway. Was she in trouble? Did she want to get back together? In spite of all that had transpired since we'd dated, I could not say for sure that I would turn her down. My feelings for her had not abated in the least. They'd just been abandoned out of necessity.
I walked up the brick to the small house that sat tucked up against the bottom row of trees in a hilly forest. She opened the door and my heart leapt, as usual. In her arms she held a glowing baby girl.
For a moment I had the absurd thought that it was mine even though we broke up over two years ago. Not to mention that we'd never slept together in the first place.
We sat on her couch and reminisced briefly. She'd just wanted me to meet her, she said. She'd worried that I'd heard, that I knew she wasn't married, that I'd judge her like she was so constantly judged in this town. I told her that I was proud of her, that the baby was beautiful. And beautiful she was. I don't remember her name.
Mike and Justin were pissed off that I was late. I could barely speak and told them to back the fuck off. Then I apologized and told them the score.
I don't remember the concert in detail. Thurston Moore shoved a drum stick under the guitar strings and banged on it with another one; Kim Gordon wore a miniskirt and somehow managed to be a pin-up and a renegade all at once; the crowd surged and roared.
Somewhere back in the woods of Rhode Island, a young mother put her baby girl to bed. What had my blessing meant to her?
Late one summer, my friend Mike, the one who got U2 tickets for me, urged everyone to go see Sonic Youth with him. In New Haven? I seem to remember seeing them in New Haven twice over the years, the only two times I ever went to Toad's. This was the first time I'd seen them and I was quite excited.
Sonic Youth are The Rolling Stones of the American Underground. They seem to have always been there and so it is quite easy to take them for granted. But turn your thoughts back to the '80's and see just how truly bizarre and unique they are. They covered Madonna, shepherded Nirvana into their spotlight, kept the same lineup for over 20 years, and managed to incorporate the marriage of their two main singer/songwriters Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon into the dynamic of the band.
But this post is about S.C., the girl I dated when I was a senior at South Kingstown High School. She was a year behind me and from the wrong side of the tracks. I use that outdated phrase deliberately because it perfectly encapsulates the differences between us.
There was a wide gap between us culturally. But young love sometimes feeds on these factors. The romance was intensified by the differences in our lives. She had no intention of going to college. I never entertained the notion of not going. She deeply mistrusted her parents but spent a lot of time with them and considered her mother to be her best friend. I trusted my parents implicitly but would never have called them 'friends'. I still wouldn't. They are my parents! I wondered at the fact that she felt constantly betrayed by her 'friends'.
She also had a bit of a 'reputation'. She'd dated an older football player and rumors had gotten around. She had nothing to worry about from me...I could barely put my arm around her without breaking into a sweat. We kissed and petted from fall to spring.
She broke up with me a month before my senior prom. She wrote me a letter and poem that I still have somewhere. In essence, she was reading the writing on the wall. She knew I was going to college. She would be in high school for the next year and then going out into the real world and getting a job. She was letting me go. I was devastated.
But she'd been right. I quickly moved on and dove headlong into college life the next year. Even though I was still in my hometown, I didn't hear anything about her. Our circles were vastly different and her name simply never came up.
I'm sitting in my room listening to Sonic Youth's 'Daydream Nation' in anticipation of the evening entertainment. The phone rings at my folks house. Either I answer it or my mother calls to tell me it was for me.
It was S.C. She wondered if I could come over right then.
It had been at least 2 years since I'd seen her. I was waiting for Mike and Justin to come get me. Instead I found myself speeding out into the woods to her house which held so many memories...sneaking in her bedroom window, having my first cup of tea, parking and making out at The Great Swamp. I was young too but I distinctly remember being in awe of her youth and beauty. Her skin seemed impossible.
These moments flooded me as I approached her driveway. Was she in trouble? Did she want to get back together? In spite of all that had transpired since we'd dated, I could not say for sure that I would turn her down. My feelings for her had not abated in the least. They'd just been abandoned out of necessity.
I walked up the brick to the small house that sat tucked up against the bottom row of trees in a hilly forest. She opened the door and my heart leapt, as usual. In her arms she held a glowing baby girl.
For a moment I had the absurd thought that it was mine even though we broke up over two years ago. Not to mention that we'd never slept together in the first place.
We sat on her couch and reminisced briefly. She'd just wanted me to meet her, she said. She'd worried that I'd heard, that I knew she wasn't married, that I'd judge her like she was so constantly judged in this town. I told her that I was proud of her, that the baby was beautiful. And beautiful she was. I don't remember her name.
Mike and Justin were pissed off that I was late. I could barely speak and told them to back the fuck off. Then I apologized and told them the score.
I don't remember the concert in detail. Thurston Moore shoved a drum stick under the guitar strings and banged on it with another one; Kim Gordon wore a miniskirt and somehow managed to be a pin-up and a renegade all at once; the crowd surged and roared.
Somewhere back in the woods of Rhode Island, a young mother put her baby girl to bed. What had my blessing meant to her?
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Invisible World
1999. NYC. How to set the scene? I know I have to end my marriage but I dread separating from my son who isn't quite 2 years old. So things are fun.
Refuge comes in the form of work. It has been a busy year for me in that regard, first doing 'The Beauty Queen of Leenane' in North Carolina, then 'Two Gentlemen of Verona' in Santa Fe, and now, in the fall, serving as Rob Morrow's stand-in on a film he is writing/directing/starring in. I've never been a stand-in but this seems like a good opportunity as he'll need me to be able to ACT some scenes a bit so he can plan as the director from behind the camera before going in front of it.
In addition to the theater work, I am feverishly writing and recording songs whenever my son falls asleep. I tend to stick to an acoustic guitar track, an electric guitar track, a vocal track, and rarely some sort of percussion. Often times I would be deep in some alteration, headphones on, when I would hear my son crying in the background. He probably still gets mad whenever I pick up a guitar.
My social life increasingly meant going to meet my cousin Liam at rock and roll shows. I sought solace there. That year we were flipping out over Guided By Voices.
For anyone who isn't familiar with GBV, they were a rock outfit from Dayton fronted by a former high school teacher named Robert Pollard. The 'band' was a revolving door of players who tried to play what he heard in his head. He claimed to have over 1,000 songs ready to go, meaning unrecorded but written. His process was to write reams of song titles, the stranger the better, and then set about writing them.
Some examples...
Portable Men's Society
Hot Freaks
Kicker of Elves
Not Behind The Fighter Jet
Hardcore UFOs
Teenage FBI
The style of the music could be said to resemble an American garage punk rock band playing the lost concept album of The Who; or some British Invasion middle-agers paying tribute to the American underground.
Pollard was notorious for his live performances in which he attempted to channel the Gods of Frontmen. He whipped his microphone by the wire. He guzzled beer by the gallon. He smoked furiously. All this in a body that looked like a gym teacher gone a bit to seed. Curly long hair, beer gut, decidedly anti-hip clothing. He looked like a college professor going through a midlife crisis. Which, I suppose, in some way, he was.
We saw Guided By Voices at some club in the 20's. I never liked this club, with its low ceiling and just-a-bit-too-big room. The combination made for uncomfortable viewing, peering and stooping while on tiptoe. In fact, I can't even remember the name of the club and I don't want to.
Bottom line, they killed. A classic rock show, all sweat and grand gesture. I left feeling as if I wanted to capture some of that in my own writing instead of the constant doom and gloom folk singer fare I'd been endlessly mining.
I walked to the F train nearest the club watching my breath against the cold. I smoked then so I loitered on the curb finishing my last cigarette. Whenever I got back on the train to go back out to Park Slope, I felt a hugh weight descend upon me. I was hurting my ex by staying in the relationship, prolonging the inevitable, and the longer I stayed the harder it would be on my son. But I simply couldn't bring myself to bring about this cataclysm.
I tended to carry pen and paper with me because I was always needing to write things down. The title 'Invisible World' popped into my head and, a la Robert Pollard, I decided to write the song right then and there. I probably still have the scrap of paper it was written on as I was whisked out of Manhattan back to the troubled sanctuary I knew I had to dismantle.
Invisible World
And you know it
When you feel it
The eyes in the back of your head confirm it
The invisible world
Beneath our eyes
It's all we see all we feel
It's all that we can do to deny it
It's all that we can do to rely on it
And if on your life you had to you'd defend it
The process from which all is done goes on
I'm falling off the wall
The scream is breaking down
The inner monologue just won't go off off off
The invisible world
Beneath our eyes
It's all we see all we feel
It's all that we can do to deny it
It's all that we can do to rely on it
By the time I got back to the 9th Street stop of the F train, I'd found the melody and was signing it over and over to myself so I wouldn't forget it. I quietly let myself into our apartment, picked up the microphone, and recorded an a cappella version so I could pick the guitar up the next day and pluck it out on the strings.
Somehow Robert Pollard had brought this song forth, and while it actually said more about me and my predicament than any of the more confessional songs I'd done, it still felt enigmatic and evasive. Just what I'd wanted.
So on that night, I'd been guided by a voice. Guided By Voices.
Refuge comes in the form of work. It has been a busy year for me in that regard, first doing 'The Beauty Queen of Leenane' in North Carolina, then 'Two Gentlemen of Verona' in Santa Fe, and now, in the fall, serving as Rob Morrow's stand-in on a film he is writing/directing/starring in. I've never been a stand-in but this seems like a good opportunity as he'll need me to be able to ACT some scenes a bit so he can plan as the director from behind the camera before going in front of it.
In addition to the theater work, I am feverishly writing and recording songs whenever my son falls asleep. I tend to stick to an acoustic guitar track, an electric guitar track, a vocal track, and rarely some sort of percussion. Often times I would be deep in some alteration, headphones on, when I would hear my son crying in the background. He probably still gets mad whenever I pick up a guitar.
My social life increasingly meant going to meet my cousin Liam at rock and roll shows. I sought solace there. That year we were flipping out over Guided By Voices.
For anyone who isn't familiar with GBV, they were a rock outfit from Dayton fronted by a former high school teacher named Robert Pollard. The 'band' was a revolving door of players who tried to play what he heard in his head. He claimed to have over 1,000 songs ready to go, meaning unrecorded but written. His process was to write reams of song titles, the stranger the better, and then set about writing them.
Some examples...
Portable Men's Society
Hot Freaks
Kicker of Elves
Not Behind The Fighter Jet
Hardcore UFOs
Teenage FBI
The style of the music could be said to resemble an American garage punk rock band playing the lost concept album of The Who; or some British Invasion middle-agers paying tribute to the American underground.
Pollard was notorious for his live performances in which he attempted to channel the Gods of Frontmen. He whipped his microphone by the wire. He guzzled beer by the gallon. He smoked furiously. All this in a body that looked like a gym teacher gone a bit to seed. Curly long hair, beer gut, decidedly anti-hip clothing. He looked like a college professor going through a midlife crisis. Which, I suppose, in some way, he was.
We saw Guided By Voices at some club in the 20's. I never liked this club, with its low ceiling and just-a-bit-too-big room. The combination made for uncomfortable viewing, peering and stooping while on tiptoe. In fact, I can't even remember the name of the club and I don't want to.
Bottom line, they killed. A classic rock show, all sweat and grand gesture. I left feeling as if I wanted to capture some of that in my own writing instead of the constant doom and gloom folk singer fare I'd been endlessly mining.
I walked to the F train nearest the club watching my breath against the cold. I smoked then so I loitered on the curb finishing my last cigarette. Whenever I got back on the train to go back out to Park Slope, I felt a hugh weight descend upon me. I was hurting my ex by staying in the relationship, prolonging the inevitable, and the longer I stayed the harder it would be on my son. But I simply couldn't bring myself to bring about this cataclysm.
I tended to carry pen and paper with me because I was always needing to write things down. The title 'Invisible World' popped into my head and, a la Robert Pollard, I decided to write the song right then and there. I probably still have the scrap of paper it was written on as I was whisked out of Manhattan back to the troubled sanctuary I knew I had to dismantle.
Invisible World
And you know it
When you feel it
The eyes in the back of your head confirm it
The invisible world
Beneath our eyes
It's all we see all we feel
It's all that we can do to deny it
It's all that we can do to rely on it
And if on your life you had to you'd defend it
The process from which all is done goes on
I'm falling off the wall
The scream is breaking down
The inner monologue just won't go off off off
The invisible world
Beneath our eyes
It's all we see all we feel
It's all that we can do to deny it
It's all that we can do to rely on it
By the time I got back to the 9th Street stop of the F train, I'd found the melody and was signing it over and over to myself so I wouldn't forget it. I quietly let myself into our apartment, picked up the microphone, and recorded an a cappella version so I could pick the guitar up the next day and pluck it out on the strings.
Somehow Robert Pollard had brought this song forth, and while it actually said more about me and my predicament than any of the more confessional songs I'd done, it still felt enigmatic and evasive. Just what I'd wanted.
So on that night, I'd been guided by a voice. Guided By Voices.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
The Best Ever Never Was
Like any small town, Los Angeles has its best kept secrets. And those who are in the know spend an inordinate amount of time trying to give the secrets away to as many people as possible. When you are new in town, everyone and their mother wants to show you something.
Larry took me to the 101 for chow, to Runyon Canyon for hikes, and the House of Pies. Mike touted Marino's on Melrose as the best Italian food he'd ever had, and Jeff brought me to some cowboy bar on Sunset to ride the mechanical bull.
In yesterdays post I mentioned a band called The Broken Remotes, fronted by a good friend Jon Leahy. He helped produce a play I was in when I first arrived on the left coast and he was going around foaming at the mouth about something called Big Mondays at The Joint.
What do you think of when you hear the name Waddy Wachtel? If you've never heard of him then you probably aren't a guitar nerd. Guitar nerds turn into teenage girls when Waddy's name gets mentioned. Put it this way...when Keith Richards records albums, Waddy Wachtel is the guitar player, ok? He worked with EVERYBODY...Stevie Nicks, Warren Zevon, everybody. Master session player but also a true collaborator and creator.
So when Jon told me that Waddy played EVERY Monday night at The Joint and called it Big Mondays, I was beside myself. Little did I know that Waddy would become an afterthought for me once I went.
The Joint is tucked away on Pico down near Robertson surrounded by pharmacies and Starbucks and almost-ritzy car dealerships. But inside it feels like a road house. At least, it did until they renovated. I am not crazy about the new Joint. The old one was like a dead end street in a noir film. You came in the front door and there was nowhere to go but straight to the stage. A tunnel with a bar lining the right side and tiny booths on the left. The stage was the width of the tunnel and elevated almost eye level.
On either side of the stage, framing the action, were what seemed to be two elephant tusks. The booth side was bordered above by a huge mirror that reflected the tops of heads and almost down behind the bar.
The Big Mondays lineup is a revolving door of singers backed by Waddy, a silent bass player who plays with Neil Young, and Tom Petty's drummer when he isn't with The Heartbreakers. They know how to play every song you've ever heard.
When I started attending, the two singers were Stacy P from Tennessee, a blonde lanky bombshell who could play guitar like a mofo and sing in that country/rock mode that Bonnie Raitt and Sheryl Crow mine so well. She later went pretty far in the Nashville Star series, the country American Idol thing and we all wished her luck from down on the floor of The Joint.
And the other singer? Oh, how do I even start? I didn't recognize him. He was a handsome English gentleman in his 60's with a pencil mustache unruly dark hair and a gray suit with white sneakers. As the band rolled through classic songs, he didn't cover the songs, he interpreted them. Authorship was unimportant as all history seemed useless in the face of his expression. He growled he roared he rasped he falsettoed he cooed he blared.
His voice seemed limitless. When they did AC/DC the rasp was cut with an R&B lilt that brought out the blues under the metal. When they did Zeppelin the whine was deeper and fuller than Plant so that even on impossibly high notes the voice was wide and hard. When they did the Beatles, the melody of McCartney and the power of Lennon were woven together in a single voice.
Then came the apex of the evening, a cover of The Kinks 'Waterloo Sunset.' How to put in words what music does? That is the question I've been trying to answer in this blog and I am always going to have to admit the impossibility of this equation. I am not a religious man in an easily definable sense, but this performance was of the ecstatic variety that can only come through faith. The audience was encouraged to sing along at one point as the band played the most minimal of vamps. We sang along with this golden voiced shaman and felt closer to the divine.
I've deliberately withheld his name up to this point because I wanted to impress upon you how deeply he affected me. I left that first night convinced that I had just seen THE GREATEST ROCK AND ROLL SINGER WHO EVER LIVED. Where the hell had he been hiding? How come I had to go to The Joint to see him? How come I could afford it?
Well, it turns out that these questions are quite common when people talk about Terry Reid.
Even typing the name gives me chills. As the details of his career were made known to me, it made his performance seem all the more otherworldy. He was Jimmy Page's original choice to front Led Zeppelin but he was already an established solo act. He'd been a teen sensation as a blues singer and was touring America opening for Cream. He SUGGESTED Robert Plant and John Bonham. He created Zeppelin by turning them down. A series of missteps left him floundering in Los Angeles in the early seventies. Rumor had it that Bob Dylan let him stay at his house for 5 years because he was broke.
I'm going to make another effort at describing his sound...imagine if Ray Charles grew up listening to Led Zeppelin, or if Robert Plant had the silkiness of Smokey Robinson ingrained into his wail. Take Frank Sinatra and feed him Scotch and cigarettes and a jukebox full of Motown and metal and you'll get a pale imitation of Terry Reid.
Here's the bottom line. Somewhere in heaven, God has Hendrix on guitar, Keith Moon on drums, Jaco Pastorius on bass, and he's waiting to book gigs until Terry Reid shows up to sing.
I felt angry at the world on his behalf. Imagine coming upon Mount Rushmore and finding it defaced with graffiti, left untended, unweeded. This man ought to be a treasured and honored icon. Instead, he carried that talent down to Pico and Robertson every Monday and let loose for pocket change. Unfortunately, Terry doesn't sing at Big Mondays anymore. Why? I am not really sure.
As usual, Terry Reid is the one that got away.
Larry took me to the 101 for chow, to Runyon Canyon for hikes, and the House of Pies. Mike touted Marino's on Melrose as the best Italian food he'd ever had, and Jeff brought me to some cowboy bar on Sunset to ride the mechanical bull.
In yesterdays post I mentioned a band called The Broken Remotes, fronted by a good friend Jon Leahy. He helped produce a play I was in when I first arrived on the left coast and he was going around foaming at the mouth about something called Big Mondays at The Joint.
What do you think of when you hear the name Waddy Wachtel? If you've never heard of him then you probably aren't a guitar nerd. Guitar nerds turn into teenage girls when Waddy's name gets mentioned. Put it this way...when Keith Richards records albums, Waddy Wachtel is the guitar player, ok? He worked with EVERYBODY...Stevie Nicks, Warren Zevon, everybody. Master session player but also a true collaborator and creator.
So when Jon told me that Waddy played EVERY Monday night at The Joint and called it Big Mondays, I was beside myself. Little did I know that Waddy would become an afterthought for me once I went.
The Joint is tucked away on Pico down near Robertson surrounded by pharmacies and Starbucks and almost-ritzy car dealerships. But inside it feels like a road house. At least, it did until they renovated. I am not crazy about the new Joint. The old one was like a dead end street in a noir film. You came in the front door and there was nowhere to go but straight to the stage. A tunnel with a bar lining the right side and tiny booths on the left. The stage was the width of the tunnel and elevated almost eye level.
On either side of the stage, framing the action, were what seemed to be two elephant tusks. The booth side was bordered above by a huge mirror that reflected the tops of heads and almost down behind the bar.
The Big Mondays lineup is a revolving door of singers backed by Waddy, a silent bass player who plays with Neil Young, and Tom Petty's drummer when he isn't with The Heartbreakers. They know how to play every song you've ever heard.
When I started attending, the two singers were Stacy P from Tennessee, a blonde lanky bombshell who could play guitar like a mofo and sing in that country/rock mode that Bonnie Raitt and Sheryl Crow mine so well. She later went pretty far in the Nashville Star series, the country American Idol thing and we all wished her luck from down on the floor of The Joint.
And the other singer? Oh, how do I even start? I didn't recognize him. He was a handsome English gentleman in his 60's with a pencil mustache unruly dark hair and a gray suit with white sneakers. As the band rolled through classic songs, he didn't cover the songs, he interpreted them. Authorship was unimportant as all history seemed useless in the face of his expression. He growled he roared he rasped he falsettoed he cooed he blared.
His voice seemed limitless. When they did AC/DC the rasp was cut with an R&B lilt that brought out the blues under the metal. When they did Zeppelin the whine was deeper and fuller than Plant so that even on impossibly high notes the voice was wide and hard. When they did the Beatles, the melody of McCartney and the power of Lennon were woven together in a single voice.
Then came the apex of the evening, a cover of The Kinks 'Waterloo Sunset.' How to put in words what music does? That is the question I've been trying to answer in this blog and I am always going to have to admit the impossibility of this equation. I am not a religious man in an easily definable sense, but this performance was of the ecstatic variety that can only come through faith. The audience was encouraged to sing along at one point as the band played the most minimal of vamps. We sang along with this golden voiced shaman and felt closer to the divine.
I've deliberately withheld his name up to this point because I wanted to impress upon you how deeply he affected me. I left that first night convinced that I had just seen THE GREATEST ROCK AND ROLL SINGER WHO EVER LIVED. Where the hell had he been hiding? How come I had to go to The Joint to see him? How come I could afford it?
Well, it turns out that these questions are quite common when people talk about Terry Reid.
Even typing the name gives me chills. As the details of his career were made known to me, it made his performance seem all the more otherworldy. He was Jimmy Page's original choice to front Led Zeppelin but he was already an established solo act. He'd been a teen sensation as a blues singer and was touring America opening for Cream. He SUGGESTED Robert Plant and John Bonham. He created Zeppelin by turning them down. A series of missteps left him floundering in Los Angeles in the early seventies. Rumor had it that Bob Dylan let him stay at his house for 5 years because he was broke.
I'm going to make another effort at describing his sound...imagine if Ray Charles grew up listening to Led Zeppelin, or if Robert Plant had the silkiness of Smokey Robinson ingrained into his wail. Take Frank Sinatra and feed him Scotch and cigarettes and a jukebox full of Motown and metal and you'll get a pale imitation of Terry Reid.
Here's the bottom line. Somewhere in heaven, God has Hendrix on guitar, Keith Moon on drums, Jaco Pastorius on bass, and he's waiting to book gigs until Terry Reid shows up to sing.
I felt angry at the world on his behalf. Imagine coming upon Mount Rushmore and finding it defaced with graffiti, left untended, unweeded. This man ought to be a treasured and honored icon. Instead, he carried that talent down to Pico and Robertson every Monday and let loose for pocket change. Unfortunately, Terry doesn't sing at Big Mondays anymore. Why? I am not really sure.
As usual, Terry Reid is the one that got away.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Who Said Life Wasn't Phair?
Living in Los Angeles affords you all sorts of strange golden opportunities. For example, this weekend? My girlfriend and I somehow wound up with free tickets to see Joan Rivers in her autobiographical play at the Geffen. One minute you are wondering what you are going to do with your Saturday, and the next Joan Rivers is blaming the Malibu fires on Suzanne Somers's vagina.
One of these fluke nights out came pretty early on in my new life in LA, so it was probably 2004. My cousin called me up and asked what I was doing that night. Whenever he asks me that, I pretty much give over to the fact that SOMETHING is going to go down and I'm going to be a part of it.
Turns out a last minute benefit concert was happening at The Knitting Factory. I don't remember what they were raising money for (breast cancer, perhaps) but a whole crew of us descended on the club.
I had been to The Knitting Factory in New York many times. My impression of the NY club was mixed...there was a too-cool-for-school vibe to the whole place that I found vaguely oppressive. I found myself wishing I'd worn a leather wristband with big metal snaps; or a Kangol hat cocked at an angle. This caused a kneejerk reaction in me to become MORE mainstream. I found myself bringing up how much I liked Guns 'n Roses Use Your Illusion or singing Cheap Trick just to undercut the overly hip underground voodoo bullshit.
But the Los Angeles version felt very different to me. I'd been lucky enough to actually play a gig at the club directly upon my arrival...covering The Replacements' 'Here Comes A Regular' with a great band called The Broken Remotes. They were called Wiley back then. I took pictures of the band and the crowd while I was on stage. It was a great way to debut on the West Coast.
Part of the appeal of The Knitting Factory for me is its location. It isn't tucked away on some dingy lower Manhattan side street that adds credibility to outsider status. Nope. The LA K.F. is in a mall right near Mann's Chinese Theater. You walk the pavement to get to it and you meet up with Spiderman, Darth Vader, various hobbits and goblins, and Marilyn Monroe. Tourists meander, families bicker...it is NOT cool.
For me, this has the unexpected effect of upping the cool factor for everything that goes on inside the club. It feels like an oasis, not a snide one-upmanship factory. The benefit benefited from this atmosphere...philanthropy, altruism, rock and roll, in a mall??? That's America, baby.
This would be my first time in the club as a spectator and I was in for a treat. Liz Phair was going to perform. She'd been catching flak for months because her latest album was too mainstream. I find the vitriol aimed at Liz Phair to be something akin to the feminist version of the crowd booing Bob Dylan when he went electric at Newport. Bitter people who don't want to expand their perception to include whatever the artist has in mind.
I had always liked Liz Phair, bought all of her albums, followed her career. But it wasn't until the night of this benefit concert that it truly dawned on me...I HAD A CRUSH ON LIZ PHAIR. I am not one to take appreciation of work as romantic interest. I don't lust after actresses. I cut out a picture of Katarina Witt during her heyday and hung it on my wall, but that is as close as I ever came to that kind of idolatry.
Imagine my surprise when I started getting nervous as her slot on the bill approached. I felt like I was on a date and wanted to impress. I checked my teeth for spinach. I chewed a piece of gum. I patted my hair into place. I tucked and untucked my shirt countless times. What the hell was wrong with me? Turns out it was lucky I primped.
Whoosh, there she was. It is not a large club so I was quite close. She wore a microscopic pink skirt with some sort of vest over a t-shirt, high heels, no tights. She had a guitarist, bassist, and drummer to accompany her. They did a set that drew liberally from her albums, but focused a good deal on her latest, the one maligned in music circles as being somehow a sell out.
One of these songs is about her little boy and how he has dealt with the divorce of his parents and the new man in her life. I'd heard it on the album and liked it, but hearing her play it live truly drove it home in a new way. Perhaps it was because I was separated from my son at the time, he being in Maine starting first grade. Perhaps it was due to some sort of psychic unbalance because of my new surroundings, my new life. But the weight of my own divorce and ongoing separation anxiety combined with Liz Phair's voice and words to pack a devastating punch for me.
So now, in addition to the schoolboy crush thing that had been happening, she had just helped me deal with my own broken heart. I wept discreetly, eyes welled to overflow throughout the entire song.
Then as they readied for the next one, she got a bit turned around with her guitar and chord. She turned her back on the audience to confer with her band mates and the chord rose slightly, carrying her already teeny skirt with it. A flash of white greeted the crowd. If they were anything like me, they were mesmerized by this inadvertent exhibitionism. No catcalls, no 'hey, Liz, your skirt is hiked up'. Nope. She casually shook the chord, freeing her skirt to drop back to its intended place.
Soon she left the stage to thunderous applause.
As I socialized and sipped my beer, I found myself rehashing her performance with everyone I spoke with. It had just the right mix of ease and effort. We were all blown away.
I made my way towards the back of the club to pick up another beer. Suddenly and before I knew it I was walking right towards her. She seemed to be 3 feet tall, impossibly delicate. She glowed with energy from the show. She thought she recognized me and held her arms out to hug me.
I said, "You don't know me..." But she hugged me anyway. Her scent engulfed and disoriented me. She laughed that she didn't know me but had thought she did. Still holding her, I told her how she had affected me with her song 'Little Digger'. She thanked me in a way that said she appreciated my situation as a single parent.
I continued on my way to the back of the club but I never did get that beer. I was already drunk on Phair.
One of these fluke nights out came pretty early on in my new life in LA, so it was probably 2004. My cousin called me up and asked what I was doing that night. Whenever he asks me that, I pretty much give over to the fact that SOMETHING is going to go down and I'm going to be a part of it.
Turns out a last minute benefit concert was happening at The Knitting Factory. I don't remember what they were raising money for (breast cancer, perhaps) but a whole crew of us descended on the club.
I had been to The Knitting Factory in New York many times. My impression of the NY club was mixed...there was a too-cool-for-school vibe to the whole place that I found vaguely oppressive. I found myself wishing I'd worn a leather wristband with big metal snaps; or a Kangol hat cocked at an angle. This caused a kneejerk reaction in me to become MORE mainstream. I found myself bringing up how much I liked Guns 'n Roses Use Your Illusion or singing Cheap Trick just to undercut the overly hip underground voodoo bullshit.
But the Los Angeles version felt very different to me. I'd been lucky enough to actually play a gig at the club directly upon my arrival...covering The Replacements' 'Here Comes A Regular' with a great band called The Broken Remotes. They were called Wiley back then. I took pictures of the band and the crowd while I was on stage. It was a great way to debut on the West Coast.
Part of the appeal of The Knitting Factory for me is its location. It isn't tucked away on some dingy lower Manhattan side street that adds credibility to outsider status. Nope. The LA K.F. is in a mall right near Mann's Chinese Theater. You walk the pavement to get to it and you meet up with Spiderman, Darth Vader, various hobbits and goblins, and Marilyn Monroe. Tourists meander, families bicker...it is NOT cool.
For me, this has the unexpected effect of upping the cool factor for everything that goes on inside the club. It feels like an oasis, not a snide one-upmanship factory. The benefit benefited from this atmosphere...philanthropy, altruism, rock and roll, in a mall??? That's America, baby.
This would be my first time in the club as a spectator and I was in for a treat. Liz Phair was going to perform. She'd been catching flak for months because her latest album was too mainstream. I find the vitriol aimed at Liz Phair to be something akin to the feminist version of the crowd booing Bob Dylan when he went electric at Newport. Bitter people who don't want to expand their perception to include whatever the artist has in mind.
I had always liked Liz Phair, bought all of her albums, followed her career. But it wasn't until the night of this benefit concert that it truly dawned on me...I HAD A CRUSH ON LIZ PHAIR. I am not one to take appreciation of work as romantic interest. I don't lust after actresses. I cut out a picture of Katarina Witt during her heyday and hung it on my wall, but that is as close as I ever came to that kind of idolatry.
Imagine my surprise when I started getting nervous as her slot on the bill approached. I felt like I was on a date and wanted to impress. I checked my teeth for spinach. I chewed a piece of gum. I patted my hair into place. I tucked and untucked my shirt countless times. What the hell was wrong with me? Turns out it was lucky I primped.
Whoosh, there she was. It is not a large club so I was quite close. She wore a microscopic pink skirt with some sort of vest over a t-shirt, high heels, no tights. She had a guitarist, bassist, and drummer to accompany her. They did a set that drew liberally from her albums, but focused a good deal on her latest, the one maligned in music circles as being somehow a sell out.
One of these songs is about her little boy and how he has dealt with the divorce of his parents and the new man in her life. I'd heard it on the album and liked it, but hearing her play it live truly drove it home in a new way. Perhaps it was because I was separated from my son at the time, he being in Maine starting first grade. Perhaps it was due to some sort of psychic unbalance because of my new surroundings, my new life. But the weight of my own divorce and ongoing separation anxiety combined with Liz Phair's voice and words to pack a devastating punch for me.
So now, in addition to the schoolboy crush thing that had been happening, she had just helped me deal with my own broken heart. I wept discreetly, eyes welled to overflow throughout the entire song.
Then as they readied for the next one, she got a bit turned around with her guitar and chord. She turned her back on the audience to confer with her band mates and the chord rose slightly, carrying her already teeny skirt with it. A flash of white greeted the crowd. If they were anything like me, they were mesmerized by this inadvertent exhibitionism. No catcalls, no 'hey, Liz, your skirt is hiked up'. Nope. She casually shook the chord, freeing her skirt to drop back to its intended place.
Soon she left the stage to thunderous applause.
As I socialized and sipped my beer, I found myself rehashing her performance with everyone I spoke with. It had just the right mix of ease and effort. We were all blown away.
I made my way towards the back of the club to pick up another beer. Suddenly and before I knew it I was walking right towards her. She seemed to be 3 feet tall, impossibly delicate. She glowed with energy from the show. She thought she recognized me and held her arms out to hug me.
I said, "You don't know me..." But she hugged me anyway. Her scent engulfed and disoriented me. She laughed that she didn't know me but had thought she did. Still holding her, I told her how she had affected me with her song 'Little Digger'. She thanked me in a way that said she appreciated my situation as a single parent.
I continued on my way to the back of the club but I never did get that beer. I was already drunk on Phair.
Friday, February 22, 2008
1998: Pratfalls for Crickets
1998 was a pivotal year for me. My son was in his first year and blowing my mind on a daily basis. He still does. I juggled being a stay at home dad, freelance writer doing weekly features on debunking Urban Legends as Legs Urbano, and making the daily trek into Manhattan from Brooklyn to audition for commercial after commercial and the occasional play/tv show/movie.
There was very little live music on my slate. My ex really doesn't enjoy seeing live music as much as I do, so this combined with the young baby led to a pretty silent year. I'm sure I caught a show here and there but it was not a focus. I also was becoming increasingly unhappy in the marriage and this led to a general sense of impending doom.
And then along came what seemed like a golden opportunity. The theater company that I had done many readings with decided to mount a new play. The author was at the tail end of quite a succesful career and somehow had been hooked up with this company. The show was called 'Angel Wings'.
I should have known how things would turn out by the auditions. Most actors will know what I'm talking about...the complicated improv that you are asked to redo 4 times. Each improv lasts 15 minutes. Reverse the roles. Do it in whispers. Use only sign language. Bullshit.
But this was a chance to do an original play at a reputable theater by a writer with a track record both in Hollywood and New York so I ignored all the signs.
On a side note, this also inadvertently caused me to have the worst audition experience of my life. The rehearsal period went on for what seemed like a Russian Siberian eternity. The day of tech came which meant an 18 hour day of tedium mixed with panic at the horrorshow we were ostensibly polishing up for public consumption.
My ding dong agent submitted me for a part described as a 'gentle giant' in the theatrical version of 'Trainspotting'. So when I showed up for my evening audition, the casting woman immediately said, "Oh, no, you shouldn't be auditioning for that part, you are PERFECT for the Ewan McGregor part. Come to the callbacks tomorrow..." I rushed back over to continue the tech for 'Angel Wings' which was plagued with difficulty, the kind of difficulty that always arises when you are trying to tailor lights and sound to crap.
It went until about 2 in the morning. I trekked back out to Brooklyn, fell into a fitful sleep, and told myself I'd work on the audition in the morning.
The next day was a very full one, capped by opening night/dress preview of 'Angel Wings.' I had 3 commercial auditions throughout the day and then a late afternoon call for the 'Trainspotting' audish. I lugged the stroller all over hell and gone through the cold peddling my wares. I could take him to the commercial auditions because he was so little he would be asleep in the carriage while they taped me. But for a theater audition I dropped him off with a friend. I was almost late and due to the hectic schedule totally unprepared.
I sat outside the audition room sweating, feverishly trying to master the monologue from the show. A scene with a reader would have been fine, but a monologue about a dead baby crawling across the ceiling all while on smack and in a Scottish accent? I began to FREAK OUT.
To make things worse, the room was not sound proofed so I had to listen to a REAL SCOTSMAN give a kick ass audition, clearly off book, full on performance. I could feel the bugs on his skin while I was trying to whip myself into shape. I was the last person they were seeing that day.
The woman who'd met with me the night before came out into the hall and took my arm. She was pretty and smelled nice. In retrospect she was flirting with me but I was too petrified to realize it. She walked me across the audition room to meet the director/producers. She whispered in my ear. "I saved the best for last." Meaning me. Meaning she thought I was going to nail this and get the job. Meaning she'd probably talked me up to the creative team. Meaning that I was headed off a cliff.
I started the monologue, having to read off the paper. My Scottish accent was something between an Irish Spring soap commercial and a drunken imitation of Sean Connery. I was still sweating. I had no idea what I was saying. I stopped and said I'd like to start again.
I thought I might relax if I sat on the floor. Once again I dove in trying to recapture the promise she seemed to see in me. Once again I felt as if I were reading a grocery list in Chinese. I stopped and restarted again, standing up as if to marshal my energy.
A paragraph in I kept hearing 'STOP!' over and over in my head. So I did. I said, "You know what? I think I'm just going to stop." I said something else too, making no excuses just refusing to go through the charade of pretending I was doing something that they ought to be paying attention to.
The casting director who'd been rubbing her breasts against me only minutes ago, said, "Well, at least you KNOW." I slunk out of there convinced that I would never work again.
And the worst part? I had to go perform 'Angel Wings' that evening for the first time. I played the part of a young wealthy heir to a real estate mogul fortune. I was only interested in butterflies and spent the show dressed as a combination Cub Scout/beekeeper. I carried a net, fell in love with a French girl and spoke most of my lines in a French accent in order to impress her.
One scene, theoretically the height of hilarity, found me literally falling all over myself and a couch to get to her. I worked on this bit of stagecraft, honing it until it was effortless. I was pulling off my scientific gloves seductively, cooing to her in a French accent, trying to contain my excitement. In my passion, I trip over the back of the couch and somersault down onto the floor at her feet.
Now, I have no problem tooting my own horn. I nailed this fall. I was all arms and legs shooting out in all directions. I let out a strangled cry of embarassment which I twisted into my next line as if I'd meant to do it all along. In any other context, this fall would have brought the house down.
As I came to rest next to the schoolgirl skirt with white tights and black patent leather shoes, I felt a great wave of resentment hit me, sent out in lieu of laughter. I felt like a telemarketer who'd called a couple in the middle of a romantic dinner, like an uninvited guest who pops by for a visit during a marital spat. I might as well have farted.
So, for the second time in a day, I was left with nothing but the thinnest of silver linings. As the casting director had said just hours earlier, "At least you know."
In a year bereft of live music, I spent night after night doing pratfalls for crickets.
There was very little live music on my slate. My ex really doesn't enjoy seeing live music as much as I do, so this combined with the young baby led to a pretty silent year. I'm sure I caught a show here and there but it was not a focus. I also was becoming increasingly unhappy in the marriage and this led to a general sense of impending doom.
And then along came what seemed like a golden opportunity. The theater company that I had done many readings with decided to mount a new play. The author was at the tail end of quite a succesful career and somehow had been hooked up with this company. The show was called 'Angel Wings'.
I should have known how things would turn out by the auditions. Most actors will know what I'm talking about...the complicated improv that you are asked to redo 4 times. Each improv lasts 15 minutes. Reverse the roles. Do it in whispers. Use only sign language. Bullshit.
But this was a chance to do an original play at a reputable theater by a writer with a track record both in Hollywood and New York so I ignored all the signs.
On a side note, this also inadvertently caused me to have the worst audition experience of my life. The rehearsal period went on for what seemed like a Russian Siberian eternity. The day of tech came which meant an 18 hour day of tedium mixed with panic at the horrorshow we were ostensibly polishing up for public consumption.
My ding dong agent submitted me for a part described as a 'gentle giant' in the theatrical version of 'Trainspotting'. So when I showed up for my evening audition, the casting woman immediately said, "Oh, no, you shouldn't be auditioning for that part, you are PERFECT for the Ewan McGregor part. Come to the callbacks tomorrow..." I rushed back over to continue the tech for 'Angel Wings' which was plagued with difficulty, the kind of difficulty that always arises when you are trying to tailor lights and sound to crap.
It went until about 2 in the morning. I trekked back out to Brooklyn, fell into a fitful sleep, and told myself I'd work on the audition in the morning.
The next day was a very full one, capped by opening night/dress preview of 'Angel Wings.' I had 3 commercial auditions throughout the day and then a late afternoon call for the 'Trainspotting' audish. I lugged the stroller all over hell and gone through the cold peddling my wares. I could take him to the commercial auditions because he was so little he would be asleep in the carriage while they taped me. But for a theater audition I dropped him off with a friend. I was almost late and due to the hectic schedule totally unprepared.
I sat outside the audition room sweating, feverishly trying to master the monologue from the show. A scene with a reader would have been fine, but a monologue about a dead baby crawling across the ceiling all while on smack and in a Scottish accent? I began to FREAK OUT.
To make things worse, the room was not sound proofed so I had to listen to a REAL SCOTSMAN give a kick ass audition, clearly off book, full on performance. I could feel the bugs on his skin while I was trying to whip myself into shape. I was the last person they were seeing that day.
The woman who'd met with me the night before came out into the hall and took my arm. She was pretty and smelled nice. In retrospect she was flirting with me but I was too petrified to realize it. She walked me across the audition room to meet the director/producers. She whispered in my ear. "I saved the best for last." Meaning me. Meaning she thought I was going to nail this and get the job. Meaning she'd probably talked me up to the creative team. Meaning that I was headed off a cliff.
I started the monologue, having to read off the paper. My Scottish accent was something between an Irish Spring soap commercial and a drunken imitation of Sean Connery. I was still sweating. I had no idea what I was saying. I stopped and said I'd like to start again.
I thought I might relax if I sat on the floor. Once again I dove in trying to recapture the promise she seemed to see in me. Once again I felt as if I were reading a grocery list in Chinese. I stopped and restarted again, standing up as if to marshal my energy.
A paragraph in I kept hearing 'STOP!' over and over in my head. So I did. I said, "You know what? I think I'm just going to stop." I said something else too, making no excuses just refusing to go through the charade of pretending I was doing something that they ought to be paying attention to.
The casting director who'd been rubbing her breasts against me only minutes ago, said, "Well, at least you KNOW." I slunk out of there convinced that I would never work again.
And the worst part? I had to go perform 'Angel Wings' that evening for the first time. I played the part of a young wealthy heir to a real estate mogul fortune. I was only interested in butterflies and spent the show dressed as a combination Cub Scout/beekeeper. I carried a net, fell in love with a French girl and spoke most of my lines in a French accent in order to impress her.
One scene, theoretically the height of hilarity, found me literally falling all over myself and a couch to get to her. I worked on this bit of stagecraft, honing it until it was effortless. I was pulling off my scientific gloves seductively, cooing to her in a French accent, trying to contain my excitement. In my passion, I trip over the back of the couch and somersault down onto the floor at her feet.
Now, I have no problem tooting my own horn. I nailed this fall. I was all arms and legs shooting out in all directions. I let out a strangled cry of embarassment which I twisted into my next line as if I'd meant to do it all along. In any other context, this fall would have brought the house down.
As I came to rest next to the schoolgirl skirt with white tights and black patent leather shoes, I felt a great wave of resentment hit me, sent out in lieu of laughter. I felt like a telemarketer who'd called a couple in the middle of a romantic dinner, like an uninvited guest who pops by for a visit during a marital spat. I might as well have farted.
So, for the second time in a day, I was left with nothing but the thinnest of silver linings. As the casting director had said just hours earlier, "At least you know."
In a year bereft of live music, I spent night after night doing pratfalls for crickets.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
The Living Room, Pt. 3: One Two Three Four
One of the most interesting things about live music is the cross section of the public that is on full display. You can actually tell a lot about the artist by looking at the crowd. Back in my hardcore days it was all safety pins and mohawks; the high octane rock bands of the 90's shifted things to a flannel stoner vibe; followed by the hipster chic of indie rock.
But by far the most interesting crowd I ever witnessed came back at my favorite club The Living Room in Providence in the late '80's.
I was not yet a huge Ramones fan when I heard that they would be touring behind their latest album. I'd heard their songs, seen parts of 'Rock and Roll High School' at high school parties, but to be honest, I took them for granted somehow. I think everyone does, actually. Their sound and look is so perfectly realized that they don't seem real...they are avatars.
The usual ritual of the live show in Providence ensued. Someone was chosen to drive. A full party could be achieved before having to head up the highway. Headliners at The Living Room didn't usually hit the stage until midnight. 9 times out of 10 we knew who the openers were and disliked them. There were very few local bands that we cared for so we invariably had some sort of party before the show.
Once the beer was gone we would pile into the designated driver's car and head out. Fast food would be purchased and consumed by the time we hit the county line and before you knew it we would be looking for parking outside the old mill that housed The Living Room. I know it can't be true, but in my memory, the streets are always shiny with rain. The bricks of the mill have that wet sheen as well, as if moss is just about to sprout.
The courtyard outside the club was usually packed with smokers, under 18 kids hoping to get into the club somehow, and people who needed a break from the incessant slam dancing. So as you entered you got a good idea of what kind of people were in attendance.
Now, up to this point, I'd been used to extremely homogenous crowds. In fact, my friends and I tended to be the odd square pegs who didn't have purple mohawks and leather jackets with English punk band logos spray painted on the back.
What I saw outside The Living Room the night the Ramones played astounded me. Inside the club it was even more pronounced.
First of all, there were more people there than I'd ever seen. And I'd already seen The Replacements, Husker Du, Violent Femmes, etc., etc. There were more people outside in the courtyard than were usually inside the shows.
If you'd been an anthropologist, you absolutely would not have been able to pin down what this gathering was for. The diversity was staggering and seemed dangerous somehow, as if some strange faction might attack another at any moment.
There was a large contingent of Hell's Angels, average age mid 50's, sporting the hardened look of men who'd spent the better part of their lives astride giant machines. Their beards hung between their leather jackets, their boots clanked and jangled, their tattoos weren't visible under all the coverage but you could feel them just the same.
Then there were the hardcore punks. The Ramones were a bit too mainstream for their tastes but options for entertainment were so few in those days that they would show up on principal. But they scorned the rest of the crowd because they weren't true believers, they were only drawn to the world of punk by the commercial success of The Ramones. Their hair hovered feet above their heads, shaved into a thin fan that ran from the back of their necks to the tip of their foreheads. They wore leather biker jackets much like the Hell's Angels did, but they covered them with stickers, logos, sayings, anything they could get their hands on. Their jeans had holes ripped into them and held back together with safety pins and the black leather began again midway up the calf with combat boots. If these were clean, you weren't a real punk. Many of them had adopted a straight-edge lifestyle, refusing to drink or do drugs. Inevitably they wound up in college two years later wearing Polo shirts and doing beer bongs.
Peppered amongst the throng were the tenured Professors. They were probably in their late 30's but seemed older, guys who still lived like college kids but taught them instead. They were wearing suit jackets and band t-shirts underneath, blue jeans and topsiders. Occasionally their hair was enveloped in gel, adding a touch of the underground to their establishment look.
Hippies were also everywhere, oddly enough. How they hooked into the 3 distorted chords and no guitar solos that the Ramones played over and over, I'll never know. But there were many tie-dyed t-shirts, Jesus beards, patchouli splashed onto hairy female underarms, and bad dancing hippies in attendance.
Goth was a barely known fashion choice at this point. If there were 20 goth kids in Rhode Island at this point in history, I'd bet each and every one of them was at the Ramones show. Black eyeliner, white pancake, extra piercing...
Then there were the frat boys. Izod, khakis, Nikes, wasted on beer. No dope for these guys yet so they were still annoyingly hostile to all the other people who had decided to venture out.
The Ramones hadn't gone on yet so all these various groups (and many which I have omitted) circled each other warily; I kept expecting dancing Jets and Sharks to start snapping their fingers and threatening each other.
Then the lights dimmed, a smoke machine filled the teensy stage, and out the Ramones came. Joey seemed to be twenty feet tall. The smoke machine must have been their own because I'd never seen smoke at The Living Room unless it was coming out of my lungs.
He stepped up to the mike. This legend!!! What would he say to this impossibly varied group of worshippers?
'One Two Three Four!'
All hell broke loose and stayed broken loose for 2 hours. Joey never said a word that wasn't a number to count off for his band. There was never more than 3 seconds of silence between songs. The disparate fashion factions were instantly and totally transformed into one swirling mass of humanity. Distinction was impossible. How can one unit be divided?
At one point I was somehow lifted and deposited onto the bar. I sat there with no way to get down. It was as if I were sitting on a barn roof just above a flood. The bartender didn't tell me to get the hell off the bar, he poured me a water and yelled that I could get down at the end of the song. Indeed, I barely made it off in time because the Ramones were off and running.
What had seemed like a powder keg of differences was now a fireworks display of diversity.
Hell's Angels helped hot punk chicks escape whirlpools of slam dance destruction, frat boys held up stage diving goth geeks, hippies shared joints with mohawked straight edgers, and The Ramones gave everyone a center to slouch towards.
But by far the most interesting crowd I ever witnessed came back at my favorite club The Living Room in Providence in the late '80's.
I was not yet a huge Ramones fan when I heard that they would be touring behind their latest album. I'd heard their songs, seen parts of 'Rock and Roll High School' at high school parties, but to be honest, I took them for granted somehow. I think everyone does, actually. Their sound and look is so perfectly realized that they don't seem real...they are avatars.
The usual ritual of the live show in Providence ensued. Someone was chosen to drive. A full party could be achieved before having to head up the highway. Headliners at The Living Room didn't usually hit the stage until midnight. 9 times out of 10 we knew who the openers were and disliked them. There were very few local bands that we cared for so we invariably had some sort of party before the show.
Once the beer was gone we would pile into the designated driver's car and head out. Fast food would be purchased and consumed by the time we hit the county line and before you knew it we would be looking for parking outside the old mill that housed The Living Room. I know it can't be true, but in my memory, the streets are always shiny with rain. The bricks of the mill have that wet sheen as well, as if moss is just about to sprout.
The courtyard outside the club was usually packed with smokers, under 18 kids hoping to get into the club somehow, and people who needed a break from the incessant slam dancing. So as you entered you got a good idea of what kind of people were in attendance.
Now, up to this point, I'd been used to extremely homogenous crowds. In fact, my friends and I tended to be the odd square pegs who didn't have purple mohawks and leather jackets with English punk band logos spray painted on the back.
What I saw outside The Living Room the night the Ramones played astounded me. Inside the club it was even more pronounced.
First of all, there were more people there than I'd ever seen. And I'd already seen The Replacements, Husker Du, Violent Femmes, etc., etc. There were more people outside in the courtyard than were usually inside the shows.
If you'd been an anthropologist, you absolutely would not have been able to pin down what this gathering was for. The diversity was staggering and seemed dangerous somehow, as if some strange faction might attack another at any moment.
There was a large contingent of Hell's Angels, average age mid 50's, sporting the hardened look of men who'd spent the better part of their lives astride giant machines. Their beards hung between their leather jackets, their boots clanked and jangled, their tattoos weren't visible under all the coverage but you could feel them just the same.
Then there were the hardcore punks. The Ramones were a bit too mainstream for their tastes but options for entertainment were so few in those days that they would show up on principal. But they scorned the rest of the crowd because they weren't true believers, they were only drawn to the world of punk by the commercial success of The Ramones. Their hair hovered feet above their heads, shaved into a thin fan that ran from the back of their necks to the tip of their foreheads. They wore leather biker jackets much like the Hell's Angels did, but they covered them with stickers, logos, sayings, anything they could get their hands on. Their jeans had holes ripped into them and held back together with safety pins and the black leather began again midway up the calf with combat boots. If these were clean, you weren't a real punk. Many of them had adopted a straight-edge lifestyle, refusing to drink or do drugs. Inevitably they wound up in college two years later wearing Polo shirts and doing beer bongs.
Peppered amongst the throng were the tenured Professors. They were probably in their late 30's but seemed older, guys who still lived like college kids but taught them instead. They were wearing suit jackets and band t-shirts underneath, blue jeans and topsiders. Occasionally their hair was enveloped in gel, adding a touch of the underground to their establishment look.
Hippies were also everywhere, oddly enough. How they hooked into the 3 distorted chords and no guitar solos that the Ramones played over and over, I'll never know. But there were many tie-dyed t-shirts, Jesus beards, patchouli splashed onto hairy female underarms, and bad dancing hippies in attendance.
Goth was a barely known fashion choice at this point. If there were 20 goth kids in Rhode Island at this point in history, I'd bet each and every one of them was at the Ramones show. Black eyeliner, white pancake, extra piercing...
Then there were the frat boys. Izod, khakis, Nikes, wasted on beer. No dope for these guys yet so they were still annoyingly hostile to all the other people who had decided to venture out.
The Ramones hadn't gone on yet so all these various groups (and many which I have omitted) circled each other warily; I kept expecting dancing Jets and Sharks to start snapping their fingers and threatening each other.
Then the lights dimmed, a smoke machine filled the teensy stage, and out the Ramones came. Joey seemed to be twenty feet tall. The smoke machine must have been their own because I'd never seen smoke at The Living Room unless it was coming out of my lungs.
He stepped up to the mike. This legend!!! What would he say to this impossibly varied group of worshippers?
'One Two Three Four!'
All hell broke loose and stayed broken loose for 2 hours. Joey never said a word that wasn't a number to count off for his band. There was never more than 3 seconds of silence between songs. The disparate fashion factions were instantly and totally transformed into one swirling mass of humanity. Distinction was impossible. How can one unit be divided?
At one point I was somehow lifted and deposited onto the bar. I sat there with no way to get down. It was as if I were sitting on a barn roof just above a flood. The bartender didn't tell me to get the hell off the bar, he poured me a water and yelled that I could get down at the end of the song. Indeed, I barely made it off in time because the Ramones were off and running.
What had seemed like a powder keg of differences was now a fireworks display of diversity.
Hell's Angels helped hot punk chicks escape whirlpools of slam dance destruction, frat boys held up stage diving goth geeks, hippies shared joints with mohawked straight edgers, and The Ramones gave everyone a center to slouch towards.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Copland On The Green
Left to my own devices I am a hermit. I could go weeks on end not breathing fresh air and I'd never think twice about it. I wouldn't make any connection between my foul mood, darkened view of humanity, overall malaise, etc., and the fact that I'd hidden away. Thankfully, I have family and friends who draw me out of my shell enough to keep me from making their lives too miserable!
On one of these occasions, my girlfriend forced a vacation on me. We lived in Brooklyn at the time and she came up with the crazy idea of driving up I95 to the Berkshires. In my state of mind, it was as if she suggested a manned space flight. It was like getting hit on the head with a frying pan in a cartoon. Time off? Wha???
I resisted the idea...we were broke, I was tired, we were broke, we were broke, did I mention we were broke? But Melody is relentless when she has a good idea. Before I knew it we were in the rental car headed out of the city.
Melody had planned many excursions for us. We were going to get massages at a spa, see the Norman Rockwell Museum, visit Mass MOCA (Massachusetts Musem of Contemporary Art), see a dance performance at Jacob's Pillow, and hear the Boston Symphony Orchestra outside at Tanglewood.
Now, as I've mentioned before, I am something of an obsessive when it comes to music. I pride myself on having a wide scope of general knowledge about just about any kind of music. So I am always mildly taken aback when someone knows about something I don't. I ought to be used to it by now, but there is always that little part of me that thinks I'm THE expert. Happily, I'm constantly being shown up in this regard.
This weekend in the Berkshires was one of those times. I'd lived in New England my entire life (save the 10 months in France) and I'd never even heard of half the places that my Southern beauty was exposing me to. She was like my own personal Jacques Cousteau of culture, showing me things that I'd never imagined existed.
We saw an exhibit at Mass MOCA that was set up in a huge exhibit room. Giant swaths of fabric sewn into balloon shapes hung connected by gentle tubing. It was a giant bellows. You'd walk under this THING hung from the ceiling and occasionally a fart would issue forth from the folds next to your head. It was hilarious and humbling somehow. This cross between a bagpipe and the intestines of some huge giant made a bizarre sort of music, interspersed by the high notes of human laughter. We left in a trance.
The dance at Jacob's Pillow was that kind of modern dance that leaves you in wonder at what the human body can accomplish. I vaguely remember a theme, some sort of anti-authoritarian vibe, but for the most part the aesthetic seemed geared towards using interesting movement to keep your eye mezmerized. We dressed up, drank wine before the show, soaked up the atmosphere of a top-flight dance troupe in what felt like the middle of the woods of Massachusetts.
To top everything off came the concert at Tanglewood. In another example of Melody introducing me to something I was previously ignorant of, the program was to include Aaron Copland's 'Appalachian Spring'. Melody knew this music because of her childhood spent in the Appalachian mountains of North Carolina. She was familiar with Copland. I'd never heard of him. This tickled me and made me feel like the luckiest guy in the crowd.
Like everyone, we brought a picnic. We laughed at our little spread compared to some of the monstrosities other classical fans were constructing. Fold out mahogany tables with Persian slip covers, scented candles and silverware, damn if some of 'em didn't have butlers hovering. Melody had one of those Mia Farrow in Great Gatsby hats curving from here to eternity around her beautiful face and we sat and sipped wine and generally fulfilled all those romantic cliches that are the only acceptable cliches going.
And then Copland's 'Appalachian Spring' started. Conducted by Andre Previn (hello! My Dinner with Andre!!!!) with Van Cliburn soloing on piano, the Boston Orchestra brought this piece to life. Now, with a punk band in a club, I can watch the members and see who is pulling their weight, who is dragging the group down, etc. But with an orchestra? The listening experience becomes pure because I have no critical backlog of knowledge. Some classical Aaron Copland fanatic might have thought this was the worst performance of the piece EVER. All I know is it seemed beautiful to me.
Here it was, early 21st century, and thousands of people sat under the stars and let themselves be transported back to a time when amplification could only be achieved by building a curved shell of rock behind the orchestra.
Connecting this beautiful sound to me was the girl who brought me out of my cave to see it, the girl whose home country inspired the very music we were experiencing.
On one of these occasions, my girlfriend forced a vacation on me. We lived in Brooklyn at the time and she came up with the crazy idea of driving up I95 to the Berkshires. In my state of mind, it was as if she suggested a manned space flight. It was like getting hit on the head with a frying pan in a cartoon. Time off? Wha???
I resisted the idea...we were broke, I was tired, we were broke, we were broke, did I mention we were broke? But Melody is relentless when she has a good idea. Before I knew it we were in the rental car headed out of the city.
Melody had planned many excursions for us. We were going to get massages at a spa, see the Norman Rockwell Museum, visit Mass MOCA (Massachusetts Musem of Contemporary Art), see a dance performance at Jacob's Pillow, and hear the Boston Symphony Orchestra outside at Tanglewood.
Now, as I've mentioned before, I am something of an obsessive when it comes to music. I pride myself on having a wide scope of general knowledge about just about any kind of music. So I am always mildly taken aback when someone knows about something I don't. I ought to be used to it by now, but there is always that little part of me that thinks I'm THE expert. Happily, I'm constantly being shown up in this regard.
This weekend in the Berkshires was one of those times. I'd lived in New England my entire life (save the 10 months in France) and I'd never even heard of half the places that my Southern beauty was exposing me to. She was like my own personal Jacques Cousteau of culture, showing me things that I'd never imagined existed.
We saw an exhibit at Mass MOCA that was set up in a huge exhibit room. Giant swaths of fabric sewn into balloon shapes hung connected by gentle tubing. It was a giant bellows. You'd walk under this THING hung from the ceiling and occasionally a fart would issue forth from the folds next to your head. It was hilarious and humbling somehow. This cross between a bagpipe and the intestines of some huge giant made a bizarre sort of music, interspersed by the high notes of human laughter. We left in a trance.
The dance at Jacob's Pillow was that kind of modern dance that leaves you in wonder at what the human body can accomplish. I vaguely remember a theme, some sort of anti-authoritarian vibe, but for the most part the aesthetic seemed geared towards using interesting movement to keep your eye mezmerized. We dressed up, drank wine before the show, soaked up the atmosphere of a top-flight dance troupe in what felt like the middle of the woods of Massachusetts.
To top everything off came the concert at Tanglewood. In another example of Melody introducing me to something I was previously ignorant of, the program was to include Aaron Copland's 'Appalachian Spring'. Melody knew this music because of her childhood spent in the Appalachian mountains of North Carolina. She was familiar with Copland. I'd never heard of him. This tickled me and made me feel like the luckiest guy in the crowd.
Like everyone, we brought a picnic. We laughed at our little spread compared to some of the monstrosities other classical fans were constructing. Fold out mahogany tables with Persian slip covers, scented candles and silverware, damn if some of 'em didn't have butlers hovering. Melody had one of those Mia Farrow in Great Gatsby hats curving from here to eternity around her beautiful face and we sat and sipped wine and generally fulfilled all those romantic cliches that are the only acceptable cliches going.
And then Copland's 'Appalachian Spring' started. Conducted by Andre Previn (hello! My Dinner with Andre!!!!) with Van Cliburn soloing on piano, the Boston Orchestra brought this piece to life. Now, with a punk band in a club, I can watch the members and see who is pulling their weight, who is dragging the group down, etc. But with an orchestra? The listening experience becomes pure because I have no critical backlog of knowledge. Some classical Aaron Copland fanatic might have thought this was the worst performance of the piece EVER. All I know is it seemed beautiful to me.
Here it was, early 21st century, and thousands of people sat under the stars and let themselves be transported back to a time when amplification could only be achieved by building a curved shell of rock behind the orchestra.
Connecting this beautiful sound to me was the girl who brought me out of my cave to see it, the girl whose home country inspired the very music we were experiencing.
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