It might have been Statesville, maybe parts west, when I rang Dup's phone and left the message. "Is there any dignity in this thing we do?" I wasn't expecting answers but I wanted a dialogue. Doubt, powerful doubt, logical doubt... did it make sense to plug my amps & pedals into strange and foreign outlets and play to empty rooms? Where did it all lead? Any real measure of success comes at a great cost, a cost I no longer felt I could bear. Even local shows are starting to wear me down. It's not that it's wasted effort, it's the time commitment and it's how tired I've been.
The songs exist, that's what counts, and I'm not even sure if it matters whether anyone but me hears them. Even these explanations fall short... I just woke up one day and I was over playing shows.
In this mindset did I approach Asheville. Plumbing the depths of anxiety and discomfort, feeling trapped by my own existence as a musician. I could have clicked my heels at any moment - there's no place like home - redemption is easy. You mean I had the power inside me all along?
there and back again - West Asheville edition... the A.L.E... thank Odin for shit luck...
At the first sign of bad luck I felt like myself again. Seriously. I could stop worrying and learn to love the bomb.I'd just entered West Asheville and was headed down Haywood from Patton when I got Andy on the phone.
"Dude, I have maybe ten seconds to tell you all this. The owner of Mike's Side Pocket went to jail for some A.L.E. violation and they have to close early to go get him out. We're moving the show to my house."
This I can handle... this makes sense. I called Amoretta of Pushy Lips and delivered the information in similar fashion. Is "guerrilla" a verb? It should be.
I am my own favorite animal.
I landed the Millenium Falcon in Andy's yard and it cast a shadow, even after dark. The moon was full, Andy was pointing it out shortly after my arrival, and he was ready to go brainsplitting insane. This was the reason for the collapse of the Mike's show, he explained, and the animal energy awakened by his semi-mystical rationale wouldn't be wasted.
Everyone with an appreciation for the wilderness alive and well in us all needs their own personal Oscar Z. Acosta and they need to say "why not?" more often than "that's probably a bad idea."
The full moon theory was further proven when Andy's roommate Chad came home, having just been savagely attacked at the group home where he works and bearing terrible, bleeding wounds like unto an animal attack down the side of his face.
Heavy shit.
We played some music at this point. Pushy Lips had gone to find food so Dan and Andy and I played a few songs. Dan is Andy's brother and he and I have been trading MP3s for a while and he's written some trumpet parts to the WtBR songs. We put him through a multieffects pedal and one of my amps and let him go to town... that was one cool sounding trumpet.
So we started drinking PBR and Pushy Lips showed up about 10:00, maybe a little before. We set up on two sides of the living room, all our gear on the floor at once, and were soon trading songs. It didn't take me long to sing my voice out but I kept going anyway, not so much singing as imitating a snoring bear.
What we did was a lot of fun and it inspired greatness for the next two shows of this weekend... more on that in the Johnson City & Nashville editions. Read all about it!What was really special to me was when Pushy Lips played "Sawtooth." I remembered this song from our show together at the Reservoir (link) and they encouraged the audience to participate during the instrumental break. So, during our set at Andy's house, I hopped on Andy's drumkit and Dan played trumpet... this was the shit. I locked in with Kristen's drumline, accentuating with an open snare and Ando's way-the-fuck downtuned toms, and it felt really good. This was my first time playing drums in front of people.
Golly.
We played for several hours, trading off and occasionally letting others take over. Eventually it deteroriated into some serious sitting on the porch and imitating animal sounds madness. I want to say it was a ton of fun, I know it was a ton of fun, but all I know is a faded narrative and I can't even keep my timeline straight. There was music and the music was fucking fantastic. There was this Nashville band called Pushy Lips and they played a ton of songs and they were amazing. There was Andy and Dan and me and I sounded like sloppy shit on the songs I sang and I sounded like some devil bastard drunk on feedback on the instrumentals. I climbed on the drums, I flubbed half my guitar lines, I jumped off the cap of my truck and collapsed in an idiotic pile, my chimpanzee impression ruined by my shot equilibrium. Amoretta and Kristen of Pushy Lips and I decided to go on a mission to the nearby Ingles... a short walk. It was closed and we decided instead to roll around in the street in front of Andy's house.Eventually I crawled off to sleep in the bed of my truck, which we call the Millenium Falcon.
It seemed like the thing to do.
(continued in act II)
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