music: Phish- 11/14/95, Orlando, FL
A drive
beyond the city
around
but not to long to
riot in the night
through fuss and fight
through nothing
live through it all
The three day weekend was, for the most part, spent convalescing. I’m not sure what from. I spent a good amount of time pinballing around the house tweaking this and that, having minutes of focus and purpose, but most was filler. I got some big projects for school out of the way. I played a decent amount of guitar. I started work on a new song, which is now well on its way to completion. By Monday night I was restless and disappointed at how the weekend shook out. Cue tmo, asking coyly if I was interested in going to an open mic. In Gloucester. On a school night. I needed the recklessness of it all more than the content of the trip, so I dragged out the acoustic, bundled up, and headed out.
Enter the Rhumb Line, a small townie bar at the ass-end of the commuter rail far beyond the hype of the big city. The crowd was friendly and accepting, or drunk, or both. The music was predominantly classic rock covers, with some impressive improvisatory moments thrown in for good measure. The open mic was in fact an open jam session, and me there at 10:00pm on a school night, bringing the wrong brush with which to paint. I sat back and took in the scene, keeping mostly to myself, but some time around 11:30 the host of the session points a meaty finger my way. Apparently Shane, the guy who we travelled to meet up with, put my name on the list. He also loaned me his old Strat, an axe that’s been through the war and then some. The frets were almost flush against the fretboard and the action was dangerously low. It, besides all that, was a Strat, and as such has a completely different feel than the ES-335 that I’ve spoiled myself on. Throw an actual crowd of strangers into the mix, a drummer, a bassist, and the host on another guitar, shake. No, puree. I call for a simple funky improv to open: Am7 > D7, nothing too difficult, and I immediately falter on my first riffs. The Strat played sharp and pointy, the clean channel far too choppy, and I ended up fighting with the instrument for the rest of the night instead of using it as a tool. We segued into a fairly standard E-blues jam where I took a stab at a weak solo. The host asked me to sing something, and conjuring back from a far more successful gig in Bellingham, MA, I started Franklin’s Tower. By that point I had already lost my legs. I bumbled through three or four verses, the host ended it, and I turned the borrowed Strat over to Shane. I’d had enough.
This music things is hard enough as it is; doing it in vivo is even harder. But I realized as we were driving home that that is my zone of proximal development. I’m no longer challenged as much by my bedroom solo recitals. I needed to get out there, plug in, completely fall on my face, and stick it out. I needed the reality check to my pride, the humbling, the reminder that I don’t know jack. The challenge, as I saw it, was not a kinesthetic one; I didn’t feel the need to rip off mammoth solos. I’d like to blame the guitar but as a wiser person once said, the tools are only as good as the carpenter. The challenge was and is how to put myself into the proper frame of mind when I know other people are listening. There was a great deal of static and interference last night at the Rhumb Line. I was not clear and directed, and I certainly was not at ease. I made it through, and will live to play another day.
I’ve redoubled my efforts on the music front. I’ve been thinking hard about how to transition to playing in a more public sphere, about my own songwriting, and about some of the more fundamental issues of tonal theory that I’ll need in my bag of tricks. I spent about an hour on Sunday night taking a music lesson. All of this is directed towards a point- I have a jam session/audition scheduled with two guys from the craigslist music board on Thursday.
Musical horizons are expanding as I push outwards. Part of creating art is putting oneself on display publicly. I have tended to lurk in the shadows, produce from behind a curtain and reveal work without standing next to it (blog?) but that’s not so much an option any more. The musical externalizing process is too far along to slow down or reverse now, and despite any stumbling blocks that I may make for myself, there’s only one direction to move. Struggle, progress, and all that.
SlippingPosted by davidtaus at January 18, 2005 11:06 PM
Finding the stream
Living the dream
Feeling the sound