Zapruder Point
Consumer/Songwriter

Aselin Working the Magic Boxes

I think it was all the way back in April when I sent Aselin and Larry a trio of songs to learn for possible recording down the road. The date we’d set to get together was this past Wednesday. Actually, I thought we were just getting together to tighten up the songs, not to record per se. But Aselin’s got such a seamless setup at his space that he thought we should go for it, and it ended up being a good thought. We ended up doing live trio tracks for two songs, and I think the remote, asynchronous learning (apologies for the invasion of job-language) of the songs led to fresh, loose takes. Which might actually fit better with my Garageband doodles than I’d thought. But as for the night in question…

At first, I was pretty uncomfortable, to be honest. It’s been a long time since I’ve played with other people, and whenever that happens, I feel extremely uptight and/or just plain OFF rhythmically. It’s NOT like riding a bike, unfortunately. But with a little encouragement (and beer), I got over myself and loosened up. The first song we did was “The Oldies Station,” one from my current batch that I’m most proud of. The chords stay the same across a pair of long verses, but Larry mixed up the beat half-way through each, changing along with the vocals. That was a cool method, actually: At their request, I played the songs solo before we recorded, to remind the guys of how they “went.” We did three takes, then “just one more” “just in case,” and of course this last one nailed it.

I thought the second song would prove more problematic, and it was…but not for the reasons I’d anticipated. Basically, “You Are Not Your Own” is a rambling country song; I think of it as “Louvin Brothers-like,” when all I really mean is that it’s “Gospel Jubilee-like.” Each verse tells a different story about a different person. Kind of like “The Next Thing You Know,” but a little deeper, description-wise. There are points in the verses where, for dramatic effect, a chord could be played for twice or even three times as long “as usual,” but this would be more of a live conceit, and I was worried that dynamic would be lost in studio. It didn’t help that I didn’t have lyrics done for the last set of verses, which were the most dramatic/pausey ones.

What we ended up doing was setting up a mike that wasn’t plugged into anything, and John and Larry encouraged me to just sort of mock-sing the thing, to “telegraph” when the changes were coming. It felt corny at first, but it worked in the end. It’s a weird paradox of playing live, playing with other people. I know I’m supposed to look at the other guys, to arch my eyebrows and tilt my head in order to steer my ‘mates through things, but I’m so used to playing alone at this point that I feel awkward doing so. Thankfully, all that OVERT signaling isn’t so necessary when you play with folks like John and Larry, who have gobs more experience in this realm, and so can “read” an extra bend of the knee, or the hair-toss that precedes stepping to the mike. In short, bless those guys. They’re awesome.

No but so the “difficult” thing about recording the second song was just m’damn FINGERS. Playing a pair of songs over and over, especially a pair of (for me) “fast ones” is an intense workout for the ol’ digits and callouses. When I’m in the basement, plowing through an hour of my repertoire, there’s plenty of room to breathe, but not here. I know Aselin could have kept going, and I appreciate his enthusiasm, but I. Just. Couldn’t. Larry’d had a late night previous, so it was just me and John at the Matchbox afterwords. I don’t normally stay out late weeknights, and I’m not sure why. Especially in the summer, with a nice sidewalk table, friendly company and traffic-watching…

I’ll post what comes of this, probably. Or at the very least, just to be sneaky, I’ll get “The Oldies Station” as a one-mike demo recorded, just ’cause I like it so much. Thanks to John and Larry for their willingness to do this. They said they’d be willing to do some occasional “two-song sessions” going forward. I’ll have to think of songs I got now that would work as trio pieces. Hmm…

Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I have two upcoming shows! My persistence has paid off, and I hope it continues to. Combined with the recording I’m doing with Larry and Aselin this Wednesday, I now have three reasons to rehearse. So I am, and all of the fun and challenge and fingertip-pain attendant on that is flooding forth. Again, I don’t really know why I stop, ever.

The Raleigh show will be about one year after my last visit to my former hometown. I’ll be playing dueling solo sets with my brother Scott (who performs under the name The Monologue Bombs). We’ll be part of Raleigh’s “First Friday” (10/2) celebration — sort of an open-house for all the art galleries around town, with music and maybe food. Scott tells me that where we’ll be playing (Rebus Works Gallery) is an especially isolated space, singer-wise. I mean, there’s good separation between folks who want to check out paintings and folks who want to hear music. You get the idea.

The Chicago show will be at the newest bar in Logan Square, Cole’s. I tip my hat to my buddy Jet, who texted me in the middle of a barrage of gig-emailing I was already doing to point out the near-glowing writeup of Cole’s in Gaper’s Block, wherein it was mentioned that, hey, they’re looking for bands. Cole himself responded to my email that same day, offering .e September 15, a Tuesday (I’d suggested something low-key like that). What’s more, he asked if I knew other musicians to round out the evening, and so thanks to some more rapid-fire emailing, my compatriots-in-song Denise Hradecky and Eric Ziegenhagen are on the bill. Should be a good night!

Semi-relatedly, yesterday was a great day. We went to Chinatown to watch The Xylenes open up a festival at noon. Amber from the Xylenes is the wife of a former co-worker/friend, David. A few years ago, when I thought I wanted to get a trio going to play out, I invited her and Larry over on a Sunday. My neighborhood being what it is, Amber got lost trying to find the place, and I had stupidly left my cell phone off. We jammed anyway, and it was actually pretty fun, but I always feel bad for having her go through that, only to not have a band materialize anyway. Not that being “in” Zapruder Point is necessarily a total treat. But I digress.

The Xylenes rocked a brisk set of covers, including “Roam” and a very faithful “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” They have way more women in the band than the last time I saw them. They form a wall out front, trading off and harmonizing lines. It was the perfect accompaniment to a perfect day.

THEN after a couple other errands, Amy said she wanted to check out this fabric shop in Bucktown she’d heard of. As we pulled up to it, I saw the bar across the street and was astonished to find that it was Charleston — the only venue on my gig-grubbing short list that I’d never set foot in. I remedied that, asking Heather at the bar if there’s more that I can do to get in with the booker there (aside from email). “Definitely,” she said, sliding me a notepad to leave Wendy, the booker, a personal note. The place looks great — the kind of bar with books in it, and a stage at the back that looks to be about six feet square. Cozy. Sweet. Keep your fingers crossed.

Speaking of fingers, when we got home I practiced again. I’ve been trying to go for a full hour each time, but my fingers were pretty stinging by about 50 minutes. It had been worse the day before. It’ll probably be better now, as I head down to the basement…

Just wanted to add to yesterday’s…piece…that I also want to get gigging again for the fear-facing, self-challenging, triumph-over-death experience that playing a show can bring.  To feel, in short, a sense of achievement.  An obvious motivation, maybe, but one that didn’t really thread its way into the aforementioned long-gestating performance-anxiety kvetch.

To that end, there are five fresh emails out there and more to come.  Someone is bound to nibble, so stay tuned.

I see now that my original sweep of gig-grubbing emails was sent the first week of MAY. Time flies, yes? I received a sort of form rejection from one place, a kind word unaccompanied by a firm offer from another, and no reply at all from the other three places. I know that I’m supposed to follow up, but I’ve been stalling. Or is 100 days too soon? (Joke.) (I hope.)

I had this idea that if I could write a second part to my earlier post about performance anxiety, I’d answer some internal questions, get some things settled, and once again feel good about “getting out there.” But after weeks of poking at it, just this morning I looked at what I’d written and realized that I’d been winding myself up over two truths that aren’t revelatory, and that I wouldn’t be brave for pointing out. Namely, that 1) The moment you take a creative endeavor out of your basement, parties with profit as their chief concern WILL have to be dealt with, and 2) It’s okay to admit that some part of you wants to be recognized for your hard work and/or inherent talent (because everyone has that part).

Though these truths aren’t earth-shattering, they do bug the hell out of me. The first one’s a bummer, and the second is something I’d rather not admit to. The tempting thing is that if I don’t play out, 1) I never have to answer the dreaded question of draw (which equals beer which equals money), and 2) I can pretend I don’t care what people think. Truths avoided, problem solved! (In a totally cowardly and unsatisfying way.)

Thing is, I get to a point with writing and practicing and polishing where I think, you know, damn. I’m actually GOOD at this. I might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I gotta be the Earl Grey for some percentage of Chicago’s music fans. It’s at this point that I send out the emails, and my vision is lofty, but incomplete: I see only the point A that is me and the point B that is “my audience,” with a black box obscuring all the sub-connections between.

Of course eventually, with the venue-silence that requires of me more self-promotion (sticky truth #1) and assertiveness (sticky truth #2), the black box is lifted, and the complicated jungle of circuitry is revealed. I can hear the booker asking how many people I can get out. I can anticipate the strained reaction of a crowd uncertain what to do with a somewhat-husky, somewhat-mopey, sometimes-twitchy guy in his mid-to-late thirties. Okay, fine: late thirties.

But while these fears are real — while the anxieties of the inbox and the less-than-perfect gig hum like window units in my noggin — I know that what’s scarier still is making music that no-one will hear. At the risk of sounding corny, as much as I despair the myriad x-factors that seem to conspire against it ever happening, I know that the pure A-to-B connection, when it DOES happen, is pure magic. In the end, it’s totally worth carving through the jungle for.

To that end, I’ve sent out a few more follow-up emails since starting this dumb essay. I’ll be live…soon.

Wallace’s Dogs

I have maybe too much to say about this song, since it’s kind of a trifle, and it doesn’t even have words.  But ephemera:  that’s what blogs are for, yes?

First, the music:  “Wallace’s Dogs” represents the longest gestation period I’ve ever had between coming up with a riff and finally actually recording a song based on it.  When I was in high school — senior or junior year — I had a brief period of musical proliferation.  And as sometimes happens when you find songs coming out of your ears, I thought I’d write a concept album, or at least a song-cycle.  It would be about…a slightly depressed teenage boy whom no-one understood.  Seriously, that’s all I had.  So thankfully, it never saw the light of day.

The first song was called “Morning Prayer,” and while the lyrics aged poorly almost immediately, I always liked the guitar part, this three-string, two-chord circling thing.  Every couple years I’d remember the riff and take it out for a spin.  Then about a year ago, my friend Scott (who records as Mitre, check it out), out of nowhere, just GAVE me a classical guitar.  Said he had “too many.”  Now, even an anti-gear-headed dude such as myself could tell this wasn’t the greatest guitar in the world, but it was a classical, something I haven’t really been able to mess around with since my older brother Brian had one around the house during breaks from college.

It was as if this riff had been waiting for the right instrument, because the first time I played what’s become “Wallace’s Dogs” on that guitar, I knew I’d have to record it that way.  The extra bend in the strings, the particular resonance of the lowest three strings on there.  Hard to explain.  Without hearing it, naturally.

As for the title.  Thing is, I’ve written songs about suicide, and the suicide of certain cultural icons in particular.  But last year, when David Foster Wallace ended his own life, I was speechless.  And then I went and read David Lipsky’s remembrance in Rolling Stone, and it made me sadder.  Wallace was an avid dog lover, basically, and…you should read the article, if you’re curious.

At any rate, it seemed appropriate that I should eulogize the guy with an instrumental.  Wallace’s writing is so brilliant, I’d feel sheepish using words at all.  Also, for me, songwriting (as distinct from prose writing) has always been a form of expression that’s (mostly/comparatively) free of the self-consciousness that so dogged David Foster Wallace.  Music’s just music, and I’ve always used it as a sort of creative loophole, a self-consciousness workaround, if you will.  It’s maybe dumb to offer a small piece of it now as a balm, well after the fact.  But there it is.

For more on my favorite writer, check out this fantastic audio archive of interviews and more.  Also, as a summation of Wallace’s overall positivity in the FACE of our weird, reflexive age, a web archive thankfully exists of his 2005 Kenyon College commencement speech, which is cynically (IMHO) being sold as a standalone book…  (In other words, the link might not be long for this world, so you better click it.)