I went all-out nutty with gig-grubbing emails at the very beginning of the year, and for a while there I was worried that I’d get exactly NO bites, but no! I mean yes! I have a show back at the Uncommon Ground in Wrigleyville on Friday 2/5. And there are slight feelers out for stuff in March, both in and out of Chicago. Oh, and a little feeler out for a possible Cleveland showing in April. So it turns out that my Merge-book-reading prediction is coming true. Perseverance will eventually lead you to gigs, and gigs themselves will show you which venues / folks / scenes are appropriate for you. Elementary Watson, and all that. The only hitch being that it’s a slow process, and a very rusty engine to turn over if you’ve been away for a few years. I’ll forgive myself my impatience, if you forgive me my absence (all three of you reading this).
Meanwhile, my actual paying gig has gotten strange. In September of 2001, I took my first non-private sector job, working for a group within the group that I currently work for. I sat in a cubicle in the South Loop, and though the work was sort of menial, I was happily salaried, and it was here that I first tapped into my own “geek potential.”
Flash forward to 2009, and after a couple of misguided detours, I’m back working with basically the same organization, but with more responsibility / challenge / (dare I say) fun…and in a far better office space, right in the Loop. But due to some budget straining, in December our physical office was closed, and we were scattered to whatever desks could be scrounged in State and/or University buildings around the city. So guess where I landed? Exactly one cubicle north of of where I was in 2001. Also due to…the nature of grant-work, I guess…I’m one of two people working on a fairly data-intense project, and we both wear ALL of the hats — including data entry and (gulp) filing. So not only am I physically in the same place I was in 2001, but for huge chunks of time, I’m doing the same type of (yes I’m glad to BE employed, but let’s be honest — it’s kind of boring) work. The only difference is the upgrade from Discman (!!!) to iPod.
It’s like there’s been a fold in time. And the fold is reflected my musical life, too, since it’s been about that long since I tried to get my solo self “out there.” Zapruder Point was definitely at its most active when Tom and Casey were in the band, but before then, I did some solo gigs, and I remember being especially excited about writing and recording. This was the period when (the then-two-disc) Low Resolution was “out,” and all the American High songs were coming together, and in general the potential of songwriting — the throw-anything-at-it spirit — was very strong in me. I listened to Ted Leo on the Discman, tuning into the glory in spite of the drudgery surrounding me.
And now I listen to Vampire Weekend on the iPod and do the same. I gather paper cuts and feel the same hope and expansiveness, even as I’m soaked in fluorescent light. And yes, this is playing itself out in the songs I’m currently writing, where they’re coming in thick, and I’m just flinging ideas at them. Lyrics unparsed but pretty, shouts and squiggles, tempos slowed to silence. In short, I think I’ve got some live ones here, and I’m excited.
Amy said she felt like she was rolling the dice when she got me Our Noise: The Story of Merge Records just a couple days before Christmas. She knows I’m a geek, and she saw this book about some indie label that had been around for 20 years, so she impulse-purchased it. I was excited when I opened the thing — it’s packed with pictures and is gorgeously put together. But it was only when I actually started reading the thing on Christmas Day that it became apparent what a home run this was, gift-wise. (Together with the cigar box guitar, Amy gets an A+ this year.)
It was a roller-coaster of a reading experience, actually. At first, I was pretty jazzed to notice they’d interviewed some folks from the Raleigh scene at the time. Here were some people I actually knew, reminiscing about places I’d actually been to, celebrating a scene I’d actually…sort of… That’s how I almost got sad for a couple days’ reading. The Boy Wonder Jinx was always on the fringe of the scene, never really as cool as the bands people cared about. It felt like we worked our asses off, though, sending our CDs to anyone we could think of, touring as much as we could afford. But we never really got the “breaks” we were hoping for. I used to nurse pitiful thoughts about how we “must not be doing the right kinds of drugs,” or some such cynical nonsense…
It was like I could still taste the sour grapes. But as I kept reading, the story of Merge Records proved to be so hopeful that it burned through all those memories like Vap-O-Rub through a head cold. I’ve also changed my ideas about music radically from when I was 25. I’m not really interested in being cool…or in being picked up…or in getting anything like a “break.” Don’t get me wrong — whenever I finish whatever this current batch of songs ends up being, I plan on sending it to labels with the same mechanical relish I’ve been bugging clubs for shows. But I’ll be doing it as a matter of course, my fingers nowhere near as tightly crossed.
Nowadays, while I’m not really interested in “making it” any more (“whatever that means,” as the Arctic Monkeys would helpfully add), I still want to get gigs and stay busy (as I’ve mentioned). So in these last couple weeks of hustling for a show, throwing emails against the wall, weathering vague rudeness from strictly-business-minded people…it’s been heart-warming to read about Merge, who seem to be genuinely and simply excited about the music they put out. Surely there are people like this all over, at every level, contributing and supporting music because they’re passionate about it…? I’m bound to make contact with at least some of these types of people in Chicago, right? (I mean aside from musicians themselves — I’ve met plenty of “good guys” in that category already.)
This is the hope, anyway. Meanwhile, I do recommend Our Noise in general. One, because of the hope described above, and the detailed look into the arcs of both Merge AND Superchunk, the band formed by Merge co-founders Mac and Laura. They’ve conducted their label and band careers with such integrity that any musician should just absorb it, learn it, live it. Two, because you get a geeky insight into the making of some classic records by Neutral Milk Hotel, Arcade Fire, Magnetic Fields, and more. Three, because the final chapter imagines a pivotal role for Merge and other independent labels as the inevitable downfall of the majors comes to pass. I won’t attempt to paraphrase the sentiment here, but it was an exciting…well…merge…of old and new business models, and I for one will buy it!
As should you. I’d be curious to know what you think.
So Amy got me a cigar box guitar for Christmas. Man, I had zero luck guessing what that tall gift leaning against the couch might be. It is, as you can see, pretty gorgeous:
Hey Good Lookin!
Snaps on Facebook elicited huzzahs and a request to see and hear it in action. So I just shot a quick video in my office doing ‘OX4′ by Ride. I dunno, those three chords sounded good all plucked out and banjo-y, and it’s fun to wring all the rock out of this post-shoegaze classic and reduce it to something that coulda been in Emmet Otter’s Jug Band Christmas. Yes! Enjoy, and let’s have a helluva 2010!
