Spaces

This female artist, someone little known, hard working, struggling to create a market, had written on her Facebook artist page that she was feeling low. The reaction to this admission was immediate, and varied. Fans of her work expressed emotions from concern to muted outrage. Her fellow artists were kinder, and a discussion sprang up: should an artist disclose anything personal, or should they stay hidden behind the work?

I was playing a piece for recital next month at piano today, and my teacher, deliberately tactful, suggested I play for others before playing in front of a crowd. She asked how I felt onstage. "I feel nothing," I said. "You feel numb," she said. I said: "I feel tense beforehand and I yawn and stretch 500 million times and I'm waiting and waiting and waiting for the feeling to change into anything else. Then onstage you see nothing but lights, you're blinded and they're physically hot." Suddenly I thought of the last show, because it's still in me, like the place is in my stomach cavity, the mottled floor, the banged up walls, the snakes of cords, the gray stage carpet, the stacks of speakers. The show is over and I've been wandering it for days in my stomach. Place is empty, what does it mean. Where is that couple that was laying together in that booth. Is anything real here. "You feel numb," She said. I said, "It's just lights, you can't see the crowd. The sound is way in front of you, it's disembodied, you hear someone singing, filling the room out there and you wonder who that is and it's you. Everyone is far away, no one wants to get too close. It's lonely."

I can't stop thinking of this guy's face. I can see it now, that sad Indian. He sat at a table with his little entourage, all bands always have them. The siblings, the exotic girlfriends with careful auras of love. He seemed glum when he got there. You knew his name started with a J. He was just like that. He had that patient, resigned deep well soul of Jamie. The front bedroom blues of the youngest son. His hair was perfect. Other bands played and he sat, melancholy, hardly speaking. He looked at the floor, or the table. His girlfriend fiddled with a camera and sat in his lap once but his smile flickered through like a small bird. His business was waiting. He drank water or clear pop. He was down. He was down when he got there. His face hung in my stomach. His eyes said so much of the hopeless emptiness. Disconnected. Not on time, time all gone. Not knowing where you are. Warm buildings, bright lights, but not a soul. Here is the road, here is Market 1000 miles wide stretching south like the Road To Heaven. Zabel. Here is Mill Creek Park. Here is Dirk Quinn, wailing with his band. Here is Cedars, here is November Loop, playing the chords, playing the chords, patient, getting you to where you are. Here are the walls of my stomach black and wet. Here are the empty freeways, brightly lit. Here is his face, printed on a coin, the head in profile, the graceful nose, the jaw slightly set, the eye like one who knows his land is gone and his people vanquished.

Sounds Boring, But It's Not! New Mailing List!

Dear Beloved Fans: Join our new e-mail list!

You will receive our show dates and times and other big news without ever having to go through the trouble of checking Facebook or MySpace again... Let's face it, it's a fulltime job trying to keep up with all the Facebook posts. This way you get the news you want at your convenience. We will only use this for shows and other big events (like a new CD, or a pending Jay Leno appearance, or that we've all quit our day jobs). Your e-mail will be kept private and never used for any other purpose.

To sign up (from our Facebook page), click here and scroll down a tiny bit to find "join mailing list". It's that easy!

Hint: Please leave "Street Team" box unchecked. If you check it, you unknowingly agree to become our roadie/slave for life. The rest of your days will henceforth be spent stapling our flyers to telephone poles and serving us nachos and coffee.

Concrete Steps And Stars

A few weeks ago we drove to PA for a show and listened to Electric Ladyland. Haven't heard it in years, though we listened to it all the time in high school. Such a rich album filled with big vibrant songs. "And The Gods Made Love" always reminded me of a giant toilet flushing. Somehow Scott slept in a pile of drums while the the bass drum of "Gypsy Eyes" thumped and we went up and down endless Pittsburgh brick roads that curved impossibly.

Last night Scott and I headed up to Cedars and caught November Loop. Big space songs, brilliant light streaks in darkness. Trademark NL long instrumentals that put you into a trance. The music became a beautiful tool in darkness. I agonized and despaired, I cried in the cold water rock walls of Youngstown. What are these mute buildings saying. What of this tin-ceilinged room. Age-old graffiti. The C/Asus2 progression slowly shifts to C/Amaj and everything becomes clear and good. Scott takes pictures of purple firelights in darkness and e-mails them to me, but I'm right there. Somewhere in a server they wait to be downloaded.

Pennsylvania Reflections

We just performed our second show last night, at Revolutionaries cafe in McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania.

You never quite know how a show will go. The best time I ever had playing show, when true rock and roll lightening leaped up in me and charged my soul, was many years ago in Cuyahoga Falls. I'll never forget how we all sat around beforehand fidgeting and feeling restless, wanting to go on stage. It was maybe our fourth show or so. Something about that show, the crowd, the stage, the end of any nervousness and really wanting to open up and explode, made it happen. It wasn't something anyone knew would happen. It wasn't even thought of. It was like spending years pushing a car around with the engine off, and then suddenly one day turning the key and the engine starting. It was another level no one could imagine. There we were were playing our first song, and something was seething and swirling in me: I felt hot and crazy and there was a perfect union of really believing in the music and feeling wild spiritual elation and being totally in position, and then just screaming and letting it loose: for an instant everything stopped and then the band, the crowd, the everything responded.

The stage is a sacred place. You only go up there if you are really going to do something. The stage has power and you can feel it even with the lights off and empty. It's a launching point. It's so important. It's where you share yourself. It's where the union begins, and the crowd is everything. That first moment, dead silent in time, of getting on stage under the lights, in slow motion, just a few steps, under the hot house lights, and the first instant of looking out at the crowd and you see those faces and you've seen them all night and you look at the faces and they are impassive and they are wanting and you are looking at each other and you are seeing the vulnerabilities and then you see what is inside you, what you are going to give to them and what they will give back to you. How much do you trust them? Do you love them like your own?

The goodness of the show is really a question. The question is: as a performer, how far are you willing to open up? Everything else is nothing. The sound is never perfect, the monitor mix always skewed, the guitars are always out of tune and either to loud or tooo quiet, the cords suddenly start crackling and popping, the amps go haywire... The only thing you can really count on is the spirit in you and what you intend to give.

At Revolutionaries Cafe we were playing Freefall and I was singing and all of a sudden someone started clapping. The clapping interested me and I wondered what had impelled the man to do that. A word? Some note or chord he liked? The spirit of the piece? I didn't ask. But those folks sat right in front of my amp practically, which must have been slightly hair-raising at times. I was glad they were there and they drank in every note and word. Those upturned faces and the implicit promise.