concerning my band...
Usually it is the shows a band plays that have the strongest impact on its members.
Back when all of us were most of When Dreams Die, we went through a grueling period in which we would play a few ‘showcase’ shows a month at the clubs of lower Manhattan, most of them on weeknights. The rides down were usually stressful; we had either Greg’s poor old van or my poor little Kia pulling a trailer over a sea of potholes and through the swarms of aggressive cabbies to a club that we’d been to before (or have we??) but could not find amid the myriad side streets. Once the club was located, we drove around for another thirty minutes to find a parking spot that would fit the vehicle and the trailer, which was usually about six blocks away from the club. My guitar cabinet has two broken wheels now, and I believe I rightfully trace their demise back to those shows and the many long commutes from trailer to venue. Incidentally, every show was on either a cold or rainy night.
On one such evening, while pushing my cabinet through throngs of local scenester/hipsters in the pouring rain over a sidewalk that seemed to resist my actions with the strength of the entire city behind it, I crossed the street directly in front of a turning taxi. It missed me, literally, by inches; luckily, the cab passed behind and not in front of me, so my cabinet was already out of the way. Either way, it was one of those moments you walk away from saying, “I’m alive I’m alive I’m alive I’m alive” before berating yourself for not being aware enough and for almost dying a pitiful and painful death at the blame of your own stupidity. I was distracted by the task at hand. The show might turn out well. Look at all the kids everywhere. They’re out, even though it’s rainy. They must be going to the show.
They weren’t. From what I remember, that show wasn’t much of a success, but it’s hard to tell because all the shows we played during that run have melded into a somewhat vague memory, as if they all happened on a single dreary and soaked night. It is also easy to tell, because none of them were really successful at all—but then again there are many gauges for success, and the one I’m alluding to here, popularity, isn’t something we were or are heavily into. Upon the opaque pond of those shows, however, some images float: the rain and cold, of course; a restaurant through which we had to carefully navigate with hands and arms full of equipment, interrupting everyone’s good time and general feeling of comfort and relaxation; the great beers and hilarious conversations we had together after load-in; a dark staircase, whose walls were lined with countless photocopied fliers, all entirely filled with bands I’d never heard of nor would ever, lit by a single blue lightbulb hanging by a string at the top; a hasty, frowning door guy at the bottom of those stairs telling us that we are late, that we brought too much equipment and that there is no room for our merch; a moody, half-sloshed, and irreverent sound guy also telling us that we brought too much equipment and that things would really run a lot smoother if we used their drum set (weak and in disrepair) and their guitar amps (30-watt solid state combo), which was followed by our utter refusal of his suggestion and our explanation of what we went through to get the equipment there and how much it meant to our sound, and after that his response of a worse mood, further irreverence, and complete drunkenness; playing with bands that have more of a physical resemblance to us than a musical one—we were all human, after all—Jamiroquai comes to mind; the nearly empty rooms we played in; the very small amount we were paid; the very high levels of enjoyment and excitement we experienced nonetheless.
Apart from this mush of ten or twelve shows that were all very alike, one remains quite clear, and I do believe it was our final showcase in Manhattan. If I could label our music then as ‘not terrible’, I must also include that it was decidedly not marketable, despite whatever we may have thought at the time. However, we had a manager—our friend Alex from Self Decay—who was starting to become closely involved with the record industry in New York. He was responsible for getting us these shows, I suppose with the distant hope that some A&R person would show up at one of them and like us. At this particular show—I think it was at the Lion’s Den—Alex had arranged for a few industry people to come see us, including a well-established and well-known booking agent who had heard our music and was very fond of it, and some other people from reputable labels that put out releases near our aesthetic. This was quite exciting for us then, and as we packed our equipment into the trailer that day, we were childlike and giddy. As we pulled out of the driveway, we laughed and joked with each other and discussed how pumped we were for the show, now just hours away. It was our night. Our chance to finally prove ourselves and to get somewhere with our music was here.
We were about twenty miles down the Thruway when the van started slowing under the weight of the trailer. There was a rest stop just ahead, and since we couldn’t get the van above 30mph, we pulled in. There we were, hopeless, stuck, with our chance at making music our careers at stake. For thirty seconds or so, we sighed forlorn sighs as our eagerness leaked out of us;
now to the moment at hand;
Jay, after a moment of resignation, swings the door open, slides out with a bit of a leap, slams it shut. He walks across the lot to the sidewalk and starts pacing. He pulls his phone out of his jacket pocket, presses buttons, puts it to his ear. He continues to pace, talking quickly, listening, talking. The phone comes down again—he presses more buttons, still pacing fervently. Passers-by visibly avoid the mad pacing lunatic. He talks again, rapidly, in a voice that is nearly audible to us from the van. He puts the phone back into his pocket and continues pacing, pacing, without a glance in our direction. He yanks out the phone again and talks, listens, hangs up. He approaches the van with a hint of a grin peeking through the determination stamped on his face.
Our friend Bones was coming with All Out War’s van. Although we were going to be late, we would make it after all. Nothing could stop us; fate would bring us there.
It was a bright and warm early summer evening, so we stood around outside making each other laugh by trading absurd and primarily offensive alterations of famous people’s names, and after about 45 minutes, Bones arrived with the van. We transplanted our gear and personal belongings and left. We were proud of our stubbornness, our indefatigable collective will; we would not flounder; we would persevere through any setback. Alex assured us on the phone that the people he expected had already arrived and eagerly awaited our performance. We were set to go on at 9 o’clock. It was 8:30 and we had about an hour’s drive ahead of us. Though we’d be a little late, there would still be time to play. Things were looking up.
We hit very little traffic. We’d become pretty well experienced in navigating the trek and we knew the efficient routes by instinct. By the time we’d reached Manhattan, the setting sun had been covered over by dark disorganized clouds and a drizzle formed, seemingly from the air in front of us. One street away. A quick load-in and we were on.
Not quite. We pulled up and saw Alex on a bench outside the club talking with a large man who had a goatee and seemed to have his feet unusually well planted on the ground beneath the bench. We drove ourselves parallel to their bench, at the same time trying to quickly eye down a convenient place to park. We looked over to them, probably with our excitement visibly swimming in our collective eyeballs. He shook his head. It was the bad kind—not up and down but from side to side. We stopped looking, pulled over, and put on our flashers.
“You guys can’t play. It’s too late.”
We already held certain opinions about the staff at this club, but this topped it. We didn’t bother parking. With our heads out of the windows, we talked to him for a bit and met his friend who we found out was a booking agent for national acts and was very disappointed that he didn’t get to see us. To him, a band missing a show must surely have meant its inevitable death. He was a booking agent, for chris’sake. And if he’d decided he liked us enough to book us, this is how we would repay him? Forty minutes late, two hours late for load-in. He’d already wasted the night coming out. A couple people from labels were there earlier, but Alex told us they had left after the club decided we weren’t playing. We said our goodbyes and our nice-to-meet-you’s and our sorry to be the main performers of a non-event’s, and turned the All Out War van around right in front of Alex from Self Decay and his friend.
It was a quiet ride home that night, but each of our heads was reeling. The drizzle was in our minds and on the windshield, but amid the haze of disbelief and disappointment, a reorganization occurred within me. So much was banking on this show; it was the culmination of all the nights of showcases and the only one of them all that would amount to a professional move forward.
As we got off the exit for Poughkeepsie, we slowly roused ourselves from our introspectiveness. I leaned against the bare steel wall of the van, quiet, and as my comrades began to pass jokes around and laugh and talk, I sensed a mild lingering strain of melancholy in their voices, but it was already nearly stamped out and soon it would be complete. Going over the night in my head, I decided it was a success and that none of it really mattered.
We did not rush while unloading our equipment that night. We moved in each part one by one, back to where it belonged, its home, our basement. And as we placed the cabinets into their positions, situated in front of the fungi growing on the walls and atop the platforms where the water couldn’t reach, they seemed to take on an air of relief. This was where the real work of the business of music-making would be done, the only aspect of the ‘music business’ that we cared about. We could be as loud as we wanted, use our own equipment, and create, without anyone else’s opinion of us to impede upon us as we grew, in harmony with the mushrooms on the walls.
