Date: Friday 23 January
Venue: One Way Café, Gates, NY
Duration: two hours (7:00 PM - 9:00 PM)
Proceeds: Seven dollars. Oh, the pain...
Wore
black jeans
cranberry three-button henley
blue chambray workshirt
black belt
white socks
lucky rock'n'roll shoes
The Crowd
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha FUCK.
The Rundown
On the plus side: this is probably my most consistent show ever in terms of quality. There are only a couple of brief moments of uncertainty—a missed chord here, a mumbled word there—but never that familiar, horrible deer-in-the headlights what-am-I-doing-here feeling. Given the unfamiliar surroundings and all the new material, that's both surprising and gratifying.
On the minus: I'm starting to get tired of playing great shows to empty rooms. Aside from two guys who stayed for most of the first set, I was playing most of the evening for five people—the owners and a few of their friends—while patrons came and went. It's practice, sure, and it's experience, and it keeps the rust off—but at this point I think I've got the fucking point, y'know? What good am I getting out of this that I can't get out of sitting in my living room learning new songs? I'm left with an awful emptiness at the end of the night.
Now, part of this is my own fault—I haven't promoted the show at all (my budget won't allow for posters, these days)—and part of it's the brutal cold, and part of it's a lack of awareness, because (a) the One Way is a relatively new shop and (b) I'm their first show ever, so there's simply no buzz in place, no rep. And part of it is the time, I think; I talk to the owners about it at the break and after the show, talk about their traffic patterns and gently suggest that, given their proximity to a movie theater and the relation of their spikes and troughs to showtimes, they might want to schedule the music for, say, 8:00 - 10:00 instead of 7:00 - 9:00.
The fact that there's an avalanche of patrons at 9:10, as I'm beginning my loadout, seems to bear out the wisdom of this suggestion. Ah well. Live and learn.
Highlights
A guy's watching me as I set up, and I hear him murmuring to his companion, "He's got a tuner, down by his feet, there..." and indeed I do. "Would you like to have a look?" I say, and he does. He's a guitarist himself, of course: we talk shop for a minute, talking about gear and such. I'm left both chuffed and a little anxious—Shit, now I've got to impress a guy who actually understands what I'm doing up here.
"In honor of the Chinese New Year," I say, as I strum my opening chords, "I'm doing nothing but songs about monkeys tonight." There's some laughter. I shake my head no, dismissively, and then, Eddie Izzard-style, nod a grave affirmative. Finally, I equivocate: "Well... some will be more obviously about monkeys than others, y'know?"
Just as all pop songs are CCM, if you're mentally substituting "Jesus" for "baby."
It's a new room, so the game plan tonight is to fade into the surroundings as much as possible, to not hog the foreground until and unless the atmosphere of the venue invites it. Start accordingly soft and mellow, kicking things up a wee bit with a hard-strummed, bluesy "Man Of Constant Sorrow." The crowd (such as it is) digs this. Maybe rockin' out is my strength, after all. Lord knows it's fun to do.
Torque down again with "All The Diamonds"—another song brand-new for me; I added it to the set list four days ago after deciding I was kinda sick of "Lovers In A Dangerous Time." It's achingly pretty, but slight—if I hit it too hard, it will fall apart. I don't hit it too hard.
"Seven Steps" has been giving me conniptions—Victor Feldman's tune rides a tricky groove and lightning changes, and I don't have Cassandra's luxury of handing off solos or scatting; I've got to make the interesting—make it essential—by approaching it as a singer/songwriter piece. Tonight it seems to work. It's quick and sharp and playful. I'd planned to interpolate a verse of Prince's "Seven" into the coda, but in the heat of the moment I forget. The ascending chromatic riff does inspire me to quote a couple of lines from "The Wind Cries Mary," though.
As with the Bruce Cockburn song, I've decided to rotate "Walking The Long Miles" out of the set for a while, to keep it fresh; I'd hate to grow either bored or boring. That said, I could play all Richard Thompson all night. "Wall Of Death" is an old favorite, and always fun to play.
"All God's Children" is another delicate beauty. I first heard it in a Wim Wenders movie, and I've loved it long. Self-indulgent? Sure. But it's still not the most obscure song I'll play tonight. Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no, no, no.
There's a cassette tape among the promotional materials that I give to potential employers. I'm planning to record some upcoming shows so I have a new promo tape, because the one I use now was recorded years ago and doesn't reflect my current repertoire at all. For instance, I haven't played "One Way" in half a decade—but I'm inspired to pull it out tonight in honor of the venue's name. It's still a barn-burner; I've got knots in my shoulder and aches in my arms when it's through.
Brian, the manager, calls for "A New England"—which he heard me play on the same tape—and I'm happy to oblige (Christ, it's Old Home night). It's basically the Kirsty MacColl version, with the third verse but without the key change. Again, I haven't played it in ages, but it falls under my fingers like a dream.
I'm two verses into "Hallelujah" when a guy says to his wife, "Check it out—it's that song from Shrek!" It's all I can do to keep from cracking up. He's right, though; my version hews a lot closer to John Cale's than to Jeff Buckley's, or (eek) Bono's—or even, God help us, Leonard Cohen's original, which is frankly dire. Like "All Along The Watchtower," it's a song that would never truly blossom until it left its composer's hands.
Now, for the most obscure song I'll do all night: "Heartbeats," of course. I nearly struck this from the list a number of times, for a number of reasons—too hip for the room, too self-indulgent, too new, too untested, too difficult. And it's true that the guitar line, while not complex, demands a degree of precision that's not always easy to muster when one is trying to remember a set of unfamiliar lyrics. But, you know, nothing ventured, nothing gained. And if it's not a rapturous high point (it's probably too low-key for that, anyway) neither is it a godawful, blood-on-the-saddle catastrophe. A competent break-even.
Then on to a gender-swapped version of "Orphan Girl," one of those Gillian Welch songs that sounds like it was written two hundred years ago. The open G tuning works really nicely for what's basically a midtempo blues progression, lending the whole thing some of the ringing spaciness of Emmylou Harris's version (which was, of course, touched by the hand of Daniel Lanois—of whom more later).
Second set begins amiably with a string of recognizable oldies and no one in the place. Cut "The Walking Song" at the last minute—I'm running slightly long, it feels too musically similar to "Hallelujah," and I really don't feel like pouring out my guts to an empty house. It takes more out of me, singing one of my own songs, and the rewards are less immediate. Tonight, I just don't feel like putting in the effort—and it's never missed.
I've never played "Looking For Jack" live (though I've loved the song for years) because (in addition to being relatively obscure) it could be taken as hugely egocentric. Fuck it: it's a great song, funny and wistful in the best sense. The Sting-stylee cod-jazz arrangement of the album version does it no favors, mind, Herbie Hancock's piano notwithstanding—but I like the way I sound doing it.
My G string, which has been fraying at the second fret for weeks, finally breaks during "Join Together." It's nearly 9:00 by this point, so I just bring the song to a quick finish and call it a night, rather than restring just so I can play one wore song. It's a bit of a shame, though: I'm pretty happy with my workup of "The Maker" (which I play in an open G tuning), and have been looking forward to debuting it live.
Seeing Daniel Lanois at the Paradise, years ago, was a pivotal show for me. This was shortly after the release of For The Beauty Of Wynona. That record was a bit of a slow grower for me, after the warm immediacy of Acadie, and I wasn't sure what we were gonna get. I guess, given Lanois's careful attention to sonics, I was expecting a large, well-drilled backing band and a mellow groove. Instead, a revelation: Our Man Dan brought the Rock, fronting a nimble, tricksy power trio, fingerstyle Fender Jazzmaster cranked to Hendrix proportions. It was like a street-magic show—I could clearly see his hands at work and I still couldn't figure out how he did his tricks. That night, "The Maker" was just blistering, the long simmer of the verses (Dan's throaty murmur mingling with Darryl Johnson's gospel-angel croon) exploding into a long guitar-and-percussion coda. It sounded appropriately Biblical; like the Voice Of God, only louder.
I think I've caught a spark of that in my arrangement, and that's really all I can ask. So—yeah, slightly disappointed there.
What I Learned
Timing is everything.
First through the door doesn't count for as much as you'd think.
Sometimes, having fun is not enough to make the night worthwhile.
Being a professional will only get you so far when you're dealing with amateurs.
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