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October 8 & 9 - The Ozark Folk Festival, Eureka Springs Arkansas Soucy and I were tired like you read about. A 6:00 flight from Denver required a 4:00 wake-up call and by the grace of God, Delucchi, the angel that he is, volunteered to take us to the airport. The morning air was dark and chilly in that intensely, over frozen ice cube sort of way. I was wrapped in green flannel and Patagonia, clenching abdominal muscles in my stillness and waiting on my quiet front porch for the white van to pick me up. Both flights were bumpy, the one from Denver to Dallas and the one from Dallas to Arkansas. I hate bumpy but my fatigue freed me, to an extent, from my normal paranoia. Up in the air. Chris and I. Alone. No rhythm section, no Delucchi, no idea what to expect from Arkansas. Except south, and heat and fields that wheat and whey and wander by the way of fall. When we arrived at the tiny green N. Arkansas Airport, there was this cat waiting for us. Said his name was Fuzzy and that we had to wait for Woody . Fuzzy was Fuzzy, I figured, because of his hair which bunched and brayed and fell gray and black, from a tathered* ponytail. He wore blue jeans and a blue shirt. He wore skinny around his belly and a beard to match his fuzzy hair. I liked him immediately. He shone generous from out of his distantly present eyes. When Woody Mann, another musician, came in off of New York, we picked up our luggage. American Airlines, who had refused to let me carry on my guitar, had really sent my instrument on a wild ride. The brown leather was stripped and there was a huge gash which seemed to have been made on purpose, in the bottom left sleeve. And for the cherry on top of it all, the "fragile" sticker had been taken off, torn in half and stuck sarcastically back on. At least the git-fiddle was UN harmed. We were booked in at the "Land-o-nod" Inn and scheduled for a sound check at five. Fuzzy drove us around town showing us the scape* and giving us the history of Eureka, before checking us in to our hotel. "This town used to hold 20,000 people in the late 1800s. Now there's only 1,900 folks living here," he said, waving out the window to one of the 1,900. "People came here because the water was said to have healing properties and there was all sorts of miraculous healings documented by those who bathed here. Turns out, the water they were soaking in was radioactive; still is today. But people with cancer and some other diseases were benefiting from the H20's radioactive ingredients. After a fire burned down the town, most people left. Now it's sort of a tourist town." "A hippie tourist town." He added, pointing and waving to the mayor, a man in his 40's with a long mane of black hair tied back in an elastic. I had no idea I was one of the three headlining acts of the festival until I was at the gig and checking out the annual folk T-shirt. I was looking on the back of the shirt, squinting at artist's names in the fine print section. "I guess we didn't make the shirt." I announced to Soucy who in turn said "What are you talking about? You're the third name down there in huge bold print underneath Leon Russell and John McEuen from the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band." I had no idea. I felt honored. That night we opened up for Leon, who put on a great, and soulful show. He looked to me, like a miniature snow capped mountain. I must admit I felt a little nervous about playing by myself before the sold out show. But what doesn't kill you...... and actually, once I'd gotten out there, the butterflies cocooned and I had fun. The night was wet but it didn't rain. Mist flies bounced off tin awnings and into the oncoming car head lights as Fuzzy took us to bed. "To the Land-o-nod." *Vocabulary: October 9 - The Ozark Folk Festival, Day 2 Arkansas I guess we woke up early. In truth, the morning was hazy and relatively obsolete, full of sun shine and slow moving heat and ginger beers and waiting for Fuzzy to come pick us up for breakfast. He showed up at 9:30 on his portable car phone. He's never much off his car phone with the exception of when it cuts out on him on a bend or a bridge or a curve and then he says: "dambdamb damnit!" "I run my whole taxi service from this here car," he explained "I'm a driver, a dispatcher and I even pick up hitchhikers sometimes." He said stopping under "The shoe tree." Which is, as you might have assumed, a tree laced with shoes. "A bit of history for you this morning," He whispered, covering his hand over the mouth piece, pausing, pulling away and then resuming on the phone: "We should have someone there for you in 6 to 8 minutes....OK.....Thanks bye." Town was bustling. Fuzzy let us out right outside a tattoo/marriage parlor. Wedding salons littered the streets: "Old Tyme Photo/marriage parlor." "Cigar shoppe/marriage parlor." It was hysterical. The framed pictures which waved in these windows, reflected the nonchalance with which these people were getting hitched. It was as though they were just doing it for the sepia picture, or the free cigar or the fun of it. Oh the irony of the Tattoo/marriage parlor; The permanent ink against the loosely "tied knot" of matrimony. But perhaps I am wrong and these marriages in candy shops and tie stores are a sort of rebellion against the conventional, and somewhat old fashioned system of marriage. I digress of course. Fuzzy would take no money as he opened the door for us. Still on the phone, he bunched and jutted out his brow, and frowning he waved his hand with vigor at the ten spot Chris presented then replaced in his pocket. Fuzzy drove away. We stood there on the corner underneath the tattoo wedding sign looking through squinted eyes for somewhere to eat. A woman passing, stopped: "My husband and I loved your show last night." She said beaming through thick glasses. It seemed that all of the sudden, Chris and I had won some sort of popularity contest. A sea of people were coming up and complementing us on our show. It was as though everyone had been at our concert the night before. But then again, at a sold out show of 1,000 in a town of 1,900 we did have the majority of Eureka there. "I heard your show last night was great," said a man poking his head out from his barber shop. "I love your voice" said a teenaged girl walking by with a group of pals. We hadn't made it across the street when a beautiful, wide-eyed woman peeled us off the sidewalk and invited us into her cafe "Mud Street" for a bite to eat. Everyone stared and whispered as we walked in. She sat us down and poured some coffee, which curled up in smoke rings and smacked me back to reality. I held my eyes opened momentarily in exaggeration at Chris and said "remind me if I ever need to feel famous just to move to Eureka Springs for a week." After a delicious breakfast, during which we were interrupted (to our delight), by people on their way in or on their way out to shake my hand, throw us a compliment and buy a CD that they'd meant to buy last night, we went to the arts fair. We met up with our friends Milton and Scott from "Starartist.com" who had got this gig for us (and are presently selling my CD on their site). They had another artist performing at the festival, Conni Emerson, who we went to check out. Face painters, muraled eyes and cheeks. Drum makers drummed, dressed in indian skirts, in a circle to a diggery do. Bubbles meandered, dogging feet and children's stabbing hands. Chefs flew smoke and the scent of sausage around and into our faces. Astrologers astrologized, and every one "loved the show last night." It was all very fairy tail-y. Conni was playing outdoors at the street fair on a platform to a small audience, who weren't there so much to listen as they were to sit on the hay stacks and rest their feet from walking. I thought she sounded really great. She grabbed me up for a song. The fact that we'd never met didn't seem to bother her in the least. "Ya know Angel From Montgomery?" she asked giving me a hand up onto the wobbly stage. Her Gibson jumbo swaying against her thick blond hair. She stood slender and small in her red wrap skirt and her huge Harley boots. "Sure I know that song." It was one I use to play when I was doing my solo thing back in college. The day turned gray black. The sky began to fall out of itself. We had our own show to do at The old Ballroom. I bought a long turquoise necklace from a vender and we ran over to the venue. The show was.....disorganized. The stage manager never showed up so musicians took too long getting set up and too long breaking down and when I finally got up to play "The changing of the Sound Men" was in process and somehow the new engineer had "never worked with that sort of board before" and sent blood curdling, glassy, shrieks of feedback over the entire room. People clutched their ears and shrank their souls so as not to get too dangerously close to the invisible villains of noise. After the 3rd shriek I pushed the mic stand away from my mouth, unplugged my guitar and I said to the 100 or so folks in the audience: "OK, I came to sing for you people so if you don't mind, could you all bring your chairs up close to the stage? I'm gonna do this one acoustic." It all turned out all right in the end. Later....Back at the Land-O-Nod, Chris and I decided to relax. We put green mud masks on our faces and opened up a bag of chips, a gourd of salsa and a bottle of red wine that the venue had given us the night before. Pouring the wine into the clear plastic hotel cups, we turned on Wild Discovery...something on tornados, and bellied down on the king sized bed. It wasn't long before the room was a mess. I, for one, kept dropping dollops of salsa on the already overly colorful comforter and Chris spilt a cup-o-wine on the carpet and all over his clothes. In a panic, he got naked, 'cept for his underwear and his black socks, and proceeded to dance around in circles atop a wet towel, atop the stain and I wasn't above laughing until I was choking because he looked so ridiculous in his green leprosy clay mask, undies and black socks pulled so far as they'd go. He laughed too. We called Fuzzy for a ride back to town later that night and ended up partying with the mayor "Beau," the boys from Star Artist and a bunch of really great musicians til 4:30 am. We ended up at a joint on Center Street listening to a blues band called "Red Beans and Rice," who had a pretty Asian lead vocalist playing 80's keyboards. The mayor drove us home. All in all it was one of the most interesting trips I've ever had. I really dig Eureka. The fields of pumpkins, the winding Brigadoon of it all and of course: Fuzzy. He took us to the airport the next morning. He carried our luggage in and through the airport to our terminal. He even hooked us up with massages outside our gate (a massage therapist, who just happened to be one of his drivers was there in the airport). But he still refused to take our money. "I don't need it." He said and strutted western style down and out of our sight turning one last time on the escalator to wave and smile good bye. See you next time Fuzzy. See you next time good buddy. October 13 - St. Johns, Portland, OR A church. A church with echoes and tear drop chandeliers and tapestries that flamed red from the walls and lifeless heads of dear and dear and many dear, all skeletoned in deliberation against the cold hard white paint of the ceiling's emptied chalice. I could have sworn they sometimes sang along with the songs. I could have sworn they nodded their heads to the beat of Brian's thud. But when I looked up at them, they muted and statued and mimed lifeless. The drive to Portland took longer than we thought. Mostly because I had so many interviews that I insisted we stop for, due to one terrible cell phone interview that I conducted once, where the phone kept cutting out in the mountains and the interviewer somehow managed to take it personally. So now interviews on the road are conducted on pay phones! We'd be driving and my alarm clock would go off (set, as always, for 15 minutes til interview). We'd have to make a wild dash to the nearest exit, sometimes 40 miles away, and you never know what to expect from those rest areas. I did one radio interview stationed inside a bar called "The Point Of Rock" in Wyoming, where two men, one with no teeth, were staring at me the whole time. Fly buzzed, motorcycles pulled up and pulled away, a sign in red read "SANDWICHES: HAMBURGER," an over weight freckled waitress laughed with a glass of loud whisky in her swollen hand, a dog paled his way through old and wagged away the flies. I hung on to the phone, to the voice at the other end as though it might save me from this reality. As though it might suck me through the mouth piece and away if I needed to go. A lot of nothing got said on the trip out to Portland. I never really noticed how often I am compelled to say nothing/to speak of nothing, until I started doing vocal rests. Then, in my silence I am amazed at how often I want to contribute to the one liner/sitcom conversations that we apply so readily when the road has got us in it's grips, mesmerized and erased our minds of all intelligent things to say. The folks at St. John's were sweet and energetic. We ate cobb salads and drank October ale and frolicked in the hummus platter, delighted by the candle light and Halloween spider webs made up from last years discarded Santa beards. The show itself was good. Some nights, like last night, I can feel the words I'm singing cover the inside of my body like wall paper. Well, some songs cover like wall paper like strangest of strangers, while others flood like sunshine: Happy Now and still others drench me like molasses: Devorin. They're all poses me differently. Some nights I feel them more than others. Their presents, the songs I mean, like ghosts haunting my soul, and then the song ends and they drift away, the way all good ghosts drift and sway. I like to think they watch the rest of the show from the shadows. The ones beneath peoples chairs and in the little hidden, dark places where people have let the lights down in their hearts. And that they open up windows in pe oples hearts where no air has been for a while. That's what songs are there for I believe. A lady in the back, in her black skirt and straight brunet, meoweled* after every song. It made us all laugh. I love Portland. VOCABULARY: *Meyoweled: (verb) 1/2 meow, 1/2 howl. October 15 - The Sweetwater, Mill Valley CA Ah the lushness of the wine country. The sky skirts and teases the ground with it's weightlessness, while the trees hang low with the heaviness of one thousand years. We watch logging trucks wind and switch left and right around curves and all I see is the painful unfairness. Trunks, bouncing atop one another, look like bodies to me. The book: "The Giving Tree," really got to me when I was a kid I guess. Mill Valley is sunny and warm for October. People are all handsome and walking around with white shorts and stiffened collars to match their profiles as they pass by store windows and check themselves out in their reflections. We load in and grab coffee. The bleach blond, skinny, young man behind the counter has a crush on Soucy and flirts with delicate, whipping weapons. The Sweetwater's owner is named Tom. He is a soulful, beautiful, joyous gift to this earth. He greeted us with opened, heart quenching hugs and brought us mountains and mountains of gourmet food down in the poster lined green room. Let me just say, for the record, that no one! treats artists as well as The Sweetwater does! The boys watched the game on a the huge cable TV in a plush and separate, curtained off room, while I worked on a new tune, draped in the couch's red. We had a GREAT opener. His name was Matt Nathanson. He played a Taylor and somehow got the audience to do a sing along to Bon Jovi!?!? Beside the B.J he had some great original material that he sang with confidence and love. My baby sitter from when I was 8, showed up pregnant and my friend from Liquid Audio, David, celebrated his birthday with us (and the 30 people he brought with him). It was a packed house. No room to stand, no place to sit and we twirled words into the warmth of their eyes. What a great night. After everyone had gone we retreated to the basement of our night. Lights loomed around us, luminous, wearing green straw hats and soft pink bulbs. Even in the bottom of this night I could feel the fall. I could feel the outside winds wanting to come in from the cold. I could feel the leaves weeping good bye to their vines forever. I could feel the head lights whispering through mist drifts. I could feel the lonesome black puddles patiently reflecting the sky, and the red woods applauding the seasons change "...Again....again.....again...." they say. And we drink our red wine and wear our party hats, and laugh and flirt with soft eyes and nervous stomachs and reach our stretch like branches, to the sky. Thank you October. Thank you black cow in the golden field. Thank you leaves for your selfless, colorful sacrifice. Thank you quivering feathers in the pit of my delight. Thank you all so very much ....and goodnight. October 16 - Arcadia, Santa Monica Pier CA Drive, Drive, Drive Once you get south of San Fran, California really becomes the desert. The land no longer flows or sways but crumbles and stammers into the sea which eats the land with smashing white ravenous teeth. We drive down the falling coast line, singing along to Bob Marley, the words we know, the rest comes out in gargles: "One love, one heart, let's get together and feel alright....Letmenpassalltheredirty remarks, One Love....." It's another sunny day in the van. The AC goes on the AC goes off. There's hardly any traffic and we get into Santa Monica way before sound check. Brian goes for a roller blade, Kenny goes for sushi and the Chris's and I go for a walk down the pier. We pass though crowds and bubbles and opened guitar cases with folded bills and scattered change. We stop to watch a very talented balancing act which a small and muscular Asian man is putting on to some 80's jazzercise music, with a great amount of pomp. At the end of the pier, men are fishing, their pants revealing the tops of their unders and their hats sit, soiled above their brows as though they were floating. Arcadia's groovy. Very white table cloth and evening gownish. A man with a tray of candles, dropped caged fire onto each table and the air that came soothingly cool in, made the flames dance. I was opening up solo for Venice. Kevin Neelan was there. He's a phenomenally nice and genuine guy! And he chatted with me and the band. Coincidentally, he was at my very first solo gig too back in Telluride for Bluegrass in 96. I recalled to him being so nervous to perform that night. I remember, I barely knew how to play the guitar and there were so many people there in the dungeon that was and still is "The Fly me to the Moon Saloon." I was opening for "Acoustic Junction" that night. Even though I told my dad not to come, that I was too nervous, he snuck down any how and brought Shawn Colvin who had been playing on the big stage earlier that day. The night was cold and every ones faces blended together in the darkness of the light in my eyes on stage. I sat on a chair and played my tunes. My friend Zack Shriber strummed beside me and I sang in a voice that came from the most frightened part of my body. Kevin said he remembered it being great, which was kind of him to say. The manager of Arcadia came up and asked if Kevin would announce me. On stage, there in the spot light, there in the mild of night, there in the dark of bright, I felt my own self delight at the places where I have been and the future so wild and opened. I closed my eyes and took a deep sigh and opened my mouth and came from inside from a voice that is wiser, bigger and still, there's much more to know. There's so much more road and so much more deep and slow. And I am grateful to be here with my self following my soul and following my soul and following the where of the places I've never ever thought I ought to know. October 17 - Rocks, Santa Barbara CA It was a beautiful drive up the Pacific Coast Highway to Santa Barbara with Kipp in his bitchin' silver Chevy rent a car. I didn't bother to look at the itinerary before we left LA. I knew pretty well how to get to Santa Barbara, we'd played there before and Delucchi had already driven it into my head that load in was at 5 sharp. But when I arrived, punctual as usual, no one was there at The Coach House! In fact, the place looked pretty dead. Some of the windows were boarded up and the front door was covered over with news papers and empty soda cans. The sun was really burning into my skin still there at 5 past 5 and I stood on the stoop, starring through squints at the venue's sign and fidgeting Brian's cell phone number into my own. There was no answer and I left a message: "Hey Bri, Uh, it's Sally and I'm outside the club. I'm kinda confused, it's kind of dead here. Maybe?...... Are we playing somewhere else? No, I'm sure I saw 'Coach House' on the itinerary. So where are you guys." Just then a frightening looking, frat boy sort of guy came walking toward me, with the stench of testosterone emanating from his permanently fixed eyes. Seeing him, I hung up the phone and began walking casually, into the alley way where Kipp was still in the car fiddling with something. The guy turned into the alley too. I could feel him behind me as though his intentions were sirens. As I looked over my shoulder he speed up his unfriendly pace. "Hey where you going?" He grunted without a hint of a smile. I pretended not to hear. "Hey, Where are you going." He yelled again. "I think you need to bring those legs over here!" He sped up more and just as he caught up to me, Kipp opened the car door and stepped out innocently to greet me. Seeing Kipp, he ran, but the alley way ended and he had to jump over a fence to get away. My heart raced. Kipp kissed me and asked me what was wrong. He hadn't seen anything. There's no telling what might have happened had Kipp not been there in the car. It makes me so angry to have to feel so vulnerable. I shook but did not cry and I let it go. I let it fall under the category of "Things Sally Taylor is grateful for." Turns out we were at the wrong venue. The 'Coach House' I had seen on the itinerary was in San Juan Capistrano. "Rocks" was a really beautiful venue/resturant. The Sunday night crowd was scant but receptive and even though the stage was hard to hear from it was cool aesthetically. The back wall lit up behind us in multi colored flavors and we played a good show. The two hour drive back to LA hurt. We were exhausted. I'm looking forward to two days off starting.......NOW!!! 10/20 - The Troubadour, Hollywood CA Hot and sticky and slowly Santa Monica Boulevard sidewinded us toward West Hollywood. I couldn't help my bubbly excitement. I love playing at the Troubadour. The sound there is so good and the vibe is so electric and dark. Not to mention that this time we were headlining. Italian dinner next door and a packed house on a hot October Wednesday night. I was jazzed. The opening band were these folks from Vancouver who couldn't get a work permit and therefore were forced to leave Canada with nothing but the clothes on their backs and rent cheap-o equipment when they got to LA. The lead singer was this pretty little thing with red manic dyed streaks in her hair, a tiny vintage white lacy dress and combat boots on her feet. Right before her set she came dashing up to our dressing room with a panicked expression and some caked on eyelash glue on her left lashes. "I can't get this one on." She said, breathlessly holding a fake tinsel red eye lash and a tube of lash paste in her hand. I thought she might cry. "Let me see," I said and took her into the bath room. "Want me to do it?" she shook her head. I had her close her eyes, which were deep red from the lip liner pencil she'd painted them with. I took the metallic pink lash from her hand and pushed it into the glue "Don't worry I use to be in a disco band." I chuckled "I have a lot of experience with this whole lash thing." I soothed. They sounded really good, and then, of course Emily and Carols, the second band, sounded great as usual. We'd played with them our first time at The Troubadour. We had an outstanding night. Not quite like the last time, but still phenomenal. I had always dismissed LA and NY as places where crowds don't come out to see music unless there's something in it (business wise) for them. This time my experience was different. I mean, granted, people talked, that's fine, but the audience on Wednesday, at the Troubadour spent the majority of their time listening. I was amazed and grateful and honored to have been proven wrong about LA crowds. I really felt like the people were there to have fun and enjoy music. Needless to say, this made me very happy. During our two days off, we, as a band, had split off, finding our own places to stay. Kipp flew out from Colorado to meet me and we stayed at what we fondly refer to "Camp Geyer!" due to the fact that his house is usually filled with homeless friends who he takes in generously. Kipp and I took over the floor in his TV room and I couldn't help but feel like we were imposing but Geyer would insist: "NO NO NO you're not imposing, " and so we stayed. Geyer is this incredibly cool guy who, with the help of Kipp, ended up getting half of Hollywood out to our show. After, Emily and Carols insisted we all go out for tequila shots. The boys, who would have followed Emily to hell, went out but Kipp and I were tired. Outside, Brian looked down at the row of lights lining Santa Monica Boulevard as we walked east "How much further does this street go?" he asked "To New York" I said slipping my capo in my front pocket. The way home was cold and I lost myself to the mindlessness of thought. The strands of lights in the distance turned into a dazzling necklace and I was asleep in their gleaming till they dulled in my dreaming and I awoke in the morning, sad they were gone. 10/21 - The Coach House, San Juan Capistrano CA A painless 45 minute drive down the coast on I-5 with Kipp put us into S.J Capistrano by 2:15. The band hadn't arrived yet and Kipp sat outside on the curb cell phoning and catching a ray or two. The venue was dark coming out of the 95 degree, bright day. As my eyes
adjusted, the room spread out in a red array of chairs and balconies. The
walls were covered with black and white autographed 8X10's, not unusual for a
venue save that every one of the pictures was someone extremely famous. You
name them they were there on the wall. Jay, the stage manager approached me,
dark gray length, staggering from his skull and a fast, tight-lipped talk that
resembled am radio came out from somewhere beneath his chin. "Where's the
band?" he asked "Not here yet....he he" he chuckled not letting me get a word
in edge wise "Yup..he he...aint that just like a band? I'm the stage
manager, Jay, but I specialize in lighting. What kind of lights you like?" The green room took up all of up stairs. It was a maze of low bending ceilings, air-conditioned enclosures, stickered walls and guitars with opened fur-lined cases. Rick Fagan from Taylor Guitars came with a friend, Zack, and we sat around a glass topped coffee table, on the beige velour couches with Gary, the owner of The Coach House, discussing the state of the music industry. Increasingly I see the conglomerates of the industry: Radio, major labels, MTV, etc., as one huge glutenous monster. They own all the power and money because they're in bed with each other and all they do is create careers and smash them. They don't care about you; they don't care about me; they don't care about what we want to hear or love or desire. They shove manufactured junk it in our faces and say "This is what you get. If you don't like it, well, fuck you." I think and pray, as we enter this millennium, that people will seek out what they want to hear! That they wont just settle for the fast food jungle of MTV and conglomerate radio. That they will demand something better, some soul food in their lives that doesn't necessarily come in an easy off, pretty little, microwave durable, pink dress on MTV. I want to live in a world where artists make art for art sake, not just because it gets them laid or because the kids in 5th grade picked on them so much that they swore that someday they'd get back by being famous. I want to be surrounded by artists who want to support and help each other. Not compete to be each other's GODS. I want to start reevaluating what success means to me and what success means to you, not in societies terms and standards but in our own personal and unique way. This is how we will empower ourselves. Gary is a groove! He's really smart and having been in the Show Business for, well, ever, he has a dearth of knowledge for someone like me to pick at. He was a very gracious host. We had a couple of really talented openers: A band called Mosses and Brooke Ramel who ended up coming up during my set and performing "Angel From Montgomery" with me. Besides the sound on stage, the night was pretty good. We weren't really tight but I think we were just tired and tense from not being able to hear ourselves through the monitors. My old high school buddy "Doe" who I hadn't seen since the day she got kicked out of our idiotically strict boarding school, showed up and surprised me. She seemed great and had gotten married in the time that had passed between high school and here. It's such a trip to see old friends. To walk down memories, like halls, and to open up doors which before had no handles or lights on inside. We loaded out, with Gary and the manager's help (that's a first) through the sprinklers which sprayed cold fuzzy water at our shins and soaked my dress to dripping. I pulled a blue pea coat around my ears and tucked a maroon blanket under my knees. Exhausted, I lay down in the back of the van. As we pulled out, I heard the boys see something move across the hwy. "BUNNY" They all shouted in unisoned delight as the small rabbit dashed safely across the street. Then, just as they were all sure it was gona stay put, it dashed right under the right car wheel and crushed itself. "UUUUHHHHGGGGGG!!!" They all shouted. It was a horrible sound and I felt so bad. I told Delucchi, who definitely was not to blame for the death, that he had to drink the skunky bud. "I did nothing!" He said defensively. "Uh, that was so sad." He added and we all fell silent in the fleeting moment of little bunny's tragedy. But why do we care more about a bunny's death than a bug that smashes up against the windshield? Or about a dog than a 1000 year old tree? These are the things that I think about as our bodies are thrust at 95 miles per hour down the road.... The Road 10/22 - Martini Ranch, Scottsdale AZ We're exhausted at 10am when we pile into the heat of the sauna like van. I had'd this dream the night before where Delucchi was scolding me for being the cause of the van's recent messiness and because recently I've been having trouble deciphering between consciousness and subconsciousness, I was feeling sort of upset at having taken the brunt of Chris's blame and anger (even though it took place in my dreams). I fell defensively into the back seat and into another dream awakening to "We're here!!" Delucchi went to school at ASU and actually learned how to mix sound right here at "Martini Ranch." Left and right he's running into old friends. No doubt about it, this is Delucchi's town. The club is small. The stage is high and angled strangely enough, toward the bar and away from the audience. My friend Mary, who I once rowed down the Colorado River with, shows up early for sound check. We're opening up for a very popular Scottsdale band: The Chadwicks, a pop cover band led by Tim Thiel who's wife Michelle is also the lead singer in an all girl pop cover band "Shirlies Temples." They're great old friend's of Delucchi's and he and I actually ended up spending the night over at their house. Martini Ranch is definitely a college bar. We are escorted back to the dressing room where a water cooler groans beneath a blinking halogen light which seems to be making the room somehow darker, but we're not complaining. We sit back into the broken springed couch and relax until dinner. TGI Fridays where the tiny hostess tells us that there's a 1/2 hour wait for nonsmoking but oddly enough, out of the 50 +or- tables there, I see only 10 or so in use. We sit in the crowded and un-smoky smoking section and Delucchi and I get in a heated debate about whether or not the LA legislators were right to have given the antismoking advocates the privilege of using the remainder of the cigarette companies' billboard leases in California to campaign against tobacco use. I thought it was great and Delucchi argued for the first amendment. Stop, we're both right. I've never opened for a cover band. I've never had such a hard time trying to get an audience's attention either. There was a huge screen next to us on the stage, on which we (the band) were being projected in stilted pastels as we jammed out. The smaller TV screens around and over the bar were also featuring us, alternated with a sports game. Every once and a while a sissing sound like that of a snake would sound, followed by clouds of hot iced convection steaming into and around our faces. 'That can't be good for you,' I thought inhaling and then coughing out the dirty, smelly, white, cool dust. Finally the crowd warmed up to us, stopped their chatter and danced. The Chadwicks were really fun and charismatic not to mention talented musicians and performers who write their own original material but perform only covers due to Arizona's apparent distaste for anything that's not on top 40 radio. That must be so discouraging. But as I watched them play, I finally got it. I think I know why people come out to hear cover bands. When people listen to the radio they feel like they're listening to ONE BAND. Gone are the day's when radio stations featured a band's entire album. Today it's one song after another, "nonstop" hits (just like a record) but it's many bands. Gone are the days when you even know who is singing your favorite song on the radio or even what they look like. Therefore, I hypothesize, that when you go out to see a cover band you may as well be seeing the band who originally did the song because you never knew, in the first place, what they looked like or who they were. I went up and sang backups on Brown eyed girl. The boys wanted to go back to the hotel. But these are the last days I argued. The last days of tour, the last days of this year, of this century. These are the times you use up the last of your shampoo in its tiny tubes. The times you don't feel so awful about putting on the unwashed jeans for the 20th time. The times you stair out the window with extra abandon and appreciation, for what if you never pass this way again? These are the times you stay up all night, the times you burn at both ends and drink the adrenaline of the last sprint in the race to the finish line. The race to get back home. Needless to say Delucchi, with the help of some of his great friends, showed me a great time as we danced til 4:00 at "Insomnia." 10/23 - Legends, Vegas NV On five hours of sleep we (back) trod toward Vegas (baby). I sleep most of the way and Kenny drives. Sunset in the desert is bright and orange peach against the purple valleys. The mountains, darkened in the distance, make the skyline look torn off from the ground in a rough and uneven way. Dark. Full moon. Canyons and Hoover Dam. We stop at a Denny's at 7:45 about 100 miles away from Vegas. We sit across from some gentlemen with whom we strike up conversation. Troy and Jim are Trek Bicycle representatives. From what I can tell, they drive around, demo bikes, sell 'um, tour the country and pitch new Trek products. But their truck broke down, they say, and they're stuck in this town. They tell us the story about the 50 year old tow trucker with the pink mohawk and golden teeth. They're pretty sure all their equipment will be gone by the morning. "We're in a band" we say and immediately Jim wants to buy a CD so we sell him one on our way out. He gives us a 20 and keep the change. Definitely the most interesting sale so far. In the van we realize we're going to be late. It's 8:45. We've got to be playing at 10:30 and there's 100 miles between this Denny's parking lot and Vegas (baby). I get changed in the back seat while doing some vocal exercises. Legends is a tiny club inside (yet another) strip mall. We're less than thrilled as we unload and wait in the cold of the back alleyway where we've been told to stay put until the first band gets their stuff off stage. We're the second band out of 2 opening for a band that I've never heard of called "Honey Child." No sound check, no guarantee, no audience, no, none to speak of. But we somehow manage to have a great time. Above the bar, and directly in front of me, a TV is on. It's the only thing I can see from the stage. It's the news: The KKK march, people getting blown up in some far off country, Jon Benet Ramsey, stolen money and it all makes me sick and sad. It's hard to play when a TV is on. It's like a magnet for the eyes and I get so distracted. When we get off stage, a man with no legs in a wheel chair with the brightest eyes and hugest smile compliments the music and I sell a bunch of CD's while around the bar, people sit and play slot machines. I can't wait to get out of here. When we finally do get gone, we realize that we've only been in Vegas (baby) for two hours and in that time we've somehow managed to play a show and become absolutely exhausted. Kenny's brother-in-law, Stretch and his 30 friends, who are part of "The Rough Riders", had come to the show and bought up a bunch of CD's. So after we pack up, they take Kenny out on the town with their buddy: "Pretty Good," to a strip club, where, according to Kenny, they all got kicked out. Somehow they had angered one of the strippers who, as a result threw a bottle of beer at them. Reeree, Stretch's wife, then retaliated by throwing a bottle of beer right back at her and they're all kicked out on the street. Kenny laughs as he tells us the story in the van in the morning. And it's Li'l Soucy's 21st (ha ha) birthday and our last show of the tour and at last....we're headed back East! 11/20 - Monmouth College, NJ It's 2:30 and I'm at the Central Park Zoo staring enthusiastically at some penguins as they dash beneath the water and pop back up on the rocky shore. There's a dusty mist spraying at them from a sky painted ceiling just an inch or so above their tiny, neckless, black heads and they seem to be very happy, despite their captivity. The rest of the animals do not look so enthusiastic. They look depresses and partly dead I'm thinking and it's a little bit hard to take. We, my brother Ben, Bridge, his girlfriend, John Forte, Kipp and I, fabricate possible dialogues between the caged animals and the free pigeons and squirrels. Ben, pretending to be a pigeon says: "Hey, you guys gonna stay here? Well, I guess I'll just fly....Well, I don't know .... Anywhere." We all laugh. Kipp and I are sleeping at Ben and Bridge's new apartment in this crazy, authentic, Indian, priestess like bed, which wobbles and wakes as we try to sleep. Kipp fixes it in the morning. In fact, Kipp Shniders* Ben's whole apartment over the next couple days. And we label everything, using Ben's new favorite toy THE LABLER. The front door says "FRONT DOOR." A Picture on the wall of Bridge says "GIRLFRIEND" And Ben's sunglasses cleverly have the song lyrics: "WHAT'S YOUR NAME.....WHO'S YOUR DADDY...? IS HE RICH LIKE ME?" on either sides of the ear handles. I have a photo shoot early in the morning down town which, combined with jet lag, makes the rest of the day a very squinted through experience. The ride to New Jersey is GOOCH.* Monmouth college has sent a stretch limo to fetch us and Kipp sprawls out in the black leather reverse seat to have a nap. He'd spent his energy up at "Life," a club down town, the night before. I sat staring out the window and that's where the sadness struck me. Like a cold, it crept in unnoticed with out formal invitation. Cruel and violently silent it woke the growelers; those ghosts who haunt my breath and hunt at my dreams. Once awoken these beasts whisper on a soul level at my chest: "Your no good...you'll never be any good....just give up.....just give up.....what do you think you have to say? Who do you think will care?.....just give up....give it up." Once awake they lock onto my Achilles heals and pinch and squeeze and laugh at my weakness worst of all, they cleverly disguise themselves in my own voice. They'd have me beat myself to oblivion. They sometimes can get me to promise myself I'll never sing again as long as I can just get through one more performance. Some times I can ignore them, sometimes it's best to. But sometimes it is imperative that I stand my ground, turn around, look the beasts straight in the mug and fight til the death! Tonight, though, I try to ignore my wretched self-doubt. It's colder in NJ than it was in NYC and I pace around back stage waiting for my uncle Liv to show up. The theater is lovely, carpeted and clean with a nice natural echo and lights and friendly promoters who want to get me, well, what ever I might think I need. Liv, when he shows up, is on stage immediately, sound checking as though he had been the one waiting for us and I am enjoying every second of him: Back stage he's snaping his suspenders, we're galloping down white chocolate macadamia nut cookies, he's expressing with wide hand gestures and mouth punctuation the importance of singing "good songs," even if they are not your own, and he's telling me about the house he's building while signing a B & W 8X10. I sing. I'm alone. It feels good. It feels like deep breaths in cold weather. It's as comfortable as flannel and uncomfortable as skin and as orange as blue gets when I'm alone. (I sell out of CD's and that feels good too. And now I don't have to lug them home to Colorado.) Kipp and I watch Liv play from two seats in the back of the theater. He is so charismatic and full of life. He sits at the piano on a black sort of bench/tuffit and the audience falls silent and the lights shine on him green and red and Kipp accidentally kicks over his empty, glass, juice bottle which then proceeds to roll, not 1/2 way, but all the way down the loud, echoing, concrete, slanted floor to the stage. It is when the bottle reaches it's 1/2 way point that the 600 people in the audience are laughing and Liv stops playing in order to prop his hand, sarcastically, behind his ear to listen to the bottle as it rolls the rest of it's way down. He says, "I hope that's not any one I know." Then continues to play. Kipp is frozen. He's mortified but it's dark and he whispers "Don't tell'm it was me." But then I'm laughing the rest of the night and I can't seem to help myself. The audience's silence makes the pent up laughter in my chest even harder to contain and it slips out in little rocket like bursts which turn me red and make me need to laugh again. After the show, Liv invites me to be a guest speaker at his Berkley School of music "Performance" class which is a honor and something I greatly look forward to doing. And when the limo comes and I rest my head down on Kip p's lap and let the lights from the street, stretch over my face, fade to black, fade to black, fade to black. And as the highway trots us towards bridge and bright and falls me asleep I forget. I forget the penguins. I forget the labels. I forget the limo ride up. I forget all the wretched the ghosts in my head. I forget not to sing. I forget to hate myself. I forget not to love too deeply. And I am grateful. I am so so very grateful. Vocabulary: Shinders, v. - A reference to a 70's sitcom called One Day at A Time where the apartment super's name is Shnider and he's always coming to the women's rescue when it comes to fixing up their apartment. |
