Well, that was quite a week.
I’ve been derelict in my duties as reporter, but certainly not in my duties as musician/explorer/moron. I’ve been on the non-stop flight to Busytown this week, and with the assistance of vast quantities of coffee and wine, and the dream of the unifying organizational powers of the iPhone on my mind, I’m almost at the point where I can pull my multi-directional life off.
Starting last Friday, I helped to host my company’s first wine event, a co-promotion with the importer Frederick Wildman & Sons and the super swanky Nuevo-American restaurant The Watermark. Set up in the loft bar of the Watermark, we showcased five French wines new to the Nashville market, with my company serving as the retail outlet for folks who wanted to purchase wines. Basically, the extent of my work was to hob-knob with the rich people, drink wine, and eat the excellent hors d'oeuvres—not bad for a night’s work. Do you remember the scene in That Thing You Do, the Tom Hanks picture about the fictional 60s band, “The Wonders”? One of my favorite moments in the movie is when Steve Zahn’s character, Lenny Haise, turns to drummer Guy Patterson on the stage of a Hollywood TV show and asks, with innocent glee, “Skitch, how did we get here?” I ask myself this question frequently, and on Friday night, after my fifth glass of wine, looking out the floor to ceiling windows of one of the nicest restaurants I’ve ever been in at Nashville’s downtown skyline, I whispered it to myself, hoping no one would hear me.
Saturday, I roused myself early and prepared for another brisk day of sloshing and schlepping in the wine world. I don’t remember much of the early part of the day, just a haze of customers, distributors with wine to taste, and the buzz of the Hill Center passing outside the windows. Sometime during the day I acquired free tickets to see Jackson Browne at the Ryman Auditorium that evening; a very nice man in a baseball cap came in to offer them to Ed, my boss, who offered them to Melanie, our wine educator, who in turn offered them to me and Harlan. I was more than grateful to oblige their request to take the tickets and leave work early to attend a show at one of the most historical and revered venues in our country. Jackson was in fine form, as was the Ryman itself. I was surprised to find that the auditorium was arranged width-wise in the building, with the stage on the side instead of depth-wise with the stage in the back; the result is that every seat is closer to the stage, and even the rear-most seats in the balcony are closer than most middle seats in other theaters. The seats are church pughs, remnants of the Ryman’s days as a house of worship. While aesthetically pleasing, they are not comfortable and force you to get rather personal with your fellow concert-goers, but I suppose that they were intended for the penitent man, not the comfort-seeking, beer-drinking music viewer.
Sunday saw the arrival of my fellow music makers, my comrades-in-arms, Benny Harnish and Dan Dorff. Benny, sometimes bass player in many of my musical configurations, was fresh off the boat from Holland, having spent the last two months escapading around Europe with his girlfriend and his bass. Dan is the drummer in many projects in which Benny and I have been involved, such as Southpaw and the Sinisters, The Queen City Zapatistas, and, if memory serves, one Princes of Hollywood gig on St. Patrick’s Day. I had invited Benny down to Nashville to play bass for my first gig in town with Chad Harris, and since he’s a sucker, he said he’d come. After rehearsals on Sunday and Monday evenings we were feeling pretty good about the upcoming show so we headed over to the 12th South Taproom, a quaint bar with great beer just up the road from my house where one of the big studio bass players in town, Dave Pomeroy, holds down a weekly night of music making and joke telling. It quickly turned into a sort of after-hours-for-the-working-musician; the barkeeps put up the stools and locked the doors but seemed content to let us sit around, drinking beer and talking shop. I learned that the Spanish-style hacienda compound across the street was the property of Dolly Parton and we also spent a great deal of time on the topic of John Hartford, and the best techniques for dancing with a banjo.
Tuesday night was the gig, and though the band wasn’t as tight as I had hoped—we did just learn the material, mind you—I had fun, and the club owners were awful nice, as were the other performers. A fellow Ohioan who I stayed with on one for my first visits to Nashville last year happened to play the first set of the evening, and it was a pleasant surprise to see him again. We retired to Chad’s house for some light drinking, heavy snacking, and some short-lived musical revelry, which concluded with me singing the few songs I know in Spanish.
The following morning I was up early to get some paperwork done over at the office and had the pleasant surprise of being subjected to the tasting of some 75 new wines from two distributors. Going on four hours of sleep, and having skipped breakfast and coffee that morning, I was surprised to find that my palate was in otherwise extraordinary shape, and the wines seemed to leap out of the glass at me, uncharacteristically self-evident. I did manage to slip into the darkened office to sleep on the shag carpet in between sessions, and I made it through the morning relatively pleasantly. One of the great things about being in the wine business is that you meet many fine and fascinating folks, and this week was no exception; on Wednesday and Thursday alone I met with a Frenchman via Ashville, North Carolina who brought us some of his superb catalogue of French wines and a thick, charming accent, and two Californians, one whose company imported a small selection of New Zealand wines (minerally, tangy, and excellent) and the other who owned Broc Cellars, making some fantastic blends from small, old Californian vineyards. I had some great wine this week.
The remainder of the week went by in a blur, as this was our busiest week in the store since opening, including a record breaking Saturday. Meanwhile, I spent mornings makings lists and working on new songs, not to mention trying to clean the house. I’ve got some new material that is starting to take shape, and I hope that by fall The Princes of Hollywood will be back in full swing, and I’ll be able to get some of these songs out there and see what people think. The insanity was interrupted on Sunday evening by a sojourn to suburbia, the shire of Brentwood, for a delightful dinner with someone with ties to Drue; a fine time was had, and Harlan and I got to flex our proverbial wine muscles and steward the selection to go with dinner. Overall, not a bad way to end a frantic and delightful week.
And, shit, what a song: please listen to Dan Reeder's "Work Song", the perfection of the African-American field song in contemporary, middle-class white guy form. Yes!
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
New York City and The Lyric of the Week Award
The lyric of the week award goes to NYC singer/songwriter Mike Doughty, whose new record Golden Delicious was released this week:
“I wrote a song about your car, I wrote it with your hips in mind.”
Speaking of Mike Doughty, a funny thing happened to me the first time The Princes of Hollywood played New York City. We were covering Doughty tune, “American Car”, an old favorite that we re-worked with folk instruments and big, three-part harmonies. I introduced the song by saying this: “here’s a song by our favorite New York songwriter Mike Doughty”. We played the song and the show continued without much ado.
After our set I was milling about by the bar, probably drinking something viciously over-priced, when I was approached by an unassuming, average-build, moderately Caucasian individual. He said he really enjoyed our set and asked when our new record would be coming out (A Change of Venue had not yet been released, as this was February of 2007 –Ed.). We made small talk briefly about he music, our new record, the weather in NYC in February before he paused to inform me, without any lead-in whatsoever:
“Just so you know, it’s not really cool to say ‘negro’ around here…you know, in the city were a little more careful…”
I just stood there, my face as blank as a new sheet of paper, completely incredulous.
“You know what I mean…?” he continued.
Me: still nothing. I simply did not understand. An awkward moment passed before I finally managed to stutter, “I beg your pardon?”
“You know, during your set you introduced that song as being by your ‘favorite negro songwriter’…”
“I…I mean…when did…so you think…what?” was approximately my answer. Harlan had wandered over to our conversation at this point, and seemed as puzzled as I did.
“What song was this?” I asked, figuring he must have been watching another show and mis-recognized me. I was beginning to regain my senses.
“You know, the one about the car, American car something or other…”
Harlan and I seemed to reach a moment of realization simultaneously, as we both began to explain, rather embarrassedly and emphatically that I had said “NEW YORK songwriter,” definitely not Negro songwriter.
With the crisis adverted, things got stale in the conversation rather quickly. And them something weird happened: I got pissed off.
I first I thought the guy was simply a concerned citizen, diplomatically calling attention to erroneous statement made in a public setting, but as the dust settled on the debating of my possible use of an ethnic slur while on microphone, I began to feel otherwise. It was as if the whole of New York City had taken a big dump of pomposity and arrogance right onto my lap. Oh, these poor Midwestern boys, our audient must have thought, they’re so behind the times. I imagined at that moment all of the denizens of New York City quietly snickering at our ineptitude, assured in their smug self-indulgence that while they may have problems, at least they live in the “real world”, not some backwater shit-hole like Ohio, where bigots roam free, incest happens frequently, and everyone rides into town on tractors. He even referred to his New York as “the City”. What a dick. I didn’t think to tell him that I was born in the state of New York, not far from his idyllic burg, his fortress of political correctness.
I lingered on these thoughts even as we left the bar, trudging through the snow back to our brownstone Bonita (to quote David Mead) in Brooklyn, my head full of brimstone and ire. And while I continue to find myself confused and incredulous of the incident, I still love New York City, it’s vigor and cancerous energy—it really is an intense and wondrous place. So here is my deal, New York City: if I agree that you’re the best, can you stop pretending like the rest of the world doesn’t exist?
“I wrote a song about your car, I wrote it with your hips in mind.”
Speaking of Mike Doughty, a funny thing happened to me the first time The Princes of Hollywood played New York City. We were covering Doughty tune, “American Car”, an old favorite that we re-worked with folk instruments and big, three-part harmonies. I introduced the song by saying this: “here’s a song by our favorite New York songwriter Mike Doughty”. We played the song and the show continued without much ado.
After our set I was milling about by the bar, probably drinking something viciously over-priced, when I was approached by an unassuming, average-build, moderately Caucasian individual. He said he really enjoyed our set and asked when our new record would be coming out (A Change of Venue had not yet been released, as this was February of 2007 –Ed.). We made small talk briefly about he music, our new record, the weather in NYC in February before he paused to inform me, without any lead-in whatsoever:
“Just so you know, it’s not really cool to say ‘negro’ around here…you know, in the city were a little more careful…”
I just stood there, my face as blank as a new sheet of paper, completely incredulous.
“You know what I mean…?” he continued.
Me: still nothing. I simply did not understand. An awkward moment passed before I finally managed to stutter, “I beg your pardon?”
“You know, during your set you introduced that song as being by your ‘favorite negro songwriter’…”
“I…I mean…when did…so you think…what?” was approximately my answer. Harlan had wandered over to our conversation at this point, and seemed as puzzled as I did.
“What song was this?” I asked, figuring he must have been watching another show and mis-recognized me. I was beginning to regain my senses.
“You know, the one about the car, American car something or other…”
Harlan and I seemed to reach a moment of realization simultaneously, as we both began to explain, rather embarrassedly and emphatically that I had said “NEW YORK songwriter,” definitely not Negro songwriter.
With the crisis adverted, things got stale in the conversation rather quickly. And them something weird happened: I got pissed off.
I first I thought the guy was simply a concerned citizen, diplomatically calling attention to erroneous statement made in a public setting, but as the dust settled on the debating of my possible use of an ethnic slur while on microphone, I began to feel otherwise. It was as if the whole of New York City had taken a big dump of pomposity and arrogance right onto my lap. Oh, these poor Midwestern boys, our audient must have thought, they’re so behind the times. I imagined at that moment all of the denizens of New York City quietly snickering at our ineptitude, assured in their smug self-indulgence that while they may have problems, at least they live in the “real world”, not some backwater shit-hole like Ohio, where bigots roam free, incest happens frequently, and everyone rides into town on tractors. He even referred to his New York as “the City”. What a dick. I didn’t think to tell him that I was born in the state of New York, not far from his idyllic burg, his fortress of political correctness.
I lingered on these thoughts even as we left the bar, trudging through the snow back to our brownstone Bonita (to quote David Mead) in Brooklyn, my head full of brimstone and ire. And while I continue to find myself confused and incredulous of the incident, I still love New York City, it’s vigor and cancerous energy—it really is an intense and wondrous place. So here is my deal, New York City: if I agree that you’re the best, can you stop pretending like the rest of the world doesn’t exist?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)