Friday, September 9, 2011

Shoot No One


My wife is a social being. I have never met anyone so completely comfortable with the process of going outward. After a spending a sizable chunk of my life alone in rooms, endlessly chewing on my own thoughts, desires and ideas, the arrival of her ability and willingness to create situations in which I and other people feel comfortable engaging with each other has truly revolutionized my existence. The sheer amount of fascinating folks that came through our house over the last month is mind-blowing to me. What did I do to deserve such enjoyment? My wife has made possible for me a salon existence that I would have never been able to create for myself. The world spins at the speed of good conversation and mine is a buzzing blur.


Ethan Eubanks swaggered into the Nashville August like Ron Jeremy entering a sauna full of poorly-shaven women. As always, I was happy to see him. We had a day to catch up and eat ice cream before I put him to work, and work he did, laying it down on eight of my songs for a live video shoot at Joe Pisapia’s studio on Sunday before drumming straight through Monday and Tuesday on an EP I produced for Ken Simpson. By the time I dropped him at the airport Wednesday morning, we were both haggard, our linen suits wrinkled and sunglasses fogged in the unrelenting heat radiating off the tarmac. “Later,” he admonished, before summoning a porter to deal with the fifteen boxes of cheap cigarettes, La Hacienda hot sauce and Moon Pies he had procured for several black market transactions to be conducted that evening in New York City.

I spent the rest of the week in the studio with Ken Simpson, pride of the down and dirty Northwestern Suburbs of Indianapolis, Indiana. I first met Ken through the DUDES Kickstarter campaign. He sent me some of his material and we agreed it might be a good idea to record it. After a very satisfying Vietnamese meal, we commenced recording and managed to knock out, with the help of David Henry and Mssr. Eubanks, pretty satisfactory versions of six of his songs in five days. Ken turned out to be a lovely guy, surprisingly ego-free and completely up for trying anything. His EP marked my first attempt at producing another artist. I made some mistakes, but enjoyed the experience overall, and would definitely be up for doing it again. What an interesting sensation, to have someone else trust you with their musical fortunes. I admire the sense of adventure required for such an undertaking.

Somewhere in the midst of all this, Elle Macho decided to expand from being a rock band into

being a rock band and a TV station. For legal reasons, I cannot go into too much detail except to mention that the deliberations involved a lot of unfiltered tea consumption and some heated mud wrestling in Butterfly’s basement. This all seemed perfectly logical, at the time. Perhaps it was the completion of our debut full-length, Import, or perhaps just the joy of consuming multiple barbecue tacos with Lindsay, but I have lately felt a renewed sense of optimism about the band and its potential to change the world as we know it.

I drove to the suburbs of Atlanta to see my mother August 13th. We spent a nice three days together hopping around various businesses and places of interest, hanging out and catching up whilst attempting to exhaust her seemingly endless supply of Groupons. She treated me to an early birthday dinner of fondue as well as a full-body massage administered by an African-American woman named Connie, a muscular artisan of considerable gifts who reduced me to the consistency of an overcooked noodle in a mere 50 minutes. Afterwards, my knees still shaky, I bade a long goodbye to my mother, who would be departing for a six-month stint in Hawaii a few weeks later. The woman has finally retired from a lifetime spent bettering children in classrooms all over the country and will soon be staring back at it across the Pacific, evaluating the next chapter of her life, hopefully with something cool and coconutty in her hand. Sail on, Mama, sail on.

Kip Krones is in fine form, for those of you who have been asking. He has been managing a band called NeedToBreathe for the past five or six years, successfully guiding them up from the Southeaster college circuit to selling out the Ryman Auditorium and opening up for Taylor Swift on her current tour. He was in good spirits when Mark Nash and recently I trotted out our current business plan for DUDES for him. I was overcome with a pleasant wave of nostalgia as he, for Mark’s benefit, summarized the eight years he and I spent working together. After reassuring us that we were not completely out of our tree with our new-fangled ideas, he gave us some excellent pointers and sent us on our way. I parlayed my good feeling upon departure into a particular gusto for the consumption of a taco salad at Calypso Café.

On the evening of August 21st I performed with Peter Groenwald and Brad Jones at Flyte

restaurant in Nashville. The occasion had been billed as a three-year anniversary party for our friends Mark Montgomery and Joanna Stansfield but took on a higher significance when, after dinner, Mark proposed to Joanna and, after she accepted, proceeded to further shock his guests by scaring up a person of authority who married them on the spot. Suitably chuffed by the unexpected turn of events, the fellows and I took to the stage with a new level of enthusiasm and performed a very enjoyable set composed (mostly) of tunes that Mark had selected for the occasion mixed with some of the DUDES material. It was a really nice way to revisit the solo giggering after so long away from it. The sense of love and anticipation in the air was intoxicating; all we really had to do was lay back and enjoy it.

After an excruciatingly long delay courtesy of American Airlines, I and the rest of Phanni Pac winged our way back to Key West on the 22nd. The normally steamy days and nights had been pushed inland by the disturbances of Tropical Storm Irene, that fickle maiden who had blown a dry and suspiciously warm breath over the island. The palm trees were drunk with pleasure, swollen and swaying like sailors on leave. Small charter jets zipped through the granite sky from the mainland, rife with purpose, their tiny blinking lights and sound trails emanating the possibility of illegal activity. On the back deck of the band house, tiny chameleon lizards darted to and fro across the slippery planks, unsure as to what action to take next in the face of such sensual Armageddon. I had thought we might get a taste of a real deal Category 4 hurricane, but Irene had decided upon a different course of action, abandoning me to an odd nostalgia for the tornadoes of my childhood Alabama. Severe weather engenders a strange affection. Meteorological Stockholm Syndrome, I guess. One day I dreamily pondered the possible effects of a tsunami on Key West before Scotty reminded me that seismic activity on the floor of the Gulf would be required for such lunacy. Logic poops on desire, every goddamn time.



The Summer of 2011 had been a karmic minefield for The Pac, leaving various band members to deal with the first and second hand effects of (in alphabetical order):

1. Cancer of Gall Bladder
2. Drug Addiction
3. Erectile Dysfunction
4. Excessive Credit Card Debt
5. Hemorrhoids
6. Leukemia
7. Marital Problems
8. Onset of Recurring Migraine Headaches (or) Brain Aneurysm Engendered By Sexual Intercourse
9. Theft of Personal Property

To wit, everyone had been looking forward to this trip a little more than usual. Let’s face it; dudes need a fucking break. A week in Key West can take you in two directions: Some trips, you’re into it, the sun kisses your forehead and jiggles your molecules into orbit. On other weeks you find yourself hammered between the eyes with crippling disappointment, the sort of osmotic disillusionment brought on by too much proximity to the vacationing masses, those poor lost souls spiraling downward under the influence of sweet alcoholic beverages and stupid t-shirts.

While there, I had managed to just squeak one last “How To Make The Whole World Sing” column for American Songwriter before realizing that it was probably time to knock it on the head and make a semi-graceful departure from the world of songwriting analysis. A very intelligent person once commented that, “Talking about music is like dancing about architecture.” This is not entirely true; I have, on several occasions, found it incredibly liberating and wholly intuitive to break into the Charleston right in front of the Guggenheim. This has, unfortunately, ceased to be the case with writing about songwriting. Though I sometimes wish that the magic of producing a great song could be reduced to a 600-word explanation, it is truly a task infinitely more complicated and simple than that word count, or any word count, could ever summarize. Can any creative endeavor ever really be taught? Who knows… Regardless, many creative people will, until their proverbial Carnival Cruise liner comes in, continue to generate auxiliary income based on the presupposition that people can be taught to create. I suggest not listening to any of them, myself included, and reading David Lynch’s Catching The Big Fish instad. (I have not had the pleasure yet, but my step-brother Jason’s explanation of it this morning was strong enough to send me scurrying to the Amazon.com). As for "HTMTWWS," I hope that my contributions over the past two years have shed some light on a couple of things for some aspiring tunesmiths somewhere. I wrote it for as long as I enjoyed it and not a goddamn minute more. It lives here, if you are interested.

The arrival of September always brings with it the beginning of another year on earth for me. So far, 38 feels like a winner. My father treated me to a scrumptious birthday dinner at Eastland Café followed by an exceptionally satisfying Mock Turtle sundae at Nashville’s premier ice cream emporium, Jeni’s. My wife paved the final steps to 40 with auditory gold in the form of a Crossley turntable and a whole bunch of top-notch vinyl she snuck out of
her parents’ house. (I am listening to Roberta Flack’s Chapter Two as I write; mmm-mmm-mmm, like buttah.) An unexpected maturity bonus came in the form of a visit to Nashville by Alan Wallis, a 22 year-old Berklee student who had supported the Kickstarter campaign at the NASHVILLIAN level. We spent the day together palling around town before sitting at the piano for a few hours, talking about all kinds of things musical. Alan is a sharp kid with a plan, and the opportunity to impart a few words of something-resembling-wisdom made me feel like my time in the world has been worth a thing or two. Thank you, Alan.

Autumn has swooped down upon Nashville in a cool, clean fury. This is the kind of weather that keeps me here: sunny, crisp, the cause for, as my buddy Bob Bradley has written:

cheeks flushed with the faint blush of apples
in heavy autumn grass


This morning, while reviewing my calendar for inspiration from which to write, I came across this entry from August 25th occupying the 4-5 PM time slot: SHOOT NO ONE. I still have no idea what this referred to, but I can only hope that it was a moment of subconscious prescience that occurred in the middle of last month’s heat wave; a call to serenity, a mantra for the dying days of unbearable, fiery heat from which we have now emerged, wrapped in long sleeves, springing our morning steps, basking in the slanting sunlight while coffee warms our throats, stomachs, fingertips. It’s all available. Caress it, suckle it, never let it go; today is the day.

Shoot no one. Why ever would I?

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