Jeremy (guitar) quit the band yesterday.  I called to give him a van departure time for our gig at The Double Diamond in Aspen tomorrow.  I could hear him over the phone beating around the bush, his feet shuffling and kicking at a snow bank in his backyard.  After some hemming and hawing, I insisted he tell me what was going on.

• He told me he was broke (despite a $2,500 sound system he just bought himself).
• He told me he lives in a crack den (the condo I rented on his behalf in central Boulder.  Not a crack den)
• He told me he wanted to move to New York with his brother and “play the scene.”  I don’t think he knew what he meant by “play the scene” but he made it sound cooler than what I was doing for sure.

I was torn between resenting the hell out of him and feeling deeply relieved.  He’s been a headache since he arrived in Boulder and his departure will gratefully put an end to my babysitting and tippy-toeing around him. Still, I must acknowledge, The Sally Taylor Band will be losing a great talent in him when he goes.  My big takeaways from my experiment hiring Jeremy are the following:

1. All that glitters is not gold.  It is better to hire a talented, loyal player than a brilliant self-centered one.
2. Don’t trust a promise made by a guitar player hiding behind mirrored aviator sunglasses and
3. Mr. Jeremy probably just needs some good antidepressants and a little dose of grow the fuck up. 

I told him lightheartedly to just concentrate on making it through December with me and then he could do whatever he wanted.   I let him know what time and place Moby was leaving from in the morning.  More hemming and hawing ensued and I could tell he wanted to say more than his ego could afford. “For the love of God Jeremy, please just tell me what’s on your mind.” Awkwardly he said, “I’m gonna make my way up to the gig tomorrow in my own car.”  

“Why?” I asked.

“I might want to bring some friends,” he said. I suggested he bring them up in Moby, ” That’s why I got a 15-passenger van.” I said

“Well,” he said, “I might want to leave after the show.”

“You want to leave Aspen after the show at 2:30 in the morning to drive 4 hours back to Boulder?!?!”

“I might,” he said. I had no more fight in me and relented, “OK, but this is a big show for us.  Please be on time for Soundcheck at 5 pm.”

I hung up with a sign telling myself “Better things are on the horizon.”  I can’t explain my optimism, but the future feels tingly from here, like a newly brushed set of teeth.   I say this even though all the songs I’ve written in the past month are crap and now I have to find a new guitar player.

I drove to Greeley yesterday morning. I think maybe it’s the cattle murder capital of the world. Black & white pierced and branded cows line every fence along the highway. They watch me speed along, in my little purple car, like unwitting spectators at a marathon. Their eyes are huge and soulful and hopeless. I wish I could open the gates and set them all free. Notice to all cows: “STEER CLEAR OF GREELEY.”

I did a radio interview at KUNC which oddly, turned out to be a classical NPR station.  They had me uncork my guitar and play my little folky tunes between Beethoven and Vivaldi (not bad company to keep if you’re a dead musician but probably not a station reaching the ears of my potential audience).  When they asked me to come in, did they think I was a classical guitar player? I wondered as I packed my guitar into the back seat of my Rav.

A college student with a basketball under her arm caught up to me in the parking lot and, out of breath, asked me to sign her Tomboy Bride CD.  It’s amazing that this music exists without me.  It’s like watching a child I’ve nurtured and raised, go off to college.  I was humbled and honored my music and my autograph meant something to someone besides me.

I ate Pringles on the drive home. I got lost twice down dead-end roads. Each was lined with barbed wire threaded like an angry necklace with crows.

I admit it.  I was in an internal hail storm before the show at The Aggie last night. 

I called my mom while I crimped and mascaraed my lashes trying not to cry about all the things I felt were going wrong with the world.  Mama said: “Baby, you’re just payin’ your dues.”  I dropped my eye makeup in the sink and stared up at the bare bulb in the ceiling in hopes of pinching off tears I knew would ruin my makeup job.  “Darlin’, you’re tropical,” she went on, “You’re brighter than most skys one second and the next,” she whistled a falling missile, “a torrential storm with clouds around your head you can’t see your way through.”  She was right, my dark moments feel fatal while my light ones are iridescent prismatic pure bliss sunshine halos coated in sugar (and no, I am not bipolar).

I felt a tickle in the back of my throat. Maybe I was coming down with a cold.  As I stuffed a gig bag (gig dress, gig shoes, hair brush, makeup, and pajamas) I added Advil & Sudafed just to be safe.   Hanging up with my mom I reassured myself I was mostly bent out of shape by a restless night’s sleep. 

My ego is an insomniac.  I often wake up to it pulling at my blankets and when I sweetly try to tell it “This is sleep time baby,” it gets incensed by my insolence and pulls me out of bed by the hair and makes me feed it hot chocolate and Panda licorice while it reminds me of all the things that are wrong with me and what I’ll never achieve.

The drive out to Ft. Collins smelled of manure the whole hour and a half.  Mile after mile, the stench of manure and my stomach felt sour, and my throat felt sore.  I was definitely coming down with something.  It was cold in The Aggie and I paced black cavelike halls backstage post soundcheck. I shivered in my beige corduroy jacket, doing vocal exercises to warm up my swollen throat and meditating on the steam rising from my notes.

I was convinced I’d have no singing voice for the stage but when I stepped into the spotlight, I was saved.  My dad refers to the healing powers of the stage as “Dr. Theater.”  He swears “You can be feeling like utter death, have laryngitis and blood running out of your ear but once you hit that stage… It’s a miracle, you feel 100%.”

We played better than well after all my worrying.  It was a sold-out show.  I wore my fur-lined, knee-high rubber Sorell snow shoes on stage under my miss-matching white mini dress on account of it being so fridged.  But like my voice and my mood, ½ way through the first set I warmed up enough to change out of boots and into my gig shoes.  I did so while comedically singing Mr. Roger’s theme song “It’s Such a Good Feeling, a Very Good Feeling….”

It made the audience laugh and their laughter marinated me into a looser performer (always a good thing).  

It’s the first snow of the season and I’m sitting in Buchannan’s, my go-to university coffee shop. Jazz falls, in concert with snowflakes, from speakers in the ceiling.  The cymbals and high hats seem to chaperone the accumulation, keeping the ground and eager snow drifts an appropriate distance apart.

I arrived home from LA early this morning.  I stepped off the plane at DIA renewed, refreshed, and alive again because this is real.  These mountains, this nature, this musical path I’ve chosen, this is REAL.  No nonsense, no ego, no one to make me “into” someone I’m not.  I’m free to be who I am, as I am, in this moment, and this moment, and this moment, and this, without worrying who’s watching.

It’s not that I didn’t have fun in LA.  Who can complain about playing two renowned venues (Luna Park & The Mint) let alone, getting your ego stroked by record company execs who wine and dine and offer the moon and ½ a dozen stars?  But my greatest accomplishment was returning to Colorado with my integrity intact and a greater sense of clarity and confidence than I deserve about the choice I’ve made to go it alone.

Back at my little apartment, I did a phone interview, the third in the last 24 hours, while I watered my plants, unpacked my bag, and peeled furniture back from where it’d drifted across my warped floorboards since I left.

At 2:00 I took a taxi East, my back to the powdered sugar mountains, to get my band a van!  I’ve been wrestling with the decision of whether to rent or buy a van for these upcoming gigs.  The rub has been less about the purchase price (which is a whopping $24,000) and more about the commitment to life as a musician.  But last week I made my bed.  I put a down payment on a Ford Econoline E250 Cargo extended van and, with the band, named it “Moby” ‘cause It’s a white whale of a beast.  I felt grown up walking into the dealership, signing papers, and driving off the lot as a working musician.  

I had the transformational experience of seeing Jimmy Cliff in concert last night at The Hot Tin Roof and he taught me a thing or five about performance. 

Spiritually naked, he selflessly flung himself about the stage.  I stared up into his spotlight like a moth drawn less to a flame than a blow torch.  Jimmy lost himself in the music like a shaman in a trance. Unselfishly, he let the audience invade him like his body didn’t even belong to him, like it was just a doorway, a portal, a lifeboat, a river on its way to an open mind and for the price of admission, everyone was invited on the journey.

Jimmy darted around the stage like he were trying to evade hunters, and then belted as though he’d been hit. He swallowed the stage whole with the force of a whale and then released it to his band with equal force and gravity. He was angelic and on fire and I fell in love with him.

I pray someday to be so unselfish as to leave my body on stage for my audience and just be a channel; a portal that leads to freedom and open water. But for that, I’ll have to become unselfconscious. 

‘Hard… not impossible,’ I thought to myself.

I found this ring at a flea market recently, It’s a circular depiction of a young Buddha leaning into enlightenment.  It reminds me of what Jimmy was giving his audience. I think I’ll wear it on stage from now on to remind me how to lose myself.

The Foundry is a pool hall, bar, and music venue with tall ceilings and a cigar-smoking, board-game-playing section.  It fills up with a late-night crowd who’re mostly there to hook up or die trying.  I knew it wouldn’t be a glamorous gig but I didn’t think it would be disastrous and in all fairness, it was really only the first 2.5 hours that sucked.

The trouble started when our sound man, Rex, showed up.  He’d clearly been around the block if not around the whole neighborhood.  He was a Vietnam veteran who demanded respect. He had a white-bearded face that was quick to smile and, we’d later find out, just ask quick to scowl and yell curses at us and our unborn children.  During a two-hour sound check (which normally takes 15-20 minutes) Rex couldn’t figure out how to get even a peep from the guitars. He kept looking at the stage with squinted eyes, turning a knob, worrying it right and left, right and left, right and left, looking down, locating a new knob, squinting eyes, worrying it left and right, left and right, and repeat. Repeat. REPEAT. Once he realized he was getting nowhere with the knobs, he started yelling at us, infuriated at his own incompetence. 

Jeremy was most frustrated with the situation on account that every time he was asked to check his mic he’d get an electrical shock to the lips.  This hurts. I can attest. It feels like a hornet sting on the tongue. Plus it’s, mind the pun, shocking. Jeremy cursed, paced the stage, was told the problem had been fixed, and got shocked again and again. It was like watching a Milgram experiment and I didn’t think I should watch my band take much more abuse.

I approached Pony, The Foundry’s owner who was deeply apologetic and frantically called around to other local venues trying to find a decent sound technician for us.  When Steve (our savior) showed up from The Boulder Theater he asked what needed to be done.  Quietly, out of Rex’s earshot, I let Steve know I was afraid we needed to start from scratch. 

We had a decent show once Steve got the sound on track.  We had to compete with an ever-increasing number of ever-increasingly drunk, desperate 20-somethings looking for a hook-up but the cluster of folks who crowded around our chest-high stage were totally into us and I could have sworn I even saw a few people mouthing the words to some of my songs.  Is that even possible?

The F*ed up thing was that every time Steve would step away from the soundboard, even a few feet, fuzzy little Rexy would scurry on over and push all the suck buttons despite Steve and Pony’s explicit instructions to stay away from it.  It was like he couldn’t control himself.  It actually made me laugh and reminded me not to take myself too seriously. 

Thanks Rex.

Tomboy Bride’s CD release party is in two days (Sept 11).  I’m playing The Fox Theater on a double bill with Zuba (who are holding their own CD release party) and I’m nervous. 

I played last night at The Oasis, a small joint with a low ceiling, neon lights, pool tables, and no emergency exit.  You take your life into your own hands watching live music at The Oasis.  I wore my lion yellow dress and brown boots; the ones with a hole in the left sole which leave my socks perpetually wet whether it’s raining or not.  I had a discombobulating set. My guitar strap kept slipping and my mic stand kept bouncing off my lips, redistributing lipstick around my face. 

Bill Bennet, the manager of the Fox Theater, was there and when I came off the stage flustered with a lash stuck in my eye he whispered kindly: “You won’t be a secret for much longer,” which redeemed the gig entirely.

On Saturday Jeremy Lichter (guitar player & background vocalist) finally arrived to complete the band. and not a moment too soon.  We were lucky the Tribes rehearsal space was available. We were able to practice a few extra nights so Jeremy could fine-tune his harmonies and guitar parts.  The band was just starting to sound tight when Brian Mcrae broke the news to me.

“I am so sorry.  I forgot I told Sherry Jackson (another Colorado singer-songwriter) I’d play a show with her this Friday in Fort Collins.”

“Do you mean you can’t make the CD release at The Fox?” He shook his head, sucked in his breath and clenched his teeth.  Time stood frozen. I stood like a deer in the headlights, the wind knocked out of me.  Brian was terribly apologetic, making it easier to reassure him “It’s okay Bri.  Life is like that,” while promising myself never to trust another drummer.  I spent the next 24 hours calling around until I found David Rastatter, Nina Story’s drummer who said he was available and excited to play with me.  Good Lord my heart.  Managing musicians is simply the worst.

On Monday I made my way out to Spruce and 13th where I’d rented Jeremy a condo to make his transition to Boulder easier.  I showed up at our appointed time, 4 pm, to sign over the lease but Jeremy was a no-show and the landlord had other meetings and couldn’t wait for him.  I sat in a skinny patch of grass in the middle of the parking lot with the sun’s last rays on my face, bile rising in my throat.  Jeremy didn’t arrive until after 5:30.  As he swaggered out of his car in his aviators laughing I tried to imagine he had a good excuse for standing me up. But instead, he had the audacity to tell me he’d been out looking at rehearsal spaces for a side band he planned on starting.

“Get back in your car and drive back east,” I pointed in the general direction “I’m not gonna put up with your shit.  I’m not your babysitter and I’m not your mother.  I’m your boss!  And I’m the one doing YOU the favors here so show some fucking respect.”  Now, something you might not know about me is, I rarely get mad.  I’m 90% good-natured and of the 10% of me that’s ruffleable, 9% is resourced enough to self-soothe and get on with the show.  However, there is 1% of me few have seen and it comes out when I’ve got nothing left to lose.

As I pointed east and put my foot down and stuck my chin out and squinted in disbelief and hit my forehead with the palm of my hand I could see curtains fluttering out of the corner of my eye. Neighbors were trying to catch a glance at what was being thrown down in their parking lot. 

“Now,” I continued, unperturbed “I don’t know where you get off telling me you’re gonna start your own band here in Boulder after I brought you out to be part of mine, but if you think you’re gonna flake on me you better damn well tell me now and let me get on with the business of hiring a serious player ‘cause  I don’t have time for this crap.”

I was done and breathing hard and Jeremy was scared as shit and ready to fly to the moon if I asked him to.  He shook his head and then shook my hand and assured me with an authentic sigh “I promise. I promise you, Sally Taylor, I am your guitar player and nothing is going to get in the way of that.”  I looked for his pupils behind his aviators and wondered if I could trust him as far as I could throw him.

“Cause, I need a serious band ya know?  Don’t make me regret this Jeremy.” I said catching my breath.  The fire was out, the bridge hadn’t been burned irreparably.  The condo residents released their curtains and went back to their post-work bong hits and cleaning out their cat litter boxes and I drove back home with my own eyes watching me from 800 CDs in the trunk.