Ben Taylor – Sally Taylor

Block Island, RI – “Heros” – Captain Nick’s – August 11, 2002

It’s 2:30 am. I’m with four 21-year-old guys with shaved heads trying to break into my third-floor hotel room with a knife and an expired credit card. One of the boys is kneeling on the floor with a dinner knife wedged into the door jam. Another is pushing with all his might while the third and the fourth are balanced precariously on adjacent windowsills banging on a small rectangular window over-the-door. The four of them are arguing over who gets to break into James Taylor’s daughter’s room.

Though I’m not in any danger (these guys are employees of another hotel on the island) I’m, never the less glad Dean made me pack that bottle of pepper spray for the road. How on earth did I end up in this situation?

The day started tamely enough. I woke up on Martha’s Vineyard in my childhood bedroom, surrounded by dolls on shelves and James Dean posters on walls. I’d flown in the night before, leaving the band and Moby back in Quincy, MA. When I left, they were busy indulging in the accidental discovery of a new “culinary masterpiece”: pretzels dunked in flat beer (don’t ask).

I was scheduled to record a rendition of “Anticipation” for a Heinz Ketchup commercial with my mom, brother, and cousin and but hadn’t quite sorted how I’d make it to Block Island for that evening’s show.

Enter my hero, Uncle Liv. Liv, licensed pilot extraordinaire, offered me a ride to my gig in his two-seat single-prop airplane. He took the long way, flying along shores lit up in the fading pinks and ruset golds of sunset. I tell you, there’s no better feeling than owning the skies—or, in my case, having an uncle who does.

The band greeted us at the airstrip. They’d walked over from sound checking the club, Captain Nick’s, which was only a spitting distance away.

Liv, the ultimate showman, grinned at the group and asked, “Want to watch me take off?”

“Sure, Uncle Liv!” they hollered like a bunch of excited kids.

Liv wadded himself into something resembling a discarded memo and wedged himself back into his seat. Leaning out the window, he shouted some music business advice, inaudible over the puttering of the engine. We waved as he took off to the West, into the sunset, as all heroes do.

I picked up my blue guitar case and slipped off my shoes. Together, we walked straight from the tarmac onto the stage and, with sandy toes and all, launched into our first set. The vibe of the club was electric. Though we’d never played Block Island, Captain Nick’s was packed and people knew our songs and sang along with them — a surreal and heartwarming experience.

After the set, I lingered at the club while the rest of the band headed out with some locals to a bar. While not intentional, it’s fair to say I’ve been avoiding the guys since I made my peace about turning. How do I tell them I’m quitting my own band? What if they ask what that means for them and I don’t have an answer. I’d warnet a guess that I haven’t made direct eye contact with any of them since the gig at The Iron Horse. I sense, in my back molars, that they know the fat lady has sung and I secretly hope they’d rather not talk about it yet, either.

Around 1 a.m. at the club, it hit me—I had no idea where we were staying. No key. No cell phone. No band. But I was just tipsy enough to believe I might stumble upon the right place eventually if I cased enough parking lots looking for Moby. Outside, on an empty Ocean Ave, I stared up at the silver full moon. It looked like a porthole in a giant black ship. It shone as if someone shot a hole in the skin of the universe and tomorrow was draining into the night from the wound.

I wandered dimly lit paths from one potential hotel to another, softly calling, “Soucy? Delucchi?” in increasingly desperate tones. Suddenly a young hotel attendant with matching stubble on his head and upper lip appeared, possibly summoned by my lunacy.

“I’m sorry,” I said as he approached “I’m a little lost –”
“Oh, hey, Sally Taylor,” he said, ““I saw your show tonight—you were great.” (Ah, the benefits of playing on a small island).

“Thanks,” I replied. “I’ve, uh… lost my band and don’t have a key to my room.”

“And what room are you all in?”

“Well, I don’t exactly know.” I admitted, “We might not even be in this hotel.” Even tipsy, I realized how ridiculous I sounded.

He raised an eyebrow and invited me to the staff barracks, where a full-blown employee party was underway. The floors were a sticky mix of sand and spilled beer, faces glowed green under harsh halogen lights, and everyone, having attended the show, treated me like family. That’s how, at 1:30 a.m., I found myself at the mercy of four slightly stoned, collegiate, superheroes attempting to break me into a locked room at a hotel I was rumored to be staying.

“If I only had a rope,” murmured the guy holding the knife to the door. “I could swing around the outside to the window.”

“Where’s Spiderman when you need him?” I laughed.

Then someone else chimed in, “Wait, I know a guy with a ladder. We could put it on the awning.”

Though clearly a bad idea, the-ladder-on-the-slender-awning plan seemed like a winning solution and we trotted down to the parking lot. There, just pulling in, sparkling like my knight shining armor, was Moby. She navigated the lot in seeming slow motion—an eternal second anchoring time to a moment. My band of heroes stepped out of Moby’s big white belly. They readjusted their belts, stretched their backs and casually waved upon seeing me with a sea of boys as though it were just another day at the office. Delucchi presented me with a roomkey along with a bouquet of flowers someone left for me at the club. My band couldn’t have known what a sight for sore eyes they were. They couldn’t have known I’d been through a legendary odyssey.

The world is full of unsung heros. Folks like my uncle Liv, the Block Island bellboys, the audience that sang along to my songs and of course, my band of musical brothers. I wish I had time to write each of you a song to memorialize your heroics but this road tale will have to do. My time as a traveling minstrel grows short and besides, I’m much too tired to stay awake for another second.

Thank you to all you heroes who’ve saved this damsel in distress tonight and for the last five years along the road. Only some of you know who you are.

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Boston, MA – “Ben’s First Show” – August 2, 2002

There are blue cotton panties on my front lawn. I don’t know how they got there or how long they’ve been there just that I don’t want to touch them to throw them away and apparently neither does Dean or anyone else for that matter because day after day, they’re there.

This morning when I’ve showered and packed, I look out the window to see the band is there; Soucy, Castro, and Dino all huddled around the panties in my yard and they’re all crinkle-faced and wondering aloud who’s panties are they? Where did they come from? Where are they going? And why? It’s disturbing to them when I tell them I don’t know and so we all just hover over them with our suitcases by our sides until Amanda, my assistant, comes to pick us up for our flight. But on the ride to the airport, they’re all anyone can talk about and the blue panties on my yellow lawn set the tone for the day.

At the airport, the woman behind the counter insists she doesn’t have us on any flight to Boston via St Louis despite the confirmation letter I show her from hotwire.com saying we’re all set to go. However, she does find us on a plane to Chicago that’s going onto Boston and we take what we can get.

In Chicago, I get a strawberry banana smoothie and shop around in a bookstore deciding on “Choke,” a title by Chuck Palahniuk the author of “Fight Club.” It’s dark and cynical and apocalyptic and I like it ‘cause I’m really none of those things.

I love mulling about in bookstores—surgically opening covers, staring into spines and marrow because, who knows what you’ll find? Love, pain, sex, tears, a different time, a different space, a different version of yourself, a different set of problems from which to escape your own.

Soucy at the famous *Make Way For Ducklings* statue in the Boston Gardens

When we arrive in Boston we immediately set off to find my brother. Tonight is his first live show (with his band) and I am thrilled I get to be here for it. The venue is called TT the Bears. We’re not exactly sure where it is but Soucy’s thinks he’s been there (albeit in 1983) and remembers it being in close proximity to Harvard in Cambridge. So with luggage in hand, we turn ourselves over to The T, Boston’s subway system. The Blue Line connects to the Orange Line which links us up with the Red Line heading outbound by which time Soucy admits to not remembering if it really is out this way at all and we all sigh and I call Kipp on Soucy’s phone.

Kipp, as you may recall from my early days on the road, was once my boyfriend, now, my brother’s manager. While there is still only love between us, I haven’t seen or spoken to him since I got engaged. I expect it may be a bit awkward when he answers, but he sounds genuinely excited to see me and directs us to get off the Red Line at “Central.”

But at “Central,” we’re lost again. We drop our bags outside a used record shop playing Hoagie Carmichael loudly through a scratchy olive megaphone and Soucy goes down into the store to ask directions. We look like we’re running a yard sale with our luggage splayed out — computers, guitar cases and shedded clothing on the sidewalk. A drunk man waddles by mumbling nothings. Girls point at store windows talking loudly about shoes they covet. A cigarettes smokes, abandoned on a curb.

When we finally arrive at the club Ben lifts me up to give me a hug and slings me around in the air. He looks great, lean and handsome underneath his baggy cloths and hat. There’s a great turnout at the venue and plays his heart out for all the pretty girls who’ve already dedicated their hearts to him after the first song. He’s GREAT. He’s confident and his band is tight and full of unstoppable talent.

After his set, I help him sell his new CD, “Famous Amongst the Barns,” and I brag about singing harmonies on some of the songs. It’s the first night they’re available and they’re going like hotcakes. I buy one too.

We stick around the club for a while listening to the next band but we’re not all that jazzed about them and when Delucchi shows up, fresh in from LA off the Femmi Kuti tour, we rejoice in our band being whole again. I don’t think I can convey how important Delucchi is to our band. Having Brian for a substitute soundman one the first leg has only amplified my appreciation for Delucchi — his work ethic, positivity, patience, organization, not to mention his willingness to drive at all hours of the night.

We retrieve our bags from Ben’s van, congratulate him on a fantastic first night and bolt, promising to reunite for an early breakfast that never ends up happening. Back onto the conveyor belt of subways that lead to our hotel in Woburn. Here we reunite with Moby, right where we parked him when we’d flown back to Colorado for some mountain gigs last week.

In the room, I throw Ben’s CD in for a spin . The guys are excited to hear the tunes I sang harmonies on, but to my dismay, all of my vocals have been scrapped. I’m not even mentioned next to my Mom and Pops’ names on the ‘additional artist’ fold-out.

I’m feeling pretty embarassed and dejected when Delucchi yells up from the ground floor to let me know “Moby’s dead.” A light was left on while we were away, and we need a jump before morning. I’m on hold with AAA when I get a message from Dean that he doesn’t think he can make it out this weekend. I feel deflated and tired and it sends me into a tailspin of self-loathing. This is no way to start a second leg of a tour. I kick myself for letting myself get so down and it’s 2:30 before AAA shows up.

I open a can of lentil soup and eat it out of the can with stone wheat thins I find in the trunk. There’s no AC and I fall asleep, above the covers, reading “Choke” and feeling the way those blue cotton panties must feel on my lawn.

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New Hope, PA – “Bye Sister Sledge” – February 2, 2001

There’s a 4:00am wake-up call on Martha’s Vineyard from my brother Ben, who journeys over to my cabin in the woods with a cup of chai and a tired, no-lipped grin. He waits patiently for me to shower and pack, then takes me in the white Volvo through the blue, snowy, Vineyard roads that lead down to the ferry. These twisty roads are more familiar to me than the childhood I spent traveling them.

The boats in the harbor tremble to and fro in the bitter, shivering water. Ben throws my blue guitar case on the upper level of the luggage rack. This is the brand of winter I identify with. It’s not a soft quiet snow, or a decorated Christmas tree. It’s a bite in the air that makes me squint and clench my shoulders toward my neck. It’s the blue that covers everything and gets under my fingernails. It’s chapped hands and lips and frayed thoughts. It’s hissing evergreens buckled into their roots in a windstorm. It’s the ghoulish vapor that quiet coffee makes, the smell of flapjacks that dad bakes. It’s the goodbyes hollered from loved ones at the mouths of trains and boats over the wail and grumble and churn and bolt.

“Gu bye brother luv,” I say reaching up to give Ben a hug.
“Bye Sista Slege,” He hollers across the parking lot as I board the ferry.

Thus begins a day that threatens never to end.

When the ferry pulls into Woods Hole I take a car to the Amtrak station in Providence, a 9:58 Train to Trenton NJ, and at 3:00 PM, a car picks me up and drives me to “The Lambertville Inn.” The Lambertville Inn is in New Hope, PA, and couldn’t be a nicer, homier place to stay but for one thing — There’s only one room and in that one room, there’s only one bed and, when I arrive, I find one Christopher Daniel Soucy looking very uncomfortable sitting on the edge of that one bed. It’s not as if we haven’t had to sleep in the same bed before. Over the first year of touring I recall sleeping head to foot at least one time with each band mates. But it’s not my favorite thing in the world (no offense Soustopher, you know I love ya.)

“Darnit,” says the promoter when I get him on the phone after the 3^rd try, “we thought you guys were a couple,” “Duo, not couple,” I correct. “Shoot, the hotel is all booked up at the moment,” he apologizes and Soucy and I go out for dinner resigned to our sleeping arrangements. Luckily, the Inn had a last minute cancelation and Chris, wound up in his own room.

The Show was cool. It was in a high school. We opened up for John Sebastian of “The Lovin Spoonful” (Who, coincidentally, my father once opened for in the early 70’s). Our dressing room–a converted classroom, was guarded by some of the kids. They who carried our gear and stood outside our “backstage” door, protecting us, from what I’m not sure. But we never got shot or killed in any way so I guess they did a hell of a good job. One of them was in a band called “Urban Funk Monkeys” and he slipped me a disk to listen to. Not bad Sam.

Sally (Middle) Michael Park (left)
and Todd Rotondi (right)
Photo credit: Gene O’Brien

After signing some CDs and taking some pictures, we went on the town with some friends who’d come up from NYC to see the show.

White tinker bell lights hung from rafters. Snow blew from white shutters and the wind whipped and stung as we walked around the quaint town of New Hope.

We ended up at a local club called John & Peters. The place was stuffed to the gills with handsome women and men wearing Peruvian wool sweaters, slung over chairs like dirty laundry. We didn’t make it home ‘til 5:00 am (I told you it was a long day). The wake-up call came with a ring so loud it tripped me out of my dreams. “Could you possibly call me back in 5 minutes?” I said desperately to the automated wake-up voice before realizing it was a recording.

Ouch!

On our ride to the Philadelphia airport, Soucy and I reflected on how quick, easy and lucrative to our mini-tour had been. But something had been missing from it—something important. When we climb into Moby as a band in Colorado and make our way to the crusts of the nation, there is a commearadery forged between us. When forced to sleep in one bed, laugh at the same billboards, help each other through a hard time, subsist on gas station food, load in each other’s instruments, pick out each other’s stage cloths—that’s when the real music happens as far as I’m concerned. We are bonded as a band under the pressures of the road. While the limos, separate rooms and plane rides were luxurious, I missed the struggle and connection that comes with less. It’s interesting, I thought as I took a seat next to Soucy on the plane, that what makes the road hard is what makes it good.

“Homeward bound,” I said, perching a blue pillow between my head and the plane’s oval window. To which Soucy responded with Simon & Garfunkel’s,

“Home, where my thoughts are na na.

Home, where my de do de da.

Home, Where my la las waiting silently for me.”

I laughed but then the tune got stuck in my head and any time either one of us mentioned the word “home” we’d break into song. Unfortunately, neither of us could remember the lyrics and were forced to do “na na’s” and “do de’s” in place of lost words. By the time we reached Denver, the utterance of the word “home” was banned and if one of us slipped up and said it, it was followed by the universal, fist shaking sign for “I’m going to strangle you if you we don’t stop singing that song.”

None the less….It’s good to be home…“Na na na na la la de do da hm hm…”

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San Francisco, CA – “Visiting my Childhood” – Golden Gate Park – September 4, 2000

Performing at San Francisco’s iconic Golden Gate Park, I’m catapulted back to my childhood adventures during mom and dad’s outdoor concerts. The air is crisp and sunlit, carrying that familiar nostalgic scent that instantly feels like home. I can almost see my younger self playing hide and seek with my brother beneath tables draped in starched white linens, dodging the charcuterie displays that always tempted us—despite being warned to tread carefully.

Backstage, ghost-like plumes of smoke rise from the grill pits, blending with the tawdry scent of the beer tent. It’s a sensory recall of raucous laughter, stumbling musicians, and performers’ spirited spouses hauling pitchers between tents, painting a vivid picture of those vibrant days.
Out on the lawn, facing the imposing, insect-like black stage, there are white blankets scattered across the green expanse. There are free-range children everywhere, their faces adorned with painted butterflies and dragons. The sloping hills are a mosaic of disheveled towels, flapping-armed dancers with sun-kissed smiles, and blue cherry snow cone stained tongues sing along to every song. Charcoaled shish kebabs smoke somewhere in the distance… and then there’s the music.

Hours upon hours of M U S I C. Pure and exhilarating, the melodies float through the air, mingling with beer-buzzed cheers and pleas from the crowd for “more” and “never stop!” The harmony of it all surrounds us—the music, the hum of conversations, the sound of children, and the cheering merging seamlessly with the cloudless sky.

After our set, Los Lobos takes the stage, high-fiving us as we exit, arms loaded with our instruments. Their genuine compliments leave us awestruck. We retreat to the beer tent, our golden pale ale winnings spill as we find a spot on the sunny lawn to watch Los Lobos own the stage. My lungs feel fuller on days like this; the sky seems infinite. I dance with a little girl whose face is painted with angel wings. At the end of each song she yells “AGAIN!” and I can’t help but wonder if she is me, visiting her adult self from all those years ago.

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Boulder, CO – “Vanity Fair”- Between Tours – August 30, 2000

After the John Cafferty show I flew to Martha’s Vineyard for a family photo shoot with Annie Lebowitz for Vanity Fair. I know, this is a huge honor and how dare I mention all this privilege in one sentence. It’s disgusting—an embarrassment of riches — and I should hate myself for normalizing it and I do, believe me, but it gets worse. In the following days, People and US magazine sent reporters to the island to do stories on me—Just ME!!! and I got all caught up in my ego’s sparkly spiderweb. The attention made me drunk and blind and disgustingly ambivalent about it all. Make-up artists curled my eyelashes, lighting specialists lit angles I didn’t know I had and cameras snapped mechanical bites off my soul.

But as the fog of attention lifted and I made my way back to Colorado on the 25th, I felt a brutal hangover from drinking so much false love. I was worried about how easily I’d given myself to the adrenaline and glitter of being celebrated. Didn’t I know better than to get high off that kind of affection? Hadn’t I gone to therapy for a year, for god sake, to ensure I wouldn’t get hooked on applause and yet there I’d been—no resistance whatsoever—guzzling for the cheap buzz People and US and Annie and Vanity Fair offered. I wondered, as I wandered past first class, to my coach seat in row 16B, if my recent heartache had something to do with how readily I’d welcome the drug of artificial affection.

Thankfully, Boulder brought me right back down to size. Rehearsing for a week in a rundown, grungy garage warehouse sandwiched between a homeless shelter and “The Bus Stop” (Boulder’s local titty bar) will bust even the most resilient of egos.

Tonight was our last practice before we leave for the West Coast tomorrow. The warehouses were quiet when I arrived at 7:30 but within the hour, 20 bands would fill North Boulder with a soup of colorful sound—Thrash, Bluegrass, Punk, Rock and Reggae would all blend in the humid air outside our open garage doors until the neighborhood was a brick of impenetrable noise. There would be bad covers of “Brown-eyed Girl,” bad covers of “Blinded Me with Science,” and bad covers of “Fire and Rain.”

While I strung my guitar, musicians skulked like skinny, crooked shadows in the slick, wet parking lot — smoking cigarettes and waiting for their drummers to show up.
Some of them actually live out here in the warehouses — those who can’t live off their gig money or tour too much to justify paying rent on a real apartment. Kyle, our own drummer, used to be one of them. He showed us where he’d made his bed in the very space we were practicing in. “Unit #50 costs $35 bucks a night whether you’re rehearsing or sleeping,” he told us.

Even though it was raining, we left the door open, like the rest of the bands, to avoid the musty, dank, moldy stench that grows on you if you hang around one of these spaces too long. The fan was on and I came up with the brilliant idea to spray my gas station imitation Drakkar into the spinning fan blades to make the room smell better, but when I spritzed the fan, the imitation Drakkar flew directly back at me, into my hair and eyes. The guys howled at my idiocy and I laughed along with them.

We rehearsed for a couple of hours just to polish intros and outro’s and then, loaded up the van. We leave for Salt Lake City in the morning. As I helped Delucchi shove the last guitar into the boot under a yellow street light I thought back to Martha’s Vineyard just days ago — how fast I’d gone from feeling like the bell of the ball to just another struggling musician in a van. I hugged my guys goodnight and drove home to get one last good night’s sleep. I crawled like a hermit crab into my bed and dreamed of the road ahead. It’s good to have my feet on the ground again.

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St Louis, MO – “Disaster” – Cicero’s – May 31, 2000

The Vineyard was just what I needed and while I felt a pang of anxiety when the boys pulled away, leaving me at the airport, I was glad to miss three days of Missouri, “Roller Coster Haven,” and Pabst Blue Ribbon.

On The Vineyard, my mama and I drank chai tea and curled up on her couch. Between her velvet throw pillows, she triaged my shredded heart and we laughed between my tears. She taught me her beauty secrets, “always put a streak of highlighter down the bridge of your nose to make it look slender” and, “use your taupe eyebrow pencil as a lip liner.” She toured me through old photo albums and we listened to sad songs and I wrote a few of my own. Mama absorbed my tears and brushed the hair from my forehead while I told her what a fool I’d been to fall for Sam.

At the end of Memorial Day, when I came downstairs with my overnight bag and a guitar case full of new songs, my mama was awake. Her hair was piled into a little spiky nest atop her sweet head. She greeted me in the kitchen, in her soft robe, a spatula in one hand and a plate of her famous shredded apple Swedish pancakes in the other. We ate with our hands. She poured me a giant glass of grapefruit juice and sang to me, my own lyrics to remind me just how strong and capable I am of getting through this. I hugged her and told her (because it’s the truth) that she’s the absolute best mommy in the world.

On the plane to meet up with the boys, I listened to one of the new songs I wrote and tinkered with the lyrics. It’s called Disaster.

Disaster

I broke my own heart
For the good of my pride
For my own piece of mind and
Left my soul deprived
Now there’s sleepless and sky and
my memories to ride and
A picture of you left on my bedtable side

You’re a distraction to my lonelieness
While I’m in ink jotted
On your “To Do” list
But there’s love in your words
And there’ll be one last kiss
Goodbye and I’ll miss you and
Whatever this is

Now out of this picture, you smile in my face and
The image of you bellow me, I’ll erase
Now I’m a disaster and you’re a disgrace
How funny that this should be “love”

There’s something about this pain
That makes me feel happy
Happy to feel anyting at all
I’ll listen to sad albums and
Cry all day long to
Get you out of my system
One more track then
I’ll move on

Now out of this picture, you smile in my face and
The immage of you bellow me I’ll erase
Now I’m a disaster and you’re a disgrace
How funny that this should be “love”

Missouri was a scorching 95° when I flew in to meet back up with the band. I shaved my legs in the airport sink (sorry, I know that’s gross) and slipped into some stage clothes in a stall feeling like some B-list superhero. I hoped the slip dress mom let me borrow would be appropriate attire for the heat but when I arrived at the club, the air conditioners were cranked to sub-Antarctica, and traversing through two clashing climates for load in made me convinced I was catching a cold.

I remember one summer when Ben and I were kids, my dad took us out on the road and there weren’t enough bunk beds on the bus to accommodate both the band and two little kids. My dad set up a couple of cots on the floor for us and being 6 and 9 we didn’t much mind camping on the floor of the bus. However, the AC was on full blast and my brother’s cot was directly in front of one of the vents. One morning, after a particularly long overnight drive from Pittsburgh to Illinois we woke to find half of my brother’s face frozen and as the day continued, it wasn’t thawing. The poor bugger couldn’t blink let alone take a sip of water without it dribbling out the left side of his mouth. Turns out, my brother had Bell’s Palsy. He spent the rest of the summer with one eye patch over his eye which I tried to make him believe made him look like a cool pirate.

The show went all right. Cicero’s is sort of a jam band gig. The walls are plastered with posters announcing coming bands named: “The Kind,” and “The Shwag,” etc. I don’t mean to stereotype the place. It was clean, (intensely) air-conditioned, had ultra-friendly employees, and filled up pretty nicely for a Wednesday night.

The best part of the show for me was catching up with the band in the green room (literally just a bathroom with black walls and a handwritten note on the door that read, ”Not a Public Restroom.”) Inside the “Not a Public Restroom,” of a green room we elbowed our way around empty gear cases crowding in with us like extra players waiting for show time. Kyle sat on the toilet and warmed up his wrists against an empty drum case, “Thrum thrum thrum.” While I washed my face I listened to Kenny’s excited retelling of each and every roller coaster they rode in my absence. Delucchi laughed at Kenny’s “wooshing” reenactment noises, reliving the experience through Kenny’s vivid retelling.

I was grateful to secondhand smoke their memories, to be getting ready to play another show, to be Sam-free going on one week now, and most of all, grateful (after 5-weeks out) to see Boulder on the horizon.

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Day 70 – “Returning to my Childhood Home” – March 23, 2000

I’m driving back to the studio when I pass my old address, 135 Central Park West, the one with the flat my new album’s named after (#Apt. 6S). The doorman outside is unfamiliar and though I’m seriously contemplating looking for a parking spot and trying to go in, I wonder how I’d explain myself to the austere new doorman. I imagine myself approaching under the iron-clad awning in overalls and green Patagonia fleece and saying something ridiculous like, “Hi, you don’t know me, but trust me, I used to live here and I’d like to go to the 6th floor and take a little look at my old childhood stomping grounds if that’s OK.” The idea seems absurd but before I know it, I’ve parked, slipped my little red camera into my pocket, and locked the door.

The gray-blue stairs of my childhood feel narrower underfoot than I remembered. The last time I walked them they’d hosted at least a dozen voracious paparazzi trying to wrestle my image from my face. My brother and I were adept at the camera dance and knew to take cover under hoods and collars to avoid them, as though they were a sudden rainstorm.

Today there are no cameras, nothing to fear or avoid. But I feel more uncomfortable than ever confronting the tall, Slavic doorman in the lobby. “I’m making an album named after an apartment here that I grew up in, #6S,” I gulp when my intro is met with a suspicious sideways glance. “I don’t know. Would be possible to let me up for just a second? I’d love to take a picture of my old door for my liner notes. Would that be OK?” I’m sure he thinks it is not OK. But, you can’t judge a book by its cover. The new Russian doorman not only believes my story but is delighted to know I’m naming my album something relating to the building. He calls the new tenants and sure enough, I’m invited up.

As I walk the mosaiced hallways down the red strip of carpet, memories flood back. I recall practicing cartwheels with my friend Lark Previn, one of Mia Farrow’s kids, after ballet lessons. Once we’d navigated the grippy hands of the paparazzi outside, we’d uncover our jacketed heads and in long braids and peach leotards, do round-offs and back handsprings down the broad red carpet to the elevator. Lark, second eldest after Soon Yi, always accompanied me to the 6th floor so we could practice our moves a little longer in the 12-foot floor-to-ceiling mirror outside our door.

Waiting for the elevator—the same elevator I once measured my growth by the numbered buttons I could reach—I look up at the crystal chandelier still awkwardly missing gems my brother and his friends used to jump to knock down for their shiny, clear teardrop collections.

The mirror on the 6th floor still warps in the center, making me appear slimmer and taller. I ring the back doorbell and it chims its familiar (still-broken) chime, “Ding, futz,” “ding, futz.”
A small, Latina house cleaner wearing distrust across her brow lets me in even though her boss is out and she wonders out loud about the consequences of her actions. She follows me closely in her head tilted, small-stepping way as I tour my old home in what I hope is the least threatening way possible. I don’t touch walls or handles and let the cleaner reveal what she thinks prudent to show me.

My old room has been converted into an office but still has the white shelves that once housed my dolls. The back alley view from my old window with its cast iron grate looks the same as usual as does the long white built-in closet but none of this is mine. I packed up my memories long ago and I realize I am only a ghost here. Most likely, a ghost that’s making the cleaner nervous.

The photo I took that day of Apt #6S front door

I thank her and leave Apt. #6S with its view of Central Park and slimming mirror and chandelier with its missing prisms and as I thank the doorman and descend the paparazziless steps I feel a little hollow but at peace.

At the studio, Mike and I work late (till after 3:00 am). Neither of us in any shape to drive back to the city, we set up an impromptu slumber party on Whitney’s white, leather couches. We use our jackets as blankets and elbows as pillows. Morning comes too soon but we open our eyes with determination and enthusiasm for This is it. The finish line. This is our last day in the studio!

…..Of course, there’s still more to do—mastering, artwork for the CD, The creation of a press kit and launching of a PR campaign, booking a new tour to promote the album (with our BRAND NEW BOOKING AGENT JONATHAN SHANK!!!!), Getting CDs pressed and getting our new drummer rehearsed. But the album, for all intents and purposes, is finished.

I am the proud mama of 13 new bouncing baby songs. And I’m gonna let you in on a little secret. Something nobody yet knows. We’re gonna combine “How Can I” and “Bicycle” to make one long 12th track and throw in a hidden “sally as a little girl ‘pumpkin song’” in between, just to give people something fun to find if they leave the CD running too long. So now you’re in the know! Thanks for following along on this record-making journey. Enjoy…

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Day 67 – “Naming the Album 6S” – March 20, 2000

I grew up on the Upper West Side of New York City with a sprawling view of Central Park from apartment “Success.” At least that’s what I heard my parents say when they directed the local grocer for deliveries or their fabulous, bangle-wearing friends for parties. It made sense, after all — my famous parents lived in an apartment called “Success.” Of course, they did and, of course, my brother and I lived there with them; born into success, not owners as such, but entitled squatters. It was only when I started writing pen pals that my understanding was shattered.

“In the return address,” my mom dictated, “you’ll write Sally Taylor, 135 C.P.W Apt #6S NYC 10023.”

“How do you spell ‘Success'” I asked.

“A-P-T period. The number 6 and the letter S,” she directed, unaware she was shattering a belief I’d held since birth. Alas, apartment “Success” was only ever apartment #6S (Floor 6, Southern facing apartment). “Success” was as illusory as the great and powerful Wizard of OZ. #6S was The Man (woman and children who lived) Behind the Curtain; A real address with real lives and problems and joys and failures and, yes, successes too.

I’ve decided to name this second album after my birth address “Apt. #6S” to remind me where I come from; both a delicious, outrageous illusion, and a geographic address as real and permanent as its bricks and mortar.

This CD is a dedication to making success where you live.

APT #6S will be released in early May and will be available online from this website and at shows.

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Day 57- “My Dad’s a Badass” – March 10, 2000

I’m coming down with something. My nose is runny to match the watering of my eyes and the pounding of my head. It was a mistake to think I could fly to New York Monday and then back the next day to lay down horns without compromising my immune system. But there was no way in HELL I was going to miss my pop getting inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

Paul McCartney did the induction honors. He was lighthearted and loose. He talked about the start of The Beatle’s record label “Apple,” back in the 60s and how after looking for some talent to put on it, came across a recording of some “haunting” guy who could really sing and play the guitar. They signed James Taylor immediately as one of their first artists. Paul handed the mic off to my dad with a hug. Pop was dressed n black looking not unlike the award he was presented.

Handsome, humble and hysterical my dad held his shiny, new chrome statue in hand. He thanked everyone from his mother to his tour bus company for helping him receive the honor and then, looking severely at the weapon-like statue in his hand said, “I only hope one of these doesn’t fall into the hands of someone desperate enough to use it.” He was a champ and it was a thrill and honor to watch him along with my brother, grandmother and his “snookums” and fiancé Kim, be recognized and embraced by his musical community.

But now, I’m sick and for the past 4 hours (no exaggeration) we’ve been trying to move a horn section on “Fall For Me,” into place. My ears don’t work right anymore. There comes a point in listening to a track where I can predict where flaws are coming and mentally prepare my brain to adjust my ears so that I don’t hear the blemishes. It’s a very odd and frustrating phenomenon. While there isn’t a specific term for it, the concept relates to how brains anticipate musical patterns. The ear develops expectations based on a song’s structure, and when something deviates from that structure (like a mistake), experienced listeners can (intentionally or unintentionally) anticipate it and adjust their focus. I might leave the studio tonight thinking everything sounds perfect, only to return tomorrow to find an entire vocal track racing, or pitchy or missing a lyric. It’s infuriating.

Time does not pass; it just piles up on itself like dirty laundry. It’s 9:45 when I glance at the clock. Then, after what seems like 20 minutes I look again and it’s only 9:47. Two slender minutes have passed and I’m glaring at time as though my intimidating expression might speed the second hand around the racetrack perimeter of my watch face.

I’m in no immediate rush. The rush is not against the minutes but against the months and so I push on fragile seconds to get home, to get to the studio, to get to the next song, to get the artwork done, to get to the plane, to get to New York next Monday, to get this album mixed down, to get this album mastered, to get it pressed, and packaged, to get the band rehearsed and out on the road and promote it. And so I rush it all toward an uncertain future, as though my intimidating expression might speed the second hand around the racetrack perimeter of my watch face.

And now it’s 9:50 and I’m still sick but also still grateful I got to see my dad inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. You’re a badass dad.

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Martha’s Vineyard, MA – “Gig with Mom” – February 27, 2000

I flew home to Martha’s Vineyard on Monday. The winter landscape was purple and honey and the water undulated in a metallic cerulean dress. We rehearsed all week, my mother my brother, and I, for a concert in New Orleans that’s scheduled for tomorrow. My mom doesn’t like to perform period, so rehearsals are mandatory not only to tighten up the band but to loosen up the mom.

While I’d hopped a United economy seat to Boston before a two-hour Peterpan Bus and a ferry to The Vineyard, I was leaving the island in style. Yes, indeed. I’m currently writing from the belly of a cush private plane en route to NOLA. There are platters of cheese & crackers, sushi, and mini omelets. There’s champagne and linen napkins and seats that, not only recline but pivot 180º. I feel VERY spoiled. There are pros and cons to having famous parents. This is a pro. The plane parts the sky like a comb through straight hair and the pilot addresses us personally when he tells us what we can expect from the flight.

But as clutch as my surroundings are, while I’m writing it doesn’t much matter where I am physically— I could be anywhere; in the back seat of Moby, the Alaskan outback or the waiting room of my dentist’s office because I’m not where my feet are. I’m in my own little world. I spend the majority of every day here; daydreaming, remembering, foreseeing, creating, conversing with my better angels, and conspiring with my little devils. The world I escape into is sort of like the “I Dream of Jeannie” bottle. It has velvet cushions and taffeta drapes and is built from a lifetime of amalgamated fragrances and fabrics and love scenes I once watched on TV. In my head, I’m always in luxury because I really love my life, even when it’s challenging, it’s always got cheese platters, 180º swivel chairs on demand, and duct tape to fix almost any situation. It does not, however, have sushi so I must admit, it’s a total plus to come out of my Jeannie bottle, grab a little California roll, and a smidge of wasabi before heading back into my bottle for the next paragraph.

What it feels like to go into my writing world

I’m excited about Mom’s gig but it couldn’t be coming at a worse time. The record is left unfinished back in Colorado. I feel it sitting inside me like an unmade bed. It’s hard to leave a project undone and unchaperoned, especially in that zoo of a home studio back in Boulder. But I’m crossing my fingers and toes that nothing bad will happen in my absence and that I’ll be refreshed and ready to dash to the finish line when I return.

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