We’ve played The Howling Wolf two nights in a row.
My audience is so generous. People shower me with unmerited gifts after shows. Some give me pot, some mushrooms, some validation, some drunken hugs, and sometimes someone gives me pieces of myself I thought I’d lost for good or didn’t even know to miss. Sometimes it’s a photograph or the recollection of a summer day our paths crossed at a county fair. These are the most precious of post-gig gifts. The true benefit of celebrity affiliation is that people collect pieces of your life you didn’t know to make precious in the moment. Here are a few such gifts.
Tag on the lawn with mom and BenGoing on tour with mom and dadA ride to the beach in mama’s hot red convertableRachel Zabar & me in our matching Betsy Johnson dresses.Halloween in NYC. The gypsy and the pirate.MonaCan cook out with dad in the woodsLoosing my two front teethKacked out next to my dad with a bottleStarstruck at DisneyMe in a winter tutu with ‘Ellie’ the elephantDance party with my bro in my room in NYCMama warming me up after a dip in the pool on Martha’s Vineyard
On Garton’s walls, hang pictures of bands playing on its stage before they were famous. A barely recognizable 23-year-old Sheryl Crow with what looks like a blond poodle glued to her head rocks out from an unpresumptuous black frame. A framed, faded press clipping reads “Dave Matthews Band plays Gatrton’s,” and shows what looks like a picture of a glorified high school garageband. There are many other impressive pre-famous faces entombed in glass and unimpressive frames bolted to Garton’s walls. I felt grateful to be among such a crew of musicians.
The show was a huge success. I managed to sell 40 CDs! and finally (phew) made a profit ($100 bucks) on a gig alone.
The band stayed up late, long past closing time. Long after the audience had gone home and the bolts on the doors had bit their mechanical locks. With the staff and bartenders we drank wine and played pool and a handsome guy named Dax from LA flirted with me and I let him. When we left the club at 3:00, Dax carried my guitar down to the van to say goodnight. He kissed me a little goodbye too.
The band condo was a refrigerator with beige rugs to hide beige stains and cigarette burns. Out of three rooms, I got the one with the king-size bed. With an unexpected 5th wave of energy, we gathered out in the living room, perched on the arms of tweed couches and rummaged through plastic swag bags generously left for us from the staff at Garton’s. We traded each other chocolates for granola bars and Advil for Dentine. I found a pair of black sweatpants in the closet and put them on. It was cold and I didn’t care whose they were. We fell asleep one step ahead of the sun. The next afternoon, on our way back to Boulder, the boys bought me floor mats for Moby for Christmas. They’re the best.
I’m feeling sick to my stomach. Perhaps it’s because of the severe intestinal flu that sent me to the ER for an anti-nausea IV in the middle of the night on Monday. More likely it’s from the confounding questions my new booking agent, Cassy Burbeck needs answers to before he can start booking a national tour for me. Casey wants to know: What’s my budget? What’s on my rider? Who’s in my band? What is my stage plot (what even is a stage plot?) Will we be ready in time for the Lillith Fair? Where do I see myself in 6 months? A year? A decade? I can’t imagine where I’ll be in 6 days let alone 6 months. But I need a booking agent. Booking myself is just the pits! Venues stiff me and won’t call back to confirm the show beforehand. Having booked my shows for three months now, I know exactly how much I’d pay not to have to do this job anymore, and when Casey says the going rate for agents is 10% of all gigs, that seems more than fair to me.
But my stomach still hurts, even after reconciling with my choice to hire Casey and answer all his scary questions and when I ask my stomach to tell me what’s at the root of its dis-ease an image pops up in my mind of my mama. Earlier in the week, she was driving in her car, just minding her own business and was delighted when one of her songs came on the radio. As she retold the story to me later in the evening on the phone, I imagined her bopping along to “You’re so Vain,” or “Jesse” or “Coming Around Again” as she threaded her way home, over backroads lined with puckerbrush and winter white slush on Martha’s Vineyard.
At the end of her song, the DJ took a random caller who said “I saw Carly Simon at the anti-impeachment rally the other day and she looked awful. I tell ya, I used to dig her when she was hanging around with James Taylor but she’s gotten OLD man.” My mama recounted the insouciant caller with a New York accent.
“Yeah, her skin’s all wrinkly.” agreed the DJ.
“I guess that’s what happens when ya get old.” the caller theorized, “Your skin starts fallin’ off the bone.” They both laughed. My mama cried all day. I would too. “It’s not fair mama.” I told her, “You’re sooooo beautiful! You’re timeless. You’re so talented. You’re a legend!” and I thought ‘why am I going into this profession?!?!
As I hung up I just kept telling myself ‘It’ll be OK. The work I’ve done on myself will spare me the worst of my ego’s weaponry down the line.’ But more than anything, I worry about getting hijacked by the spotlight and imprisoned by the applause. Here are some exercises I promise myself to do to avoid the consequences of my future successes and failures.
I’ll make fun of myself.
I’ll make a point of enjoying other’s successes.
I’ll separate my self-worth from my music’s value to others.
I’ll never be jealous or bitter.
I’ll never do anything just because it’ll “look good,” or “boost my image.”
I’ll believe in everyone I surround myself with.
I’ll stay curious and humble and trust my decisions.
I won’t trust anyone.
I hope it’s enough. I’m sorry mama. It’s not fair. My stomach aches for you.
I woke up on a sunburnt, brown, valore couch belonging to Charlie, a pal of a pal of a pal of Kipps who put us up after a late night turned into an early morning. A river bent itself around the small timber-frame shack like a boa constrictor. I noticed other lumps sleeping on other surfaces around the bright livingroom and registered them as musicians from various bands passing through town. Their instruments lay naked in various semi-precarious possitions. A guitarist was actually using his ax as a pillow. I picked at an unreasonable amount of dog hair in the blanket covering me, before realizing it actually was the dog’s blanket. A golden retriever stared at me with hunched ears. I imagined the inquisitive expression he wore pertained to my insensitivity having robbed him of his comforter overnight.
We opened for Little Feet at the Fox last night and the audience drank us up like a sponge. Valiant fans shushed and shooed stray voices that arose to inadvertently distract them from earview. They thought I was funny too and they laughed in tandem as I told only semi-funny jokes and danced around in gold and green shimmering stage lights. I wasn’t even nervous. But there’s nothing like a horrendous gig to make all subsequent gigs feel freeing and nothing could have been as horrendous as the gig in Telluride.
As I repositioned my sleep-kinked body to make room for the disgruntled dog, Charlie appeared in blue boxers and a head full of electrified hair. Coffee in hand and lashes pasted shut he stole the space I’d just freed for his pup and muttered “I like you’re CD more than Alanis Morrissette’s” then, promptly fell asleep to open-mouth chainsaw the air with snoring. The other bodies sang along.
I’ve heard having a resentment is akin to lighting yourself on fire and hoping the smoke will bother the person you’re pissed at. I played a gig in Steamboat over the weekend cursed with wretched mic feedback that screeched like a banshee every few songs and threatened to chase away my crowd. I know it’s not saying much, but, between loud shrieks, I felt like the small audience really listened.
My boyfriend was drunk and stoned and rushed around the crowd like a whirling dervish doing squat thrusts and challenging people to wrestle. I could hear him shouting over the music and felt embarrassed. The ride back to Boulder was full of silence, hours of heart-shattering mountain beauty, and spitting resentment.
Dad was coming to town. He called Thursday to say he was at the international airport in Denver and, would I be interested in playing “Sign of Rain” at his sold-out 18,000 Fidler’s Green Amphitheater show over the weekend.
His call came in as I was packing up after a terrible, nerve-wracking gig opening for a local gal named Lee Nestor. I clutched my new cell phone between my shoulder and my ear as I repeatedly stabbed my guitar into my trunk trying to tetris it between a mic stand and amplifier. The night was cool. A low garland of clouds stood sentinel around the foot of the Flatiron lit by the moon.
“What Dad?!?”
“Do you want to play one of your songs at my gig at Fiddler’s this weekend?”
“Yes, Of course, I want to Dad! God, thank you so much for asking.”
“Sure my Sal. I really love that song.” I was terrified and thrilled.
“Let’s meet up before the show and work out some parts.”
“Yeah, sure, of course,” I said absentmindedly, consumed by fear at the prospect. How was I going to play for 18,000 people when I’d just come from an audience of 20 shaking from head to toe?
Dad and I met up backstage at Fiddler’s Green on the day of the show in the Kraft services room which was peppered with processed meats, chips and sugar cookies. I grazed nervously on pineapple slices skewered un-consentually with grapes on flimsy toothpicks. Dad fisted handfuls of mixed nuts, tossing them around in his palm like a percussion instrument waiting to finish his last mouthful. It was great and relieving to see him. We sat on red pleather couches and worked up some harmonies. He complimented my voice which made my confidence soar.
But after sound check and vocal exercises and the last pineapple kabob, I began to get nervous in a way I’ve never before experienced. I had to put a towel over my head and lie down on the couch in Dad’s dressing room. I found myself choking on heartbeats stuck in my throat.
When I told Dad how scared I was, he reassured me sweetly, “You know, I still get nervous going on stage too Sal.” I was pretty sure this was untrue but his warm hand on my shoulder was gentle and calming and even when he left me in the shadow, stage left, to enter the blinding lights on stage, I could still feel his hand there, letting me know it’d be ok.
I don’t think I moved, let alone took a full breath between that moment and the time he introduced me. But as he said into the mic “I’d like to introduce my own flesh and blood, Sally Taylor.” I pulled my spirit back into my belly with a full laugh and a toss of my giant hair. I leaned into every one of those knife-like nerves knowing they had enough voltage to electrocute me. I didn’t squint into the light, I let it burn me alive and as I plucked the first 3 strings, I was connected to Source by 36,000 eyes. This was AMAZING and miraculously, as I went into the chorus “Maybe it’s a sign of rain..” the heavens opened up and it started to rain a warm, relieving, summer rain on the crowd. I could hear an audible “ahh –“ and when I turned to look at Dad, his eyes were glowing like sapphires, full of pride.
My song. MY song. MY SONG! Vibrating through all those hearts.
And here is what I learned — The nervousness I felt, was my body’s reaction to resisting the love trying to come through me, meant for the audience. It was so hard to hold all the love the universe had in store for that giant crowd. I didn’t trust I could deliver it. I felt like a congested pen desperate to deliver ink to a brilliant thought. I realized that perhaps that is the job of the artist. Dancers, writers, painters, perfumers, singers, we strive, less to create than to remove obstacles that stand in the way of people receiving the love always meant for them. We attempt to transcribe universal love into the language of the human heart. We are conduits, vessels, and postmen. are pens, not the ink.
Thank you Dad. What an amazing opportunity. Thank you Fiddler’s Green. Thank you Rain.
The CD is mastered! I have in my hand one shiny, polished, bouncing baby CD. I hold it in my hands and look through the donut hole in the center staring into my future. This is the CD from which all other Tomboy Bride CDs will be copied. It scares the shit out of me. Now I feel like I truly understand the saying “Fruits of your labor.” This music production is not for the weak-hearted I am exhausted and completely freaked out. How on earth did I end up with this thing that seems to breathe without me and yet IS me? Listening to it on the car speakers on my way home from mastering is unbearable. Each note sounds off somehow yet I know I’m just too close to it to hear it without all my insecurities clapping my ears like a schoolyard bully.
I played “Catacombs” this week with The Women From Mars, a collection of local gals who get together monthly despite where they are in their tour cycles. We play together to benefit breast cancer research. The night was vibrant and it was healing to be surrounded by my mountain sisters; Wendy Woo, Jude, Nicole Jamrose, Liza Oxnard, and Libby Kirkpatrick to name a few. We strung guitars and tried each other’s gloss and essential oils in the green room. We nicknamed our backstage “the womb” and we bonded, listening to each other’s latest strummings and celebrating our girl power.
I returned home to a call from Phil Ramone (of The Ramones!). He told me he’d loved my tape. “You’ve got a lot of nice stuff here Sally. Send me the CD when it’s done. I want to present it to Music Boulevard,” he said. I was thrilled and flattered.
Kipp asked me to open up for Zuba (the awesome band he manages) for a strand of Colorado gigs. I was grateful for the opportunity but after our first gig at “State Bridge” outside Vail, standing up under a sign that read “Let’s Rodeo,” singing with my little acoustic guitar for cowboys and Hell’s Angels I realized I’d gotten in over my head. Kipp and I scored a top bunk in the band house. The night was cold and every two hours a train passed through the yard so loud it might’ve raised the dead. The following day Zuba did a radio interview where the drummer, Wallace introduced himself as: “Hi, I’m stoned.” I’m going to see if Kipp will excuse me from the rest of the dates.
Jeremy Leichter arrived in Boulder and now my band is complete.
My Band
Kenny Castro = Bass
Brian McRae = Drums
Jeremy Leichter = Lead guitar & BG Vocals
Me = Rhythm Guitar & Vocals
Jeremy came out to the studio today and I am currently listening to him track a killer solo on “Happy Now.” He laid down nine guitar tracks effortlessly and cut some harmonies that flew out of his throat with wings. I’m in heaven. All the pieces are falling into place. Mary Jane (MJ) a local booking agent, generously offered to book us a few shows. I scrawled venue names and dates she’d secured on a tic tac-sized sticky note.
“Tomboy Bride.” That’s what I’m going to call this album. I wrote most of the songs for it in Telluride overlooking Bridalvail Falls under an old mining town called Tomboy. The recording is almost done and all that’s left to do is mix and master. Of course that is just the beginning. What a caterpillar calls the end, the world calls a butterfly. I don’t know who said that but it rings true here. Once the music is done the production begins. I’ll need a website and CD artwork and some radio and print interviews lined up, and then of course there are gigs.
Oh my God what have I gotten myself into? I’m scared of being publicly rejected and humiliated but I’ve learned something from this crazy creative process:
Bravery is not the absence of fear. It’s being scared and doing it anyway.
Things have been crazy and now I HATE my album. I never want to hear any of these songs ever again after this damn thing is over.
I’ve been singing out of tune for DAYS! It’s driving me crazy and I drove home tonight listening to music I couldn’t bear to sing along with least I’d have to hear my own voice.
Sometimes I have a shitty day. I haven’t slept well or eaten enough or I’ve eaten too much or not exercised. These are the days I worried about to Fausta back in her hippy therapy shack on Martha’s Vineyard.
It’s these days when my soul feels rubbed raw and every voice in my head is yelling “What do you think you’re doing? You are SHIT at this! Your songs suck. Your voice sucks. You can’t play guitar for shit and you look like ass.” During these self-abusive sessions, I look to anything that will drown the voices out. Sometimes a drink puts the fire out. Sometimes I just have to go to bed. But when I can’t sleep, I turn to applause to repair the cuts and bruises I inflict on myself. The battery is relentless and can go on for days.
Sleep is the healthiest of my crutches but it doesn’t always work. Last night, for instance, I woke up with the fullest brain of assholes I’ve ever experienced. “You can’t be a musician.” They said, “You suck and your songs suck.” “You can’t perform.” “What were you thinking recording a demo?”
Sometimes I feel so small that if my body were just a 1/2 a pound lighter I’d fall through the cracks in the sidewalk. In these moments I say to myself “I’m nothing. I am nothing. I am a housewife. I am Betty Crocker and where’s my little tiny cooking set?”
And then I feel sudden bouts of relief. The sort that alo vera brings to burns, the sort that tingles like mint jelly on lamb chops, the sort that nibbles like patient waves at the crust of a shoreline. But then the dis-ease begins again and I want to scream and fill canyons with echos. Instead, I silently cry and scratch my face until the pain subsides.
I had to wake Kipp and beg him to hold me “Just talk me down.” I begged, my breathless tears nearly strangling me as he rocked me back to sleep.
Booze and applause are decidedly the more detrimental of my crutches. And, while alcoholism runs in my family and is a risky rod to bait, an addiction to applause would surely take me down quicker than a career in booze. Drinking applause when you need it is different from accepting it as an unnecessary gift. It wakes my roaring ego, that dangerous and skilled villain, who speaks to me in my own voice and locks me out of my own soul.
How I’ll stay away from ego:
I’ll make fun of myself.
I’ll make a point of enjoying other success.
I’ll love myself regardless of whether others enjoy my music.
I’ll never be jealous or bitter. I’ll never do anything just because it might “look good” or “boost my image” but I will believe in everyone I surround myself with and I will believe in all my decisions.
I feel 8 months pregnant with this record. It’s too late to turn back now and yet I’m scared as shit to give birth to it and set it free into the world. How will it be received? Who will love it? Does it matter?
I just want perform to my very best, sing with all my might, and do it to an absorbent crowd.
On Tuesday, Wendy and I got together in the morning to lay down guitar tracks. Unfortunately, I ruined the session with my terrible mood. I’d taken antihistamines to counter my hay fever and they made me bristly, snappy, and slightly agro. We left the studio at noon having accomplished little. We agreed to take a beat and reassemble for a nighttime session at 6 pm.
My best pal Kate suggested we go to the batting cages to get let off some steam. What a gift it is to have a friend like Kate. We hit balls and raced go-carts and watched horses trample the dry earth into dirt and dust.
Afterward, we went clock shopping, not for a device by which to tell time, but for an instrument that gave the right “tick.” I wanted a real clock “tocking” the time in place of a metronome in my song “The Goodbye.” Kate and I must have looked very funny holding our ears up to different clocks and I assume most people thought I was mad when I loudly requested silence from an entire shop before bending down to listen to the intonations of a specific coo coo. But finally, out of exhaustion, I opted for a cheep $5.95 pharmacy wind-up alarm clock. It ticked in ¾ time but somehow managed to work for the song in 4/4. You can hear it here.
Brian McRae (drummer) and Greg (stand up bassist) laid down tracks in the evening and even though everyone thought “The GoodBye” and “When We’re Together” were my weakest tunes, I advocated for them to be on the record. It made me think that maybe I’m beginning to believe in myself.
We were at the studio until the wee hours of morning. Each time we hit record, we had to remember to also shut off the house fans, close the door, and hit the buzzing dimmable lights to ensure complete background silence. In those moments of dark and silence, lit by candles and smiles, we held our breath hoping for a steady performance, one that wouldn’t need to be redone or patched. We sipped shitty 3.2 gas station beer and by 5 am we were stumbling out into a newly broken dawn. Bass tracks were complete on “The GoodBye,” “When We’re Together,” “Small Town,” “In My Mind” and “Red Room.”
I know I change my mind about it every day but I think this demo/record will turn out to be grand. And if it DOES suck, it won’t be because of the musicians.
