Ah, the lushness of the wine country. The sky is a skirt, that teases the ground with its lacey, foggy hem. Logging trucks thunder by on switchbacks, bouncing their open cargo. I can’t help but see the trunks as bodies and ruminate with outrage and guilt about the tragedy of human greed.
Mill Valley was sunny and warm when we arrived midway through a Friday, midway through October, on the cusp of a new West Coast tour. The entire population of Mill Valley (both men and women) are unreasonably handsome. I watched them out the back of Moby strolling in white shorts and stiffened collars. I saw them pretend to window shop as an excuse to check themselves out in storefront reflections. It made me laugh out loud and recall walking New York City streets with my dad in my adolescence. Whenever he’d catch either my brother or me checking ourselves out in a window, he’d whisper cheekily, “How’d you look?” and, busted, we’d all get a good chuckle.
Let me just say, for the record—no one treats artists as well as Sweetwater does! Tom, Sweetwater’s owner, greeted us at the door with open, heart-quenching hugs and insisted on feeding us mountains of gourmet food. Backstage, the boys watched a game on TV in one curtained-off half of the green room, while I sank into the vastness of a red velvet couch in the other half and worked on a new tune about my time on the Colorado River.
When our opener, Matt Nathanson managed to get the audience to do a sing-along to Bon Jovi (of all things) we knew we’d have a great gig. We were not wrong. The house was packed. There was no room to stand and no place to sit either. We lit up that stage like a bonfire. Sometimes, I’ll admit, that when performing, I try to cut songs from the set mid-show. I get feeling bad for the audience that they have to stay out so late and listen to my music and clap for each song and I get thinking to myself, “These people probably wish they were at home, in bed. You’re torturing them, Sally. They don’t want to be here; you’re holding them hostage with your music. Get off stage as fast as you can and give these people a break!” But last night, those thoughts burned up in the stage light. We were one with the audience and no one wanted to go home, especially not me. It was a magical fall night.
Thank you, Sweetwater. Thank you, Tom. Thank you, October. Thank you, black cow in the golden field. Thank you leaves for your selfless, colorful sacrifice. Thank you all so very much for a great first gig of the Roadrunner Tour.
We’re listening to Reggae. My red-toe nail polish is cracking and revealing the 10 coats beneath it. I don’t bring remover on tour, I merely paint over and move on. I’m wearing overalls and flip-flops. Chris Soucy is doing the crossword. I wonder if my dad’s second wife, Catherine Walker, still does the crossword. The thought of Catherine evokes a feeling of being stabbed in the ribs. Intuitively, I sit up straight and behave myself by trying not to breathe.
Catherine was an injured woman. I knew this even at 12 when she and my dad got married at Saint John the Divine’s Cathedral on 113th Street and Amsterdam in New York. She didn’t know how not to make my brother and me the source of her victimhood. I recall summoning all my energy just to keep her arrows of condescension from penetrating me. Even when my brother and I were perfectly behaved, her attitude toward us was unpredictable and abrasive. Some weekends, If we were lucky, she’d hide out in her and dad’s room with her three-legged cat “Kitty,” and her oversized glass of chardonnay full of ice cubes for the duration of our stay.
She had a closet of pets—parrots, bunnies, rats, and 100s of mice who often got lice and were quarantined into multiple cages. She had a chihuahua named “Flea,” she’d found on the street (in Texas I believe) who was always trying to bite Ben and my ankles. When she wasn’t holed up in her room she was a storm cloud that moved around the apartment in a white nighty, sighing loudly whenever she saw us. I spent my time with her trying to make myself invisible the way I imagined I’d hide from a trigger, knowing that if I breathed wrong she might tear me to pieces with her sharp wit.
She was full of “Oh goddddddds” followed by sardonic laughter which cut past my heart into the bedrock of my soul. At my mother’s house, I at least had my own bedroom to escape to where I felt safe and free to be myself. At Dad’s, all he could convince her to sacrifice for us was a single room. No toys, no wall décor – just two single beds pushed up against a wall without a bed frame and I’m sure my dad had to fight for that. She no doubt saw us as extensions of our mother and was only too willing to unleash the full arsenal of her venom on us hoping it might rub off on our mom when we were returned at the end of the weekend.
The thought of Catherine has me looking quite shell-shocked and Soucy leans over to ask if I’m alright. This is how we get to know each other on the road. Someone’s doing the crossword inspires a childhood memory and the next thing you know, we’re trading in divorce traumas and childhood abandonment. This is how a band becomes a family.
I remembered the green room from our show 3 months ago at the Mercury Lounge. It was the worst backstage accommodation I’d ever been in and it remained largely unchanged now. Here is what I wrote about it from our June 11th gig:
The Mercury Lounge is a dark, black box of a venue so while on stage, I was unaware how large our crowd was. When the lights came up, I was delighted to find so many of my NYC friends who’d somehow heard about the show without my direct interference. I was glad my publicist Ariel Hyatt was in attendance so I could congratulate her on promoting the gig so successfully.
My best friend from kindergarten, Rachel Zabar, embraced me with golden glittering eyes and her huge smile which has always seemed to me, to escape the perimeters of her face. Jim Hart, my stepfather, had heard about the show from a colleague at work. A bunch of people from high school, Boulder and Brown were present, and a trickle of people who insisted we’d met before and ‘did I remember their names?’ were there.
This game of “Do you remember my name?” is always embarrassing and no one comes away from it looking good. I learned early on from my dad to lead with context when approaching an acquaintance. Ex. “Hi, it’s Sally Taylor, from Martha’s Vineyard. We went to camp together, you might not remember, it was a long time ago.” And to re-introduce people to each other leading with context as well. Ex. “Hey Dad, you remember Kate, my freshman roommate.”
This way, even if there isn’t immediate recognition, the person can say something like “Of course, now what have you been doing since then?” and no one has to feel embarrassed. My friend Adam (Yes, Adam Natusch from The Boogies) used to love to make prank phone calls (these were the days before people got caller ID boxes). I’d be at his house and, with his red phone already off the hook he’d say, “Give me a number.” One day I gave him my mom’s digits and when she answered the following, now infamous, conversation ensued:
Mom: “Hello?” Adam: “Is this Carly?!?!” Mom: “Yes.” Adam: “You’re never going to guess who this is.” Mom: “Who?” Adam: “It’s Sylvain” Silence. Mom: “Who?” Adam: “Sylvain Brown. Don’t tell me you don’t remember me. I’m already on the ferry on my way over to the Vineyard to see you. You wrote a song about me.” Mom: (Sounding worried) “I did? What was the song?” Adam: “You’re Sylvain!!!!” Mom: “Hmmm…I’m not sure which song you might be—” Adam: (Singing You’re so Vain) “You’re Sylvain, you probably think this song is about—” Mom: (Click, dial tone).
Adam and I rolled around laughing on his floor for a few minutes before I tried to call her back to apologize for the prank (Side note—Do not feel sorry for my mom. She is the queen of pranks and practical jokes and can dish it out as good as she can take it). But she’d taken the phone off the hook, clearly to avoid another call from “Sylvain,” who definitely thought this song was about him. The next day when I went to call her, she’d already changed the number. Mom laughed hysterically when I told her later, that the caller had been Adam and to this day calls him ”Sylvain Brown.”
Midway through signing CDs at the Mercury Lounge, someone dropped a slice of paper on the table in front of me and disappeared into a blur of faces. Ariel and I squinted at the serrated square which read “I ENJOYED THE SHOW. YOU ARE ALL GROWN UP!” and was signed ‘Oren Segal (3rd grade).’ “WHICH WAY DID HE GO?” I shouted to Ariel. “THAT WAY,” she yelled back and pointed toward the front exit “HE HAD A WHITE T-SHIRT ON!” I didn’t have time to explain Oren had been my first crush. He’d bought me a porcelain doll for my 7th birthday and I was sure the gesture meant he wanted to marry me. The delusion of this early proposal dissolved over time but I kept that doll through adolescence displayed up on a shelf hoping someday Oren and I would meet again. It’s sort of disappeared since we left our apartment in New York, but I’m sure it’s somewhere, packed in mothballs and memories, somewhere between the center of the earth and the tips of my fingers.
Outside, the hot streets offered a miraged horizon of blurred red, yellow, and green lights. I marched myself up to the first white T-shirt I saw and said “Hi” just hoping it was Oren, but it ended up being one of those people who insisted we’d met before but whose name I did not know and ‘Did I remember their name?’ I never found him.
Dejected, I walked back to the venue. There, a very pretty woman named Ann Taylor (no relation) introduced herself. She’d come across our web page in the most unexpected, roundabout way. “I was looking on a search engine for Sally Taylor Orchids,” she said, “did you know there is a flower called The Brother Sally Taylor?” I said I hadn’t known but was delighted all the same. “Well,” she said tossing a blond lock behind an ear, “I was searching for this flower when the engine came up with your web page and I clicked on it. I’ve been following your Road Tails ever since and that’s why I’m here tonight.”
This internet thing is amazing!?!?! Until recently, I’d assumed I was shouting into the void. But maybe my words are actually making it through the abyss. Perhaps real people are reading this and enjoying it and what we have to offer. Maybe they’ll consider coming to a show or listening to our music in the future. I can’t believe it. My mind is legitimately blown. Now back to vocal rest and on to Rhode Island.
I played in front of my ol’ man for the first time last night and boy was I nervous!
The night before, he’d put the band up at Stockbridge’s charming “Red Lion Inn,” a Victorian-style bed and breakfast and his groovy girlfriend, Kim and he had us over for dinner. We sat around the table on his porch late into the evening trading hilarious tales from our paralell roads. It felt good to be with my dad and to identify with his musical journey in a new way, from the vantage of my own. The dark enveloped us. Candles were lit and the flickering played a strobe light of smiles across the night. The boys absolutely loved my ol’ man! They couldn’t stop talking about him the whole way back to the inn.
It rained the next day and we returned to my Pop’s to do an unreasonable amount of laundry in their very nice new washer & dryer. In the afternoon, Dad rode up to the show with us in Moby. It felt a little extra stuffy in the van due to the way our clothes stuck to us with velcro-like insistence. Every vehicle over 22 feet long that passed us inspired my dad to point and say: “Now, THAT would be a good ride to tour in!” We’d all agree and offer renovations we’d make to accommodate a touring band:
“Build in Bunkbeds” Yelled Kenny “Could you hang hammocks in a bus like that? I think I’d like to stay stationary around corners.” I’d posit. “All a vehical like that needs is a mini fridge and a coffee machine. I’d sleep on the floor if I could tour in a thing like that,” laughed Delucchi. “You’d probably want to tare out most of the interior, pop the top up and start form scratch.” Proposed my dad imagining the finished product. And just as we were dreaming about perfecting the last van or truck, the next 22-footer would drive by and we’d start all over again.
We had a great Opener, a guy named Mark Erelli, who sang some beautiful original tunes and wasn’t at all bummed about getting to perform them in front of James Taylor. The show was sold out. It had been for 2 weeks according to Meredith and Kent, the beautiful couple who owned the venue. They’d supposedly had to turn away twice their capacity.
I was shaking and nervous in the changing area back stage before I went on and did jumping jacks and leg exchanges to work out some of the nerves. Fitness is my go-to stagefright eraser. My hypothesis being that there’s too much adrenaline pooling in the body and so exersize encourages the heart to pump it out. I am clearly not a doctor and have no way of knowing if this is true but it feels right doesn’t it? Anyhow, it works.
Some nerves are good. If I can convince myself the fear I’m feeling is actually just excitement, I can ride the energy instead of letting it ride me and the effect can be contagious. The trick is to get the crowd to climb on board the butterflies in your stomach and ride them with you to magical heights. To encourage this, I use humor. When I can get an audience to laugh early in a show I know they’re on board and my nervousness starts to abate.
Performance is an art all its own. Before I was a musician, I didn’t know this. I just started writing songs. Then I learned how to play guitar to accompany those songs. Then I learned how to sing while playing guitar and then I learned how play a room of people while singing and playing guitar. I think you become a performing artist the same way you become a ball balancing, plate-spinning, juggler—one skill at a time.
The show was great. My voice was on point and the band was locked in. The audience was respectful and often stood to applaud after a song. At the end of the night, as I was thanking the cowd for coming someone yelled out “Get your dad up for one.” Without hesitation my dad joined me on stage and without a rehearsal we played “Close Your Eyes.” It was sweet and joyous and familiar in the truest sense.
Dad said he was impressed with the show, the band and more than that “I’m just so proud of the way you’re independently tackling this music thing Sal.” We strolled in our matching Taylor lopeing strides toward a loaded-up Moby. “It’s not for the weak of heart my gal,” he continued “and you’ve really got it.” Outside the van, in the parking lot, he turned me toward him. I could hear his familiar breathing pattern—in for 2 out for 10. He put his hands on my shoulders and gave me the Taylor hug—2 pats followed by 3 shakes.
And with that, we waved goodbye under a full moon and forged our way alone toward Maine.
I’m up in the air. Uncle Livingston is flying. He lets/makes me take off and fly the plane for a couple of minutes, under his supervision. I’m scared, and who could blame me after my plane accident in Peru, landing on the PanAmerican Highway and hitting a car. *(See plane accident here. Be sure to scroll).
My voice is scratchy, and I’m exhausted after an all-night drive from Ocean City, MD, to Pittsburgh last night.
We’d rushed loadout and departed at 2 am after the gig. In the door light of the passenger seat, I changed out of my pink top and tight black skirt trading them in for green sweatpants and a pair of knee-high orange striped tube socks. Starting a road trip so late at night reminded me of road trips we used to take from New York City to Martha’s Vineyard when I was a kid. Since my mom was not fond of flying we’d drive up to our summer home in an old 1978 New York City Checker Taxi my dad bought and painted white.
We’d slip out of our apartment on 135 Central Park West after the scary paparazzi that swarmed our stoop from noon til night had all gone home. I remember the coldness that bit at my exposed skin as my father bundled me in a duvet and escorted me from the building to the chubby car. I remember the empty streets and the traffic lights that turned from green to red for no one.
Inside the Checker, my dad would have laid two massive cushions from our couch upstairs into the foot well on either side of “the hump” and that’s where Ben and I slept while my mom and dad took the front seat and blinked back sleep to drive through the night. My mom would wake us when we got to The Woods Hole Ferry.
Those mornings on the water, the first boat of the day, sipping clam chowder from styrofoam cups, feeding gulls oyster crackers off the bow of the deck. Those moments with my mom and dad still together, before the sky shook off the stars, before the haze lifted off the shoreline, our eyes still coated in dreams- those were truly the best times of my life. I can still feel the excitement of summer just beginning, barely opened, like an unwarranted gift.
Back in the van, I propped a hard-cover book behind me to support my lower back and pressed some yellow earplugs into my ears. Brian drove the first shift and somewhere outside of D.C., stopped for gas. In the parking, Bri made silly pig faces and grunting noises at me which I videoed through 4 a.m. blurry eyes. We sang “Happy Now: …stopped for coffee on the way….” when he returned from the gas station with two pipping cups, one for each of us. Our singing woke the rest of the band.
We all swapped seats and Delucchi took the wheel. Having secured the comfiest seat for the first stretch of the drive, I agreed to the least comfy seat for the second. The least comfy seat is the one directly behind shotgun. It’s wretched because you have to sleep with your knees propped into your chest in a vertical fetal position. Somehow as the drive continued, I managed to maneuver into a horizontal position with my feet against the door panel but when I woke up at 6:00, Soucy’s butt was on my ponytail stapling my head to the seat, so I just went back to sleep.
When we arrived in Pittsburgh it was sweltering. The haze was thick and it was as muggy as the inside of a shower stall. My pants stuck to my legs as the five of us birthed ourselves from Moby’s womb and slugged through The Three Rivers Festival fairgrounds. Dazed from the all-night drive, we wandered past cotton candy and fried dough stands and shacks advertising “Chick’n on a Stick’n” and “Veggitarian’s Delight All Pork Hotdogs.” For breakfast, I chose a $4 Chick’n on a Stick’n” and a cherry snow cone which melted immediately in the heat into a pool of cherry slush.
Our outdoor arena featured a giant lawn and a big stage with a white clamshell dome where we found my glorious, tall, and very awake, Uncle Livingston. He was a sight for sore eyes and his Taylor-isms made me miss my ol’ man. I was delighted to introduce him to my band who fell in love with him on the spot, mesmerized by his interminable energy and captivating storytelling. When I mentioned we had two days off he offered me a ride to Martha’s Vineyard on his plane in the morning. I took him up on it.
Now, halfway through our 3-hour flight, and almost at the bottom of a thermos once full of coffee, Liv excuses himself: “Can you hand me that gallon pee jug in the back?” I giggle as he puts the plane on autopilot and turns himself around in his seat. But half an hour later I’ve got to use it too!
The clouds are curdling up here as we float close enough to skim them like foam off the top of a latte. The peacefulness of the untouched sky is unmatched save for some of the snowshoed forevers I’ve been privileged enough to meet.
This little symbol represents the sun, the moon, and the ocean and my aunt, Kate Taylor, created it when she was only 16. Little did she know then it would come to symbolize the whole Taylor family and brand generations of our lineage. Here’s how it happened.
Kate, 16, was doodling with a pal and came up with the circular image you see here. She got her heart set on getting the symbol tattooed on her earlobe. On a trip to visit my dad in London, fresh off the plane, she announced her intention, holding her napkin doodle up to my 19-year-old dad’s icy blue eyes for inspection. My dad, new to London, had just scored the ultimate honor; a record deal with The Beatles’s record label, Apple Records, as its first non-Beatle artist. He was in London to record his first solo album and though he was new to the area, he told sister Kate he’d heard about a guy in the English countryside who inked tattoos on musicians. Kate spent the better part of her visit begging my dad to drive her there.
Photo Credit: Peter Simon
On a rainy afternoon, after a long drive past electric green fields peppered with clouds of sheep, Dad and Kate found their body artist stationed in a makeshift tent. “The guy was covered head to foot in tattoos,” my dad recalled years later “and his wife had a dotted line across her neck with the words “cut here” scribed below it.” Dad slid his finger across his throat with an incredulous, ‘Those were the good ol’ days’ smile spreading across his face.
Unphased by the artist’s severe and ominous-looking work, Kate showed the man her drawing and requested it etched on her earlobe.
“Yer two married?” asked the tattooed man in an almost indecipherable West Country accent.
“What? No. Married? No. This is my brother,” blustered Kate. My dad pronounced his chin and raised his brow in agreement.
“I don’t tattoos unmarried women ‘bove the neck, I don’t. Don’t want any future husbands comin t’get me if yar knew.”
Thinking fast Kate amended her request. “What about on the top of my foot?”
“How old are ya then?” The man continued his inquiry “I don’t put marks on anyone under 18 so.” Kate was devastated. “But you have to,” she cried “This symbol is our family sign,” she lied. The man considered his two patrons as rain dripped from a hole in the roof of the tent and his silent wife organized needles on a table missing a leg. “Alright my lover,” said the man, “if it’s your family sign then your brother’s gettin’ it too.”
And that’s the legend of our family tattoo. My dad walked out of the tent that day with his sister Kate’s sun, moon, and sea branded on his right shoulder and Kate walked hers out on the top of her left foot. The rest of their siblings followed suit in the years that followed. I got mine in Newport, Rhode Island the day I turned 18 driving there in my own rainstorm. It hangs in the sky of my upper back. To me it represents my family having my back and G.O.D: the Great Out Doors. It represents who I am at my core: strength, integrity, stability and truth.
It’s the day before my 25th birthday and my moods are as tropical as a pina colada. I cannot stand the way I feel in my skin. I look fat and bloated especially when I smile which makes me frown and feel worse. My eyelids feel too heavy to open and my hair feels like straw.
The fact that it’s a glorious day and I’m in a green Mustang convertible, sipping a mocha frappuccino outside a Starbucks on Sunset Strip just proves that happiness is not contingent on external circumstances. Joy is an inside job.
Let’s see, how can I summersault myself into a different way of metabolizing this moment….
I’m wearing my tight red sweater. Golden, shoe-string braids hang lightly over my shoulders. The breeze is cool on my cheeks and life is actually pretty sweet. I mean fuck it,that my new barrettes flew out of the window as I cruised down the 10. Fuck it that my pants feel tight around my waist. I am a totally powerful babe and pitying myself for being a woman is not, and has never been helpful.
There, that’s better.
Dad called while I was grabbing breakfast at “The Firehouse” in Venice. Over an egg white omelet and hot coco, he congratulated me on making it to a quarter century.
“You’re half my age and you’ll never be younger than half my age EVER again!” He reported enthusiastically which I thought was a very dad-like calculation to have made. I thanked him for inviting me to this life and letting me tag along for a while on his. He liked that.
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
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.
I successfully handed out all 10 copies of my rough demo of songs on my trip to LA. Some of the songs I recorded with “Not Eric,” now calling itself “Tiny Yellow Ducks.” Others I recorded on my 4-trac in my apartment which feature the scratching skills of Fatty J who likes to get in on the action. I felt weird about handing out my cassettes with their handwritten song titles. It was so self-promoting and forward but when I was sure I was going to die on the airplane back to Denver I kept chanting through hyperventilating breaths “Everything is gonna be OK” and “Your babies (songs) are out there.” And that made me feel reassured.
I woke up to an enthusiastic message from Mom. Overly enthusiastic in fact. She was raving about my music. “I just got the tape this morning and it’s so amazing. I’ve only listened to the first 4 songs but I love ‘Complaints’ and ‘In My Mind’ is great and ‘Sign of Rain.’ The line about Alex liking when the weather matches how he feels inside is fabulous.” It was sweet of her to overzealously compliment my music. Before I put the cassette in the mail to her I told her how much her opinion meant to me and how vulnerable I felt about sending her my “Babies.” She was excited for me but in my heart, I disbelieved her enthusiasm. It felt too expensive and perhaps too elusive to claim.
Dad met in Boulder for lunch at “Dot’s Dinner with a bunch of my pals, musicians, record company execs, and Kipp, my new boyfriend. Clustered into a red pleather booth inside the makeshift gas station, we bribed waiters for egg white omelets and talked shop.
Back at Dad’s hotel room #300, I played him a couple of songs: “Cowboy” and “I Meant To” which he tweaked and twanked but said he liked a lot. “I’m blown away by what you do with your voice.” He told me, “Your soul really comes through in your music.”
“That means a lot to me pop.” I said and of course, that was an understatement.
He asked me if I wanted to take Ben’s route into the music business: “You know, find a manager, a record label, and a booking agent and go all in?” he asked, elbows on knees watching the floor like it were a taro card. I Couldn’t tell if he was offering to help me or not. “You’ve got what it takes to make it in the industry though I’d never wish this career on anybody.” He said. “Being a musician, it’s a blue-collar gig my Sal. It takes a ton of elbow grease and grit and it ain’t easy on relationships either” He said.
It was the first time I actually believed such a thing (a big famous-filled career with all the glitz and all the shit) was possible. As I peered in at the possibility in the cloud bubble above my dad’s head, the idea looked not so appealing. Too big, too scary, too fast. Too many sharks swimming in the icy dark water. So I said “No. No pop. I think I want to go it alone.”
Leaving Dad and walking back up the hill to my pad it hit me, I don’t really know all that goes into a music career. You think I would, having grown up with two legendary musicians as parents but frankly, I don’t even think they fully know.
As the sun dipped below the surface of the day I realized I wanted to create my own label. I want to find my own band, I want to book my own gigs, and do my own PR until I know how much I’d pay someone not to have to do those jobs anymore. I want a hands-on music business career.
My pace picked up as the night grew sweater-worthy and I passed by the Fox Theater where people qued in Birkenstocks to see Zuba in concert. The first thing I’m going to do next week is make a better recording of my demo tape, next, I’ll find a bunch of band mates and then. I’m going to buy a big ass van.
