27 Jul – The Joint (Los Angeles, CA)
International Pop Overthrow festival
w/the Supers; Walter Clevenger and the Dairy Kings; and a bunch of others and I don’t have the list in front of me
Alright, so, first things first, because most of you will have read reviews elsewhere…
Yes, we got an encore. Yes, this is a rare occurrence at IPO.
And yes, I still managed to be neurotic and suck the life out of it afterwards. This is why people love me.
It took me 15 hours to get to Los Angeles on Friday, flying on stand-by. They confiscated my wire cutters out of my guitar case, though they did allow me, on both flights, to stow the case on the plane rather than check it. I had thought that I’d be getting into LA early on Friday, and so would have some time with some friends of mine, plus some time to see a few IPO shows. But by the time I finally got there it was early evening and I’d be going back to the airport to pick up Chris and his wife in a couple of hours. So it was just a quick dinner, a jaunt to the airport and then off to the hotel to crash.
Saturday we were up early and I took the Chris and Robyn driving to get myself another pair of wire cutters, and then some makeshift touring since they’d never been to LA before. My knowledge being limited itself I’m not sure how good of a tour it was, but I showed them the obvious sites, drove aimlessly for a bit, and visited a place Sarah and I had seen two years ago, a huge Elks Club that had been built in 1925 or so. It’s an amazing little bit of Art Deco that they were restoring into a hotel then and I wanted to see how far along it had come. The scaffolding was gone but they were still working on the upper floors. We could get inside though, and we received an impromptu tour of the first two floors, mainly ballrooms. It’s just as amazing inside as out. It also sits across from McArthur Park, and so I serenaded Robyn with Richard Harris’ finest song (not to her enjoyment) for a bit before we left.
We stopped by The Joint that afternoon, where our show would be that evening, to see the day shows going on. I caught most of John Brodeur’s set, and he was good. I spoke maybe five words to him afterward, one more awkward conversation in my career. I’ve really mastered them, I think. The club was very different from the shows I saw two years previous, which had allowed for a lot more shmoozing in between sets. This club made it virtually impossible, it was small and dark. So, we left pretty much after his set, I wanted to get back and restring the guitar and perform all the pre-show rituals. Plus, I felt out of place. I always come into these things thinking this might be the moment where I feel I’ve connected, where I’ve found the group of musicians where I will feel a part of things. But that never happened, and that marks two IPO festivals. I’m not entirely sure I will try a third.
Anyway.
We got back to the club around 6:30, thinking we’d get extra time to set up and maybe get a level of comfort with the place. The day shows ended at 5pm and there was a two hour break before ours began. But the club was closed until 7pm, so we waited outside, having finally met up with Lyle and Lee (the rest of the band). Once inside we set up quickly and had a very quick sound check. I saw a few people very very briefly before we began. The club was full. IPO shows have a built in crowd, so I hadn’t been very worried about the turnout, but Lee also grew up there and so had a large contingent of people out. Thank you, seriously, each and every one of you.
We started the set. And there’s not much I can tell you. It seemed to go well. I was relatively animated, apparently, which is good. The stage was very small and literally about five feet off the ground (with only a metal ladder to climb up), so it wasn’t a stage that really encouraged you to move a lot. I think, as I recall it, it went a lot better than any of our rehearsals, that extra bit of adrenaline pushing things where they had needed to be. Big cheers, I seem to recall the end of “Jeff Lynne” in particular getting a good response. The amps were provided, and for the life of me I could not shut off the distortion on mine, but did manage to get it to a decent level, so I think it worked. For the first two songs I couldn’t hear my guitar at all, and knew I’d start breaking strings if I didn’t do something. I turned it up after the first and still couldn’t hear, so repeated it after the second, and suddenly it was drowning everything out. None of this was reflected for the crowd mix, from what I understand, which is good. We finished “Hitchcock Blonde” and the crowd cheered. We started to unplug (to run, smiling, from the stage, of course) and David Bash (the organizer and emcee) came up to do his bit, and he asked me if we had another song. We had rehearsed an extra one even though I honestly didn’t believe it would be necessary.
And here is where the neurosis begins.
See, when he came up, he commented on my “fan club” and he asked me if we had one more really quick one. I told him we had another, about three and a half minutes like pretty much everything else. And he said, “oh, okay.” He then started talking on the mic, speaking as if the set was done. I wasn’t sure what he had meant, and we were all looking at each other unsure as to whether we were or weren’t playing another song. I caught his eye and sort of asked, was that a yes or no, and he turned to the mic and asked the crowd if they wanted another. Which was the last thing I had intended, and suddenly I felt like the jerk on stage who had weaseled himself another song. I felt like a complete ass. We played the song (after I cracked my skull on Lee’s guitar) and David came back up, referred again to the “fan club” and told them there was a lot more music coming up that they might enjoy, too.
This is what it’s like to be me.
I have been told repeatedly by others who were there that they didn’t get that sense from what happened at all. David Bash is a sweetheart of a guy, I might add, and has sought me out both times for IPO. So, believe it or not, I KNOW that this is all ME. He was up front, dancing with someone through the whole set. It’s also important to note that I had this same sort of neurotic freakout after the set two years ago. It’s this desire to feel like I’m part of a larger scene, and when it doesn’t come off like I imagine it I pick apart the minutiae until all that’s left is a corpse. So, sometimes even I wish I would just shut up. In the end, it was a great set, but because of my own head, I have to rely on the reports of others to be left with this determination.
David patted me on the back a couple of times as he walked by after the set. I hung out for most of the rest of the show, hanging with most of the above people until they left, and then stayed there alone for a while. I was still wallowing in feeling out of place at the time, but was complimented by a few people. I sold 12 CDs, and that would be 12 more than last time. Some people signed up for the mailing list, including John Borack who writes for Amplifier among other things. Swapped compliments with the Supers (from Toronto) who played a couple of slots after me (and did a really smart cover of “Take On Me” as a country number).
I left and met up with some of the crowd, plus Lee and Lyle, at a restaurant several miles away. Chatted for a bit, and then drove Lyle and Lee back to the club to their car. I walked across the street to get a Mountain Dew and then was waiting to cross the street again when two guys came up to me and called me by name. They had driven up to IPO from Phoenix, had listened to music online to determine who to come see, mine being one of them. They went on and on about how great the show was, and how great my music was. This was hours after I had played, and it was a very strange feeling, standing on the streets of LA in my technicolor suit, being told that these guys can’t get my music out of their “fucking heads.” It didn’t sink in then but has slowly seeped into my consciousness since, and I think may have single-handedly shut down the neurosis and left me feeling as if maybe the show was a success.
Then it was back to the hotel, and after some chatting crashed.
Sunday I spent the day with Scott and Maggie. We had a nice breakfast and then they humored me in my pilgrimage to the Museum of Jurassic Technology, a place that I can only describe as a Borges story brought to life. I could spend the entire day there, not just for the exhibits but for the skill in presenting them, the place is magical for me, and that’s not a word I would throw around lightly. We stopped by a bookstore and I got a copy of the new McSweeney’s (which, when I finally opened it today, turned out to be missing the accompanying TMBG CD, so I’m not sure exactly how I’m going to rectify that), and then we went and got excellent Italian food.
Back to the hotel, slept. Went to airport Monday morning. They forced me to check my guitar this time, despite my protest that they didn’t on the way out (“well, you should have left it at home”). Bumped from flight. Took flight to Salt Lake in hopes of connecting to Atlanta from there. Bumped from Atlanta flight. No other flight until 11:55pm. Gave up and went to hotel. Paid money I did not have. Went to airport again on Tuesday morning (the first words out of the shuttle driver’s mouth were, “Early enough for ya?” Really. He nearly died). Finally got flight to Atlanta. Came home. Passed out.
Things happened while I was gone. These will be discussed soon. They are good.
I’m tired of typing now.