23 Sept – 12th and Porter (Nashville, TN)
24 Sept – the Slow Bar (Nashville, TN)
I suppose I’m really going to have to change my method of writing these if I’m going to be playing several shows in a row, if only because they’re going to get fairly repetitive.
Monday I drove up to Nashville for two shows. I was staying the night with Adam McIntyre, the person who hopped onstage at the CD release party to play bass on “Picture Book,” and his wife. They put up with me sleeping on their extremely comfortable couch for a day. Monday night was “12 at 12th” (in other words, open mic night at 12th and Porter) and I was the first act up. Two songs, and the crowd was bigger than I used to see when I was still doing open mics at Eddie’s Attic here. Couldn’t see the crowd at all but they cheered, and in the glare of the light I could see someone tapping their feet near the front of the stage. We’ll see if it gets me back into the club.
I felt badly for the next act, though, he had an amazing string of bad luck. He was playing five songs, and midway through the first song his cord began to short out, so he was forced to stop and switch cords. He finished that song and played the next, and then midway through his third song he broke a string. The emcee came up to occupy the crowd while the guy switched strings quickly, and once he was set he just went straight into his fourth song (I guess figuring he was losing time as it was). Then he started in on his fifth song and another string on his guitar had suddenly gone horribly out of tune, at least a couple of steps. He paused in the middle of the song to tune it up with a quick twist, but it immediately dropped down again. I’ve never seen anything like that happen before and I’ve been the victim of some weird guitar freakouts in my time. So he just finished the song out of tune. The crowd had been talking loudly through the set anyway, and they gave a smattering of applause and that was that. You had to feel for the guy, really. Especially given the fact that he had driven all the way up from Atlanta to play the show, trying to get his foot in the door of the club. And because he would have preferred to play the show with a band to begin with, particularly when the club was obviously a band club, and the remaining acts (who the crowd had come to see) were all bands.
But mostly I felt for the guy because it was me and that was my show Tuesday at the Slow Bar.
I had a nice time with Adam and Ellen, at any rate.
Just to bring the whole thing thematically to a close… one of the people who played Monday night after me was really amazing, I thought. Her name was Adrienne, she played acoustic and had a gorgeous voice. I talked to her afterwards, briefly, and we complimented each other. It turned out she was playing Atlanta Wednesday night at the Earl, so I went out there last night to see her. We said hello, talked briefly again, I mean, it’s not as if we know each other or anything (but it’s an important, if unsurprising, lesson to keep in mind that High Fidelity was JUST a movie and those things just don’t happen). That was really about it, but I sat at the club during her set feeling out of place once again, ultra-conscious of how I was sitting and that I was alone and felt awkward as hell being there. A culmination of the Nashville experience and the start of genuine touring for me.
Maybe it will help to convey just why I play down the things that are going on right now, because it can be very easy to get caught up in the glow of playing at home in front of 150 people and really crash hard when you travel out of state a week later to play a “New Faces” night at a club that’s never heard of you to a crowd that wants you to shut up already.