Late-Night Drinking

I'm writing this a little late, and more than a little foggy in my head. This has not been a good week for sleep. Sorry to my wife for all my restlessness, but those things come in waves. Just the consequence of living for music.

The last two weeks have been non-stop, so I took yesterday evening with the guys and stayed out late-night drinking, having talks that were way to involved, books, writing, race, all those fuzzy speeches, that spill out of late-night podiums from pseudo-philosophers like myself.

It's too much I know. But I can't help it sometimes.

I can say being that guy is all terrible. A lot of good ideas come from venting. Pushing out all the weird ideas I carry and letting them go.

It was when I got home, the house completely quiet and dark except for the light over the sink, that I took a long breath. 

It was good.

I threw off my shoes. Made a snack of cheese, hummus and a slice of bread, not very creative but delicious none the less, and ate standing over the stove top, humming a song, and thinking this was a really good place to be. And I didn't just mean snack-wise.

The tracks with Larry are sounding amazing. We will be finishing the last song on Saturday, before the Mixing phase. 

Idyll Green is putting together a song to give away which will be out soon along with some really cool visual stuff. 

Tuesday night we recorded the first episode of the podcast that I think came out great, and I have a lot more to do. 

So much that it is intimidating. 

And exhausting. 

And fun. 

Through all of the work. This whole experience of collaborating, building, and creating Idyll Green has been one of the most fun projects that I have done in a long time. And that's a lot to be thankful for. 

And last night I found that, in the dark of my house. Alone. Tired. Content.



until next week



-rene



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A Long Trip Home

I'm going to tell you about a trip when our friend Jack drove the three of us through a long western night; determined to get us all home in one 35 hr go.

The first hours were the easiest.

No matter how tough or grueling a tour is, I always get a boost when we leave our final hotel. So it's no thing to pass 8 - 12 hours trading playlists on our phones and burning pavement. But at the 16th hour, just barely approaching halfway, that feeling turns into something else. Some new kind of exhaustion. Cause I know the only thing between home and me is time.

"Why don't you get some sleep? You can rotate back in the morning," Abe said jumping from the backseat up next to me on the middle bench.

He caught me in a bit of a daze, lost in the green numbers of the radio. "Did you rest?" I asked crawling to the back.

He shook his head, "enough. I'm ready to get driving though."

I fumbled over in the dark: clearing the bench, taking off my shoes. I could feel the tunnel vision hitting me. To make it worse all the caffeine had worn off and my body was coming down.

Looping around America the band had done 6 weeks of heavy touring. Up the east, then west through the north, occasionally popping up into Canada, we finished with a night in Seattle and one in Vancouver. So why we decided to do this drive straight through, I'm still not sure.

But like a good dream most of it seemed to fade with only flashes and fragments remaining. Good thoughts for another day, then all I wanted was silence.

3 to 5

My time to fell in and out of sleep as we slipped further away from the Vancouver, the last club, a really nice Holiday Inn that we didn't get to enjoy, the mountains, the tall pacific trees that are nothing like the brush of Texas, the desert, going south and south.

I closed my eyes.

The radio, the guys talking stories of future plans, the noise of the road; it all hung distantly on my consciousness pulling me awake.

I buried my face deeper into the back of the bench, feebly hiding away so I could try to sleep. I was tired. Really tired. I felt the weight of sleep taking over me. Pouring down the back of my brain, down into my chest flooding my lungs with it's gravity.

The other guys need noise to help them drive, you don't complain about things like that. It's an unspoken rule. I'd rather them blasting the speakers then have us all fall asleep while driving. We've had our close calls before, I don't care to relive that again. So I just listen to the road, slow my breathing and drift...

"Are you... Are you happy with this, the music?" Mom was reclined in her chair, a worn black leather massage station she'd bought for Dad many Christmases before. In her corner of the bedroom, two steps from her pillow. A place to watch TV, look out the window, and drift into a nap when nausea or insomnia kicked in.

"Of course," why was I remembering this moment? Lying on her bed, watching For A Few Dollars More, she had fallen asleep early on. I hadn't noticed her waking up, "it's not easy, but it's still fun," I said watching the desert and the steel eyes looking back at me.

"I used to think," she started, then stopped herself at the sounds of gunfire and cowboy groans. Her head rolled to the window. Mom never liked violence. It wasn't so much the killing, she told me, but the way he smiled afterwards that bugged her.

There was a bump in the road that jolted my body. And laughing from the front. The crackling foil of an empty gas station snack. The engine let open, pushing harder as we started rolling up hill. And I fought to keep level on the bench.

'Am I happy?'

The sound swell like the rising of sustained strings. A breath. A wave of violins. And down the road, bells breaking across the desert. The hum of her rollers gliding back and forth against her back.

The morning tinted by soft blue curtains broke around the floral scarf covering her head. Mom never changed for me. Her hair was gone. She had lost weight. Her skin had turned from olive to a pale white but it only made the green of her eyes stronger. Those were only superficial things. She was still as bright as ever.

"I used to think you get what you put in," she was looking back at me again and I lowered the TV to listen, "but things aren't balanced are they? Things aren't going to be fair for you."

I waited for her to continue as she looked me over, but she wanted me to share too.

"I don't know, the band's doing alright."

"You won't always be," she said understated like she was talking to herself, "I hear stories... You boys are talented, but that's not always enough...talent I mean... I worry."

"Every job has politics Mom... that's why you gotta enjoy what you do, right?" I smiled, turning the volume up again for the bang of timpani's, "if we weren't having fun... that'd be a different story."

"You can't feed a family with that René. You won't be ready." Such a Motherly thing to say. 

I remember the way my heart sank a little and felt it again.

The van slowly swung into a turn, as we slowed down for an exit. There was a jolt at the stop sign.

"A quick bathroom stop if anyone needs it," Jack whispered, unsure if I was sleeping, whipping the van into a spot under an orange light.

I kept still as the guys left the van running, locking me inside. And for a moment the van was quiet. I wanted to finish that dream, 'I am happy,' I wanted to tell her. 'Back to her room,' but my mind had other places to go.

The wind cut in over the water hitting my chest. I kept my jaw clenched tight, breathing between my teeth. Wishing I had brought a jacket or a least a long sleeve.

"I want to stay," Mom stood at the bank of the Guadalupe, in the smooth gravel, the ice cold water barely hitting her feet, "just a little longer. We don't have to eat here."

This. This memory. A weekend drive. We hadn't been ready for this trip. The whole family off on a whim, and the weather was cold, much colder than we planned. We had wanted to go tubing, but the water was low, and the wind was powerful.

"You might think right now that work matters, I know we've told you boys that, but it's the people. Of all the things I remember," she continued, "the things I want to remember, I never go back to my job. Sometimes I'm sorry I let it take so much of me," Mom kept her eyes on the drifting river.

"Mom," I walked up beside her, looking back, Jaime and Dad were at a fire pit working on getting a fire going.

The river was dancing with the sunlight, turning, jumping quickly on itself.

"You might think right now that work matters, I know we've told you boys that, but it's the people," Mom took a step into the cold water then another. "That's what I want you to keep. You should always do what makes you happy," She went deeper in, the water hitting at her knees, "When you're happy the others will follow."

I threw off my shoes, stepping in after her. And the river was so cold, so brilliant, instantly jumping up my body. I wanted to get out of the water. I wanted to head back, "Mom," I called but she was deep in her thought. The river felt like it was moving me away. Or pulling everything away from me. 

The song grew louder. The dancing lights flickered faster.

"Mom," I thought looking up at her in slow motion, like she was water, like she was light. She dove in the air. A slender flicker. Suspended above the river. Like all sound held on one note waiting for her to land. And the river pulling me down and down. 

"New Mexico... and coming up on sunrise," Abe said from the driver seat, "who's ready for breakfast?"

I sat up on the back bench. Feeling like the dream was still in my head, but every second disappearing. 

Jaime flipped through the GPS menu looking for a food stop, while Jack searched yelp on his phone.

The highway had tapered off into a narrow, winding two lane stretch. The sky was still dark purple, but I could feel the daylight coming. Soon the mountain sides would be splashed with the orange glow of dawn.

We were getting closer to home now. And only 14 hours to go. 

-rene

So Many Pages To My Story, A Voice

There are so many pages to my story I'm not ready to write. So many places I can't go. It's like cleaning out an attic; I started with a few easy to reach places, simple stories. Then someday I'll work my way to the darker, bug infested corners looming at the edges my mind. Waiting for their time. And then there are some memories, some pages, no matter how difficult they feel, that refuse to remain unwritten.

It came to me yesterday like a whisper. While I was listening to the rain during the late-night quiet of my house after my wife and son had fallen asleep; another time, another late-night emptiness when I was on a tour bus.

We were parked outside of a club waiting to start a drive out of middle America. 

After the show, and a drink and a shower, I was nestled in the corner of our front lounge trying to cool down. Sweat was still forming on my neck from the fury of the performance. If you saw me on that tour you'd know I was working things out on stage. Music is therapy, it's personal. 

I was half-listening to the in and outs of the bus while sending my girlfriend Rachel a text to see if she was still awake at 2:30 on a Tuesday, then flipped my old Nokia closed.

"I hope you're ready to settle in," our tour manager came grinning in to the bus with a bottle of bourbon in one hand and a case of food in another like he had just robbed the place, "this is gonna be a long one."

"What?!"

"How long?"

There were several groans from the bunks, as my phone buzzed in my hand.

"Two days," He laughed, "Two full glorious days of driving. And I'll be in my bunk for all of it... Away from all you mother f***rs."

"I think we can survive," Abe said and pulled out some of the food from the food box, and started stocking the fridge: chips, smoked sausages, cheeses, fruit, you name it.

The whole tour had been an obsession with food and what we could get put on the rider. In a few days we will place an obscene order to have In'n'Out burger waiting for us. If you think Jack White's guacamole is crazy, you haven't seen a Hacienda/Fast Five rider. l think I put on 20 pounds by the end of it all.

For the next hour, people came on and off, for a bit Dan came in and DJ'd soul music off his Iphone next to me in the front lounge. Jaime brought in a case of Stella, and I stole a bottle out of it as he walked by. 

Several songs and half a beer passed while I texted Rachel about my day. How I'd made an emergency trip to a guitar store for strings and ended up wasting the afternoon in a bookstore reading a collection of haiku's and nearly missed sound check. How I had found another restaurant in my unending quest to find the best Pad Thai in the country.

Then she asked me how I'm feeling, and I paused for a minute, finished my beer. The Stella had left a ring of condensation on my leg. I knew what she was getting at, but all I could answer was OK. I went for another beer, wondering if I should've said more. Things were OK with the music, the shows, the band, the traveling, everything but me. And Rachel knew it. She'd been there for everything. For me. And she's infinitely understanding about my shortness. 

This tour, this memory, comes only a few months after my mom had passed away. And I hadn't processed it. I was still feeling my way through the surprise of it all. The emptiness that came to me at night when I laid awake thinking about death in a way I never had before. The quick joy of waking up in the morning, before I remembered the life I was now waking up to. This story is out of sequence for you, I know that, but the months before this tour, they're still up in the attic somewhere, waiting for another day.


Instead of pushing me to talk about it, Rachel starts telling me about home, her school, and all the things I was missing on the road. How she got a new job and was thinking of moving downtown to be closer to school. How her cat got revenge on her roommates lack of affection by throwing up on her bed, and how she needed to pay for the dry cleaning.

 - Wouldn't it be great to move in together? I mean if I were your 
roommate?

 - And you could come home from the road to "our" house... I like the sound of that

- It would make it so much easier

- Easier?

- Every time I left I mean

-

- It'd be easier to leave if I was with you all the time at home.

- I don't know if it's easier, but it would be better

- I like that

- So?

- So?

- Do you want to?

The bus pulled off with a jerk from the breaks, that woke me up from the screen.  I looked up from my phone for the first time in a while. The music had stopped, a lot of the guys had moved to the back lounge or had headed off to sleep in the rows of bunks that separated the lounges. And I was down another beer down.

"Hey Rene, we're hanging in the back if you want to come?" Our lighting guy Mike asked me from the fridge as he was heading back with a armful of drinks.

"Maybe," I said and felt the phone buzz again, "in a sec," but when I looked down the phone was turning off. And in that last second I saw the battery signal flash empty, dead, as the screen jumped to black, and Rachel's last text hung unanswered between us. "Do you want to?"

Why didn't you answer quicker? She's gonna think your scared. That you were just talking when you said you wanted to be her roommate. That it was all just a daydream. 

I felt a sudden emptiness move over me. Maybe embarrassment?Maybe exhaustion? It was a long day. I don't know why I still get nervous over things like that. 

I went to my bunk and checked my day bag, looking for the charger. Nothing. I flipped out everything inside onto the tiny mattress. Nothing. I felt around my pillow, and under my sheets to see if I had lost it some how, but I knew. I knew it was lost. I might have left it at the club. Or maybe it's with the gear somewhere. I might have thrown it in my bass case.

Sh**. 

I slowly put everything back into the bag. I could hear the other guys in the back lounge. Guys with Iphones, and longer battery life, and cables that don't match mine. I could only think about Rachel and our conversation and the tired emptiness and suddenly didn't feel like hanging out. 

I'll buy a new charger, and reach her tomorrow. Tell her what happened. Tell her I love the idea of moving in together. And I'll apologize and she'll understand cause she is great like that... I hope. I took off my socks, shoes, shirt, and jeans. Climbed into my bunk, and shut the curtain behind me. 

Sh**.

The rocking of the bus was more intense that night. I don't know how long I was laying in the dark, feeling the constant back and forth, shaking me down to my stomach. 

I closed my eyes and left back to Texas. Imagining what it would be like to move-in with Rachel. Imagining what it would be like to come home to her after a tour and how amazing that made me feel. And home, how different it was. The emptiness there. 

I could hear music from the back lounge and people shuffling around outside my curtain. I heard talking and someone walking past hitting my curtain with their shoulder. And the deep, earthy smell came creeping in to my bunk mixed in with it all. The smell that the guys were having a real good time.

Now we are at the real part of the story, the memory that came to me in the late hour's of last night. The shining glimmer tucked in the corner of my mind that was calling to me. Wanting to be dusted off and written. 

It was then in this half-dream state, where I knew I was still on the bus but my mind was in a dream. I could feel the pillow under my head. My body becoming light as if I was hovering and the rocking of the bus had stopped completely. Everything was still as I lay floating in my bunk. My eyelids too heavy to open. My body unable to move. I was feeling it all and nothing at once. 

Then the sound of a tape machine clicked on. I heard the electric hum and the reels begin to turn. The tape hissed as it passed over the heads of the player. And then the voice I hadn't heard in so long, speaking to me as if it was no big deal to hear from my mother. 

- So... Rene... is this getting serious?

- I don't know... haven't really thought about it.

- You've been spending so much time with her. You've had to have thought about it. The future? Grandchildren?

- I mean, it's good, we have a lot of fun... it's different... different than any other girl I've been with.

- And having fun's all you care about?

- NO, of course not... I mean... well you've met her too, what do you think?

- It doesn't matter what I think... I'm not the one that wants to marry her, you're the only one who can know. 

-

- No matter what... be happy. You understand? 

- I know mom.

- Happiness... it's not something you find, it's not something that comes to you. You make it. You work at it everyday... It's so precious... All this, my sickness I see what it was all worth to me. The anger. The fights. They are never worth the time. Never worth your time.

- I

... Make it Rene and don't let anyone take it from you. Life's too short for that... too short to spend trying to fight your way through it. Love... Love has to come from you first. Do you understand? 

-

- Rene? Rene?   

Our First Offical Meeting with a Record Label, Whats It Worth

for what its worth
 

My brothers and I had driven up to Austin from San Antonio early in the morning. Feeling high. Feeling invincible. Though the traffic was bad. Though the sky was ready for rain. Though we had a hard time parking. All I was thinking was, 'this is happening... this is really happening.' Our first official meeting with a record label for at a small hotel along the river.

Abe checked his phone for the last text, "He's in the brunch area..."

"brunch area?" it sounded so un-rock-n-roll to me.



The concierge pointed us down a long narrow hallway towards the back of the hotel. And while the lobby was impressively modern with polished marble floors and pillars, gold railings, an automated computer check-in, a contemporary jazz pianist under a chandelier and large art installations, this part of the hotel seemed surprisingly neglected.

Going through the hallway was like walking backward through time, a chronological collection of the hotel's past hung on the faded yellow paper in plain wooden frames moving us further and further back. 

The carpet was stained and worn thin, the pattern of a dull brown with endless blue diamonds. Abe leading the way, no one said a word as we approached the end of the hall towards a dark carved wooden door.

Maybe we were all thinking how strange this was. Maybe we were trying to get our negotiation faces on. We had no idea what to expect. The closest idea I had was a mixture of crime movies and music documentaries. Old guys in big suits and cigars. Guys who swung around in big leather office chairs and laughed while they answered vintage rotary phones, and always pointed a fat, gold ringed finger when they shouted to make their deals.

Through the door came a blast of sunlight and cold air. I felt it push down into my chest, or maybe that was my nerves? We walked into a small room, converted from a patio, the walls were amber tinted glass that sloped up and over our heads.

On a good day it would've been a nice view of downtown, but on a rainy day like this, the windows were steamed and the sunlight barely came in through the foggy blur.

"We're here to meet our uh," I said to the captain trying to think if the reservation was under his personal name, my name, our band name or the name of the label. 

The twenty-something blonde girl with her hair pulled back tight into a ponytail didn't notice my fumbling. She seemed to be expecting three teenagers in western boots and jeans, "Right over here," she interrupted. Saving me from murdering the rest of my sentence as she took us to the corner of the room and a small table set for one.

She swept her arm across the air, towards four chairs crammed in the small area, "Should I send three more plates?"

Without looking up from his plate or the smear of eggs below his nose, he waived her away with a grunt.

Her eyebrows jumped quickly as if taken back by his answer but left politely.

"I'm almost done."

Here he was. The guy with our future in his hands. And the first look at him, the look on his face, put me off. And I wondered if the captain had the right idea.

His eyes were tired. Not the good kind, from lack of sleep or last night's party. Not the tired I felt having built up so much excitement in my 19 year-old brain. His tiredness came from deeper in his soul. The kind that permeates bone and changes the nature of the body. To know genetically the beat, battered, exhausted feeling of struggling with yourself. The dark circles, the peppered uneven beard, short sandy-blonde hair, the yellowed-white Hanes and stained jeans, everything about him was worn. 
 

After a quick introduction, and some complimentary waters, we stated really talking...

"Things are bad. Not just for me. I'm actually one of the better ones. I'm talking across the board. Bad... F***** Bad. Man, if this was a few years ago... if this was the nineties... you know what I mean? We'd be going. There's no doubt you guys have talent." 
 

I didn't know what he meant. The nineties for me were spent watching cartoons, hanging out in the library, little league games, and listening to the radio. I wouldn't know what he was talking about for a long while. At the time I felt like he wasn't coming down on us. And by the serious looks on my brother's faces, they thought so too.

I watched him eat as he talked, his plate, his knife sliding against porcelain, the yolk bleeding out and around crashing into the toast. The fork rising to his lips, and the cracked lips taking in every bite.

  

"Forget albums... Albums are dead. You think anyone makes money on albums anymore? Like I said, if this was the nineties man... Back then albums made f***** money. If you'd get on the radio, get some buzz going, you've practically got your own printer going. I could develop... artists like you, you know... but now, f*** I don't know. But the thing is... and I know I'm back and forth on this... What are you guys gonna do? You gotta have an album... I mean what good is a band without an album right?"

At first I thought this guy was just a downer, or brushing us off, maybe both of those are true but he was still telling the truth, it really felt like he was being honest.

 

But it would take us some to time to learn how things were changing. It took us time to learn what his advice meant. That's the thing about being on our own. We had no management. No directions to follow. We were stumbling our way through this. Teenagers trying to solve a incredibly complex puzzle. Learning as we go.

It takes time.

I always had this feeling that I never had the complete picture.  He wanted to be truthful, but you can't do that and keep a secret right there at the surface. I could feel it coming up, wanting to tell us the bigger picture, but with each bite he pushed it back down.

But I understood that things were changing. Big things. Behind the curtain things. And this big change in the industry wasn't a surprise, the industry had seen it coming for a while. It wasn't a burst, but a serious of small cuts. Slowly bleeding out from the larger body from all sides, without one centralized place to take stock. With out one vision of how to stop it. But there was the question. And the feeling like someone just needed to come up with the answer. What is the value of music? What is it worth? If you could figure it out. If you could answer that, you could stop the bleeding.

 

I stretched out my neck with a snap. I hadn't realized how long I'd sat nodding my head quietly. This meeting was too much to take in. Too much to understand. I had no idea what the industry transition meant for us, because I didn't know where the industry was much less where it was going.

 

"I've never seen a band look so happy," he leaned back in his chair, "you guys are doing things, s*** you shouldn't even be doing. I mean no one writes songs like this anymore. You know? The guys I work with, they're never as happy as you guys."

The waitress came by to get his plate.

 

"I just don't know right now, about a band that's never played a show. Doesn't have anything. It's just not how it's done... I mean, it's been done. But now... every thing's changed. Those big money days are gone. But right, I wasn't in it either... I've gotta worry about my s**** now and tomorrow. What does it mean to even have a band? F*** it's like I said guys: What's it worth?"

So many things I wanted to ask. Or say. But they didn't come to me. I watched my glass of water, the falling condensation run against my finger tip as his words washed into me. 'What's it worth?'

Music is worth everything to me. An album, a song, a melody. They are an expression of my being. My life and place in the world. I'd give it to anyone who'd listen. I'd give it to no one. To the air. To the sky. I'd give it the animals. The trees. And emptiness. And the stars. That's what I wanted. Help getting our music out there. We weren't thinking of trying to make a printing press. We were thinking about music business. If money was my goal, I'd probably have done something else for a career. What is it worth? What is an emotion worth? An idea? A philosophy? A move? A life? A song?

But don't think I am some artist who is against return. I'd love to get paid more for what I do.  I'd love to not have to worry about rent and food and bills. And like I said, I've learned a lot since that meeting. The me of today, would have answers, and a different view. Confidence. That meeting would be so different. But life moves one way. So it's about the next one, not the first one.  I keep trying to make it better. More accessible. More vibrant. Trying to answer the question: What's it worth?

It's up to the business minds to figure out how to monetize it, the label, manager, and most importantly the artist because they are the one who can set everything with direction, it takes a team, but the artist is the captain, the leader, the vision. Any artist concerned with success needs to have a business mind, or know someone else who has one. 

It's up to the artist to create desire.

Desire is worth.

But it's up to a society to set the price. They are the regulators. The hidden force that says. This is how I listen to music. This is how I want to buy it. This is what I will pay for it. This is who I will give my money to.

And so the question is for all of us. Cause I believe that people want to help people. Artists want to give to fans. Fans want to give to artists. And more importantly, fans care more about the quality of the work than any dollar amount. That's why I pour everything into every word I write. My songs, poems, this blog. What I put out matters more, than what comes back. And hopefully what I put out will help what comes back.

He didn't stand when the meeting was over. He shook our hands from his seat, and ordered an afternoon beer, "I've got lots more people to see today gentleman. Later."

It was a quiet walk back to the van. Back through the hotel. The hallway back to the lobby. And the pianist was on break, the morning check ins were done. Everything was quiet but the slushing sounds of cars running through the street.

We left the meeting without a deal, without answers but only a strange optimism to find my solution to that ever present question, "what's it worth?"

"What do you guys think?" Jaime asked.

"I think we should've gotten a plate," after a few hours I hadn't realized how hungry I was, "I mean we drove up here. We should've at least gotten fed."



-rené

Big Red, Histroy The Way We Want It

big red history the way we want it

"How'd she feel about you doing that?"

"She knew what I was about... Hell that's the thing about border towns man, everyone knows you before they meet you besides... it was party... but that's not even... I mean the next day... the next day got crazy."

Our table's crammed with food and wrappers, mostly burgers and the five of us lounging back in chairs bolted to the floor. Good days. My brothers, my cousin, and Dan. All family. We'd already finished half our second record in three days.

Of course we were prepared, and that didn't hurt. We had our songs arranged and rehearsed before we ever got to Akron. After Abe gave the arrangements a once over, we'd track the music as a group, following Jaime's drum lead through each take, mostly two or three passes, then overdubs, vocals, and the whole song done in an afternoon. One song, soon to be one half of the two title tracks, Big Red, had us struggling and ready for a lunch break: An Everly's style rocker called Everything She Needs.

And while Dante's on a story about his party days in Laredo, I'm now taking down a basket of Cajun fries.

I checked out around the time the food came; I've heard this one before, plus I can't stop thinking of the problem with this song.

It started in the morning.

A big, beautiful golden bear of an alarm clock named Bella came ringing her collar into the den. I was hiding under a pile of blankets and pillows, when she managed to sniff my face out from all of it. I tried to ignore her and get back to a dream:

Back in Texas, warm sunlight, a lake like heaven, where I'm kissing her or the sky itself, and everything is weightless, lifting, the sun, the water, the two of us. The music of her voice clear as the lake and the day itself.

but it's Bella and her big drooping lips, and the cold Ohio morning pulling me back. I guess the alarm was set just for me because Bella didn't bother to wake anyone else up...

Bella's next hunt was for a cloth toy behind the couch and she took it over to the sliding glass door looking out to the backyard.

The slate-grey sky brushed at the horizon with strands of soft red, the light was fighting to get out. It was another cold day. I got a chill that ran deep under my skin. I think the sun rises differently in Ohio, or I see it that way. And though this is where I wanted to be, I was still dreaming about home.

I rolled over to my suitcase, stuffed in a corner of the room marked by the pile of clothes spilling onto the carpet, hunted down my jacket, I needed it even inside the house, stepped over my brothers and snuck out of the den with Bella in lead.

Dan's house was held in a perfect unbroken suspension of morning. Guitars on nearly every wall waiting to be plucked, waiting to break from their stillness. Guitars are never good at resting.

Bella went off to the kitchen in search of her breakfast and left me in the empty room.

I can't tell you how crazy it is to be so close to an amazing studio and having to wait for everyone else to wake up in order to get to work. If it was up to me, I'd have run yesterday's session all through the night, and we'd already be into another song. It helps to keep my head in one state.

And now that I was up and alone in the house, I had a feeling calling me over to the tracking room, that's where I've got to be. I turned on the lights. Walking quietly past the Hammond organ, past the drums. My hands and mind wanted to shake off the cold and distance with a little music and looked through a rack of guitars like I was in a music store.

I found a '64 Texan still in it's bed case ready for me. Dan and his engineer Bob had so much cool gear you wouldn't believe it. Large barely begins to describe it... and the Paul McCartney '64 Texan was only one tiny, amazing part.

I closed my eyes. The smell of the guitar, the wood, so pristine, almost transported straight out of the sixties. For a brief moment I remember my dream, it hadn't been that long but almost completely slipped my mind already. And a song I had written a while back came into my mind...

My girls got everything she needs,

big cars, house, his money and tv's,

he tries to buy her all life's big luxuries/

My girls got everything she needs

so her love just won't come to me

I tried my best, but Love's no security/

My girl’s as lonely as can be
but she ain’t got the heart to be free
She’s in his house

I wonder if she thinkin' about me...

"Is that what we're doing next?"

"Hey," Dan caught me by surprise, "morning..." a slight pulse of embarrassment ran through my veins as I put the Texan back in its case.

He was carrying his daughter and a cup of coffee, still in full family mode, they weren't even dressed for the day. She threw her head down against his shoulder to hide her face, "This one sounds good... when the dudes are ready, we'll hit it."

"You tell me man, I'm ready to go."

She pointed down at the guitar and whispered to Dan.

"Rene, Why don't you play us another..."

---

The table's laughing... I hit the bottom of the fry basket as Dante finishes his story...

The sounds of the restaurant digesting, the mouths, the talking, the eating, and I leave the table for a refill.

Whenever I hit a songwriting problem, I like to get out into the public, back into the world, and let my mind ramble... something like this.

Everyone else, and the real problems of life are so much more important than a song, but a song can be all the difference when you have a problem... It can lift you up, or throw you deeper... Any song at the right moment. How tragic it would be to hear the wrong one? Or do we only get what we need?

I know it's strange to think so much, but my mind has to do these flips, I can't turn it off, and it won't stop,

I make music for other people, maybe even these people, I wonder how many of them even listen to rock n' roll? How many have sat down with headphones, to a full album? How many hear what the writer is telling them?

The line for the coke machine is four deep, and I wished I had noticed that before I got here. That's one danger of a busy mind, always missing the obvious. But I've got a good way to pass the time, a game I invented when I was in high school: trying to guess what music strangers listen to.

There's a young couple, 30's, at a high table. He's in jeans, work boots and a trucker hat. Hands cut and dirty. Textbook blue collar. Her hair's stripped blond and black, skirt tight, not a lot of make up but she didn't forget her blood red lipstick. I would have'em as Springsteen fans but they've been ignoring the classic rock playing. They're straight modern country, Rascal Flatts, Miranda Lambert.

The guy in front of me at the coke machine, in his 40's, dress shirt and fuzzy vest, bald, well off and been rocking out to every thing from the eighties. I don't know why but he's putting off a Phil Collins vibe.

A curly headed kid, taps his foot against the metal legs of his chair, red chucks, and his unlaced strings flapping out of time.

He hits the heel so hard one shoe falls to the floor. He's a real mid-west rocker, even if he doesn't know it yet. A future Uncle Doug.

And that's when I hear it for the first time. Chuck Berry's Almost Grown starts playing overhead. And it comes to me.

---

The tape machine rolls back. It starts with drum clicks, Take 7 begins to play.

Dan flipped knobs like a mad man, several strings of jumper cables around his neck, his chair squeaked, as he swung around the mixing room.

His mind had been in another zone for the last half-hour of vocal takes. Quickly he moved his empty mug off the console and adjusted more knobs.

"It's just not sitting right," Dan said to no one in particular.

"Damn..." I wanted to say it, but I kept it back. It kills me when he we hit problems like this. I need more details, specifics: is it too much, not enough, too sharp, flat, what does he mean? But he's so focused I don't want to disturb Dan's process.

Finally his chair spun around towards us. "The vocals are good," he said while checking his phone, "I like it... I just don't know if it needs something else, or not, or what... but we're not there yet."

I can't help but take these things personally. Not because I think I'm great, but because I want what's best for the band. I want to nail my vocals. I want a definitive yes. I think I'd even take a definitive no, more than just a "not there yet."

The microphone hung in the tracking room like it had just beaten me, not eager to go through that again. "Should I go for it again?" I asked half not wanting an answer.

Jaime and Abe were sitting behind me, "meh," seems they weren't into that idea either.

Dan scratched his beard and finished up a text, "let's get lunch. I think I know a spot. You dudes want burgers?"

His idea got a much better response.

---

The table's quiet again.

"I think I know what we need to do," I said to Dante putting down my soda. "It's all about the rhythm, it's just off to me. Maybe the guitar, maybe if it had some more substance ya know? Just put some movement in it. Listen to what he's doing here." I pointed to the speaker, but Dante's looking away, the other side of the table, restaurant, maybe nowhere.

"Maybe," Dante's lips barely move, "I don't know." And the song finishes.

"We ready to hit it again?"

---

It didn't long for the guitar to find its place, and after a few takes, the song found a whole new position.

Bella ran through the playback room. Her tail hit against the legs of everyone on the couch as she got chased away by Dan's daughter.

Were listened to the playback, the speakers are loud enough for the sound to push into your chest. I can tell Dan's really into it. Like he's been hit by a jolt of adrenaline and every movement is sharp and inspired.

"This is sounding a lot better. This," I said getting closer to the center of the sound, where the stereo speaker's direction meet together in a beautiful sweet spot above Dan's chair, "is where we need to be. I can feel this."

Dan nodded his head, but he's lost in some thought far away.

The track reached to me, to some deep place of understanding and I haven't said it yet, but I start to get a feeling to cut all the vocals completely.

This song needs to be an instrumental.

Abe's standing next to me, studying quietly, his face is serious and I can't help but wonder if he's knowing it too.

Feeling the movement.

The song's better this way. And I'm over the pain of my failed vocal take, cause the song's feeling right. It's everything fifties. Chuck Berry, Everly's, sugar, burgers and car hops. And the taste of Big Red comes into my mind. The atomic red soda of my hometown. The fuel of my youth. And being a kid running at my grandparent's ranch, and summer, and the lake, and a lot of beautiful things, and I don't think my words could cover that. It's all a big landscape. A wordless vision.

I want to be in those moments. That dream. The sun. The lake. Home. Family. Me. And the curly haired kid I saw at the soda fountain. From his Ohio. And my Texas. Tastes that make a memory. The nostalgia. It's not always real. It's never as perfect. Colored in half-truth. Sweetening away any contradictions. But that's what all this was, Rock and Roll... History the way we want to remember it.

-rené

The Ocean and Then This

I didn't want to move. I definitely didn't want to go back to the party. I was alone on the beach, and I mean surrounded by the splendid multitude of nature, only absent of humans. 

I'd walked far enough from the neighborhood where I could see the lit up windows, and all the talking, smoking, lies and music were overtaken by the heavy breaths of ocean. So loud and powerful, the wind and wave, yet not near as exhausting as talking to the party crowd. 

Example:

Apparently there was an underground band in the 90's and nobody went to their shows. Yet everyone had a story about seeing this band play to literally an empty room. Also, it was repeated to me many times that I had to hear them, but I probably couldn't because the band only made one rare cassette that's nearly impossible to find... but if I could it would be amazing... L.A. voice, "I mean it was like me and my boyfriend and the bartender... that's it... gawd can you believe it? They're just so good...so good. And then we broke up and the ba***** took all my tapes."

I'll admit if I'd passed by the window, having never been inside, I'd probably be envious... I'd probably want to be mingling and drinking and making up stories, but not now. Not once I've sat on the floor breathing in smoke from vanilla cigarettes, waited for an hour to use the bathroom while people took care of their noses, or drank any that awful metallic punch.

So I left. 

Oh beautiful ocean. I love the things you say. The stories you tell. Now the party is only filled by distant shadows and I'm safe to take off my shoes and socks. To sink in. It felt so good my shirt came off too.

"You are what I came for anyway," I said to the beautiful mouth of the Pacific. It's not hard to understand how it got it's name.

Travel mile after mile of field, desert, mountain. The pain. It must've taken a lot of pain to be the first settlers to get here.
 

Then this...

The moon watching from above like a loving mother. The soft sand pulling in at my feet as if it wants me closer, and the ocean. The great mystery. That perfect embracing vastness. I felt the wind. Pushing hard against my bare chest. And the motion. My world was stillness and motion. The blackness, the space, and me. Listening to the freezing waves come from the dark-beyond, rolling across the sand, over my feet.

I fell on my back, spread myself out across the sand, and closed my eyes.

Open. The water's up to my shins, soaking through my jeans. The night was colder and darker than before. The lights from the party were gone.

"Had they all left?" I picked myself up, dusted off a layer of muddy sand. It wouldn't be the first time the band went back to the hotel without me, but getting lost in Spain is another story. There was laughter in the wind, but from whom, I couldn't say. Maybe people further down the beach. It was too dark. 

I reached for my clothes along the sand brushing my fingers around me... can't find anything. My eyes slowly started adjusting to starlight. I could see the tops of waves coming in from the black waters. And the laugh again from nobody.

It was like a bump. I felt something buried just under my hand. The end of a rope about as thick as a quarter. Slowly I began pulling it towards me and the rope went on and on.

The water was singing. Washing out, hi-hatting in the night, keeping time with the deep bass thud of crashing wave. Striking an old song about the great loneliness in life, and separation. From shore to shore, longing. The laugh came back but this time it came accompanied by a girl.

She was dark and thin, and her hair was long constantly lifting with the wind like the way movies fake it. "What are you doing?" She asked.

I said I wasn't sure, but I had pulled so much I wanted to know what was on the other end.

She laughed. 

Further down the beach her friends were calling her back, but she bent down beside me.

"What if it's supposed to be left alone?" She asked playfully, or maybe she was serious and her sweet accent made it sound gentler, I don't know.

"I'm a little late for that," I didn't let her stop me, and kept pulling the rope out of the water, hand over hand.

"What if the other end holds something you don't want?"

I stopped pulling for a moment and the sounds of droplets falling off the rope, hitting the surface of the water caught my ear.

"Or what if the end is right behind the surface, just underneath where it is falling in now, you could get it with one more good pull."

I tightened my grip and started pulling again.  

It was not the end.

"Or then again," she said, "maybe it just goes on and on for miles covering the whole ocean floor with no end." 

"That's ridiculous," I said coldly before trying to soften up, "I mean it's a rope... it has to have an end." 

I think I offended her, cause she got up to go back to her friends. "You know," she yelled as she turned back to me, "Don't be so sure. There are lots of people pulling and pulling without ever getting anywhere."

-rene