Do Your Job Well, There's Nothing Better/ An Afternoon Lull

"I've been hunting something for a very long time. I guess since I started playing music."

Sheila wanted more of an answer, and was happy to work for it. Though it's hard to tell what she's thinking behind the straighteness of her smile.

An interviewer who wants, but doesn't give makes for a tough interview. But when conversation is slow, persistence helps, and Sheila never stops.

"Can you describe that hunt... what it is you're after? What it means to you?"

The two of us, and her tape recorder make three, are in a bubble amidst a fury of backstage noise. Other bands loading gear; stragglers and hanger-ons earning their titles. The melted ice sloshing in the tubs of beer emptied by young bar hands, and I remember having a few more than a few cans myself while I'm holding the warm remains of a can. I started to feel light, and the emptiness swirled in to my stomach, as all the brave fury seems to evaporate. And there's a strange feeling in the back off my mind when I know I'm going to talk too much, beer makes me talk too much.

"I wanted a purpose," I said with a thousand thoughts of my first days playing music playing in my head. "But less noble than that... I wanted to go... Away from people I knew. Away from my past. This feeling really started in high school. Some people had a great time and never wanted to leave. Some of us," I said with an raising brow, "couldn't wait to escape."

My eye zeroed in on her small notepad, and that red rubber ball of an erasure dancing up and down between her fingers.

"I knew the world was bigger. I wanted to run in it. Leave everything I couldn't change. Remake things I could. That's what I see most of us doing. Musician's, artists."

She's not writing a word I'm saying, I have a feeling this is unusable for her and we are just talking. I don't like giving interviews after a show, but it's the only time we had. I'm fried. Sweaty. Red faced. Ridiculous.


I spent the first few questions splashing water on my face from the small dirty sink, near-falling off the wall, in the edge of the room. I moved, slightly clearer in thought, on to the one cushion free of cigarette burns and questionable stains; but once I sit, I can't help feel stuck between the couch and the question.

Sheila smiled, "Do you think you've found the life you want?" Suddenly there's a commotion over a lost guitar, I turned my attention away. She leaned in, and hit me with her pencil dead in my hand. "Your purpose... did you find it?"

"Well I don't know..." I laugh, rubbing the small stinging pain, like an ant just had a snack across the back of my hand.

"How can you go up in front people and not know?" She pushed. The good ones try and let you lead because with enough space, people will confess as much truth as they can. And she's gave me more than enough rope to hang myself with some deep-old-dirty truth. But something's are too big to explain.

A great interviewer will bend questions, acrobaticly, weaving words to the right answer. I've had the privilege of meeting only a handfull of people who can, and do, this well. Sheila's knows how to get her way, not by tact, but it's her own lovely pushy-ness.

To tell the truth, I had asked her not to ask the regular questions. Tell me about your band? How would you describe your music? I could do without ever answering those again. But still some lazy writer, won't even give a Google to get those. So a few days before, on a phone call when I was still three cities away, I challenged Sheila to think of something different for us to talk about.

So now it's on me. Forget clever. Everyone wants to say something clever, but it's not easy when the question is there, and the moment is quick and tired. Stick to honest.

"I think I found a purpose... Trying. Every song. Every show... To try. Others want to change the world. Enlighten. They want their music to instruct. And they do. Beautifully. I guess I want that too but... there're many ways to do that. I'm just not so direct."

She started to write in her pad again, "so you consider yourself a teacher?"

"No," I laugh again. Artists hate being concrete. "Still a musician. But we can learn from everyone. We all have stories, not just songwriters." I search the shelves to find an un-opened water. "And those stories have truths. Even when I make mistakes," I finally find it and come back to my chair. "You can get out there and explain your message. Spread the word."

"Or..."

"By example. One note at a time."

My head is finally slowing down.

"My favorite teachers gave to me by example. By living clearly in the day-to-day. Subtle meaning you know? I feel like if I give honestly. People can listen honestly. That's all I have. My purpose. The simple tasks say so much. Showing up to a performance and not playing the motions, but really trying to get there."

I could tell she wasn't buying it, "example?“

"Great players, my favorite players, don't fall on theatrics or clothes to get noticed. They play. And that speaks for them. They don't even use the music. They play the song, the best they can, and let the music illuminate itself, not the person behind it... you see? And that's what makes them so special. So simple. To do your job well, there's nothing better."

Sheila put down her pad, then lays back in her chair. She asked, "Is that what you think people want?... A great effort?" And I have the feeling this is off the record now, but you never can tell in an interview. I heard always assume anything you say will go.

“I don't," I start then catch myself in half-lie, "I try not worry about that. I worry about what I can give. With my mind. My song. What they want is up to them... I can't control that. Only what I give. I'd go crazy worrying about others'. Though I admit it's a struggle."

Sheila sat for a moment before she reached for her pad and got back to her list of questions when my tour manager came in to get me. The club was closed. People ready to leave. The show was done. So was the interview. And we said goodbye, in the mess of a green room. But like any conversation not ready to end, there was more hanging in that room waiting to be said.

I rested my head against the window looking out into the night highway, and I can't help but think of what I said to Sheila. My home. And what I was looking for out here. I realize I wasn't done. In fact I wanted to change my answer. I hadn't lied, but it wasn't complete.

The truth: I was running. I was exploring. Searching the country. Collecting. Hunting. Looking for it or away from home. Away from the things I couldn't change. Away from the life that was. In every part of my journey I have gotten something, but I also realized then, I brought something too. I was carrying all the best parts of home with me, and gave them to everyone I met. I carried the movement of the people in our streets. The songs of the wild hill country beauty that surrounds my home. I carried the subtle meanings, and lessons of all the wonderful people I knew. I wasn't just leaving home, I was being sent out.






An afternoon lull, a long breath of street
in a lonely town. Stores are quiet,


Doors closed, keeping out a summer heat
only the brave would wander.


But if they follow the end of the sidewalk
wrapping round the last posted light


Down a worn and broken row of slippery rock,
it might even be lost for a while,


Down through a huddle of branches,
under their low unkempt strays,



Down away from the plague of concretes,
where the hum and highway whistles never reach


There, they can cool in the long waiting shade
take off their shoes, and be light


Under a vault of oak, listening to the fade,
the song of evening.

-rené



A Line Of Strange Thinkers, The Man of No Direction

Let's start on a grey evening, driving into a new town from miles of highway. Every night: show, pack up, drive, unload. City through mirrored city. Slowly watching the past polished out into a reflection of television suburbia. Shelled out. Some cities hold well, the small ones better than the others.

When I was 15 at Boerne High School, small town dreaming of roads and places to go, I didn't think it would be this way. I wanted everyplace to be new and different. I wanted to see the quirks. The strangeness. But I see that all going. More and more are cities become the same.Exotic America survives in novels, photographs, songs, everything we keep in tucked away in our big community sock drawer. Maybe that's why I love coming back to the hill country, with all its character and love. Anyway, I'm not too messed up about it. The best parts are safe, hidden away in every town, deep inside the minds that people them. Never completely lost as long as there are thinkers hungry for living on the outside. Unhappy with what-is, and turning out the could-be. People ready to explore. Here I give a vignette about us, the line of strange thinkers.

This night, our band had a show in a small hold out town in Colorado. We'd just set up our amps and drums into a corner dive called The Firebird with a few hours before soundcheck, so I took off walking. Usually there's not a lot of time for sight-seeing in rock'n'roll, but we had time that day, and I needed it. My head was drowsy from lack of good sleep and thoughts of a warm night at home, people, food, real food cooked over a real fire... and a neck bent out of shape from crowding against a 15 passenger van window. Suddenly I feel a walk could be medicinal. I needed change to shake off the tiredness. The routine of motels and fast food.

The streets wet from a day I didn't know, tell me I'm stepping into this town's history - that's a great fact of travel. The outsider should be cautious, it does us well to know we don't belong. Observing from a distance. My headphones drowning out the slides of rolling tires, and the shuffle of people unloading at a bus stop.

"What are you listening to?" rings out. She's young. We were both young, but I was college young and she's high school. And those are oceans across. I pretended not to hear, but kept walking to her and she saw me through bright red swept bangs as she stood by a steel city bench. I like to keep my walks to myself, especially with my headphones in, but she seems sweet. Little sister sweet like she will follow you for blocks, trailing behind a step asking question on question, until you give some time. And anyway she stood right in front of me, so how could I ignore? She tapped her finger to her ear, and looked straight at me, "What are you listening to?" Again.

I lifted my phone to show her saying, 'I Got A Right.' Iggy was yelling half-way through - yeeeaaawww.

She took out her iPod, showed me '1970' and swore it was synchronicity. The girl had a laugh she couldn't control, and kept the history of Iggy Pop written verbatim in her head. Her blue eyes up the clouds like she's reading her lines of our conversation on the clouds. I couldn't have interrupted her if I wanted. She said, "You know... of course you know," as she described what she was listening to. "He sings with his whole body. Every part of him... it's more than performing. Every part of him believes." And she laughs again. "You know?"

And she's right. I know. She never asked who I am, or where I'm from, or names, because music was enough. Music connects. I knew she's a girl who listens, and she knew about me, all from a phone or an iPod. As we were talking, I remembered my beginnings. When I was her. The times I was eager to talk. The times I built my friendships on taste. When I looked for those who listened because only they understood. All the regular chat can be saved for a chit-chatting with estranged relations. This is real talk. Music's enough. Until it was time for me to head back to the bar. I waited for a break to smile and pull out my phone checking the time. Not that I wasn't having fun. It was just time. I've got my hands back in my jeans, my thumb hovering over the play button. "Gotta get ready for the show."

"Firebird? " she asked sliding on earbud. "Of course you're going too." Laughing again as she picked up her jacket.

I said "Let's walk," and step out of her way. Side by side like two siblings we walked back up the street quietly for a few steps before she flips her hair to say, "I'm writing about the show for my school paper. I love The H...'s - the other band not mine - so glad they finally came here." She said 'here' with all the frustration of being stuck in one place. And I saw in her pocket a well-worn notepad with ideas scribbled on it from past shows. Her dreams. Her words. Collected bits of Exotic America drifted in to her town with each band, and show. She's recorded them, made them her own.

I say something cornball like "hopefully it'll be something worth writing about," and left her in line outside of the club as I go in, with only a wave good-bye. I didn't see her again that night or after, though I looked for her face in the crowd. Never finding what she wrote, but I hope it was positive. Never telling her I was in the other band. But what a set we played. Jaime's bass drum rattling my leg on a tiny stage, nearly fell over twice. The monitors were so bad, I couldn't hear a note of my voice over the amps. The whole time, with the heat of the stage lights and the sweat on me, I thought of what she said. And Iggy Pop. Believing. And trying to sing like every bone in me had something to tell. Like I could make the words come alive. And give what I got out of music, to someone else. Someone who is really listening.

At the end of the night I was packing up and moving out. Having connected. Having given something to that night, and the city. Having received a memory. No longer tired of show after show, I felt good about cramming into the van again. Sometimes people can do that. Resuscitating a love. Taking me to the start. Feeling again in the lull of a long tour, a right to sing, a right to move, and more importantly the need.

-rene

The Man of No Direction

pacing summer streets
I think I saw him pass twice

across the mirrored bar-front

Waiter says he drifts in all the time

when he has enough for a drink

then out again

Who knows where?
 Some strange compositions 
he dreams of things beyond?

Growing beards of perseverance

Plastering eyes in purposeless anger

Giving a laugh at every pretty girl
Crossing streets careless in danger

he is gone
and he'll come back knowing
even more

I wonder, walk, drink

placing my own in his step
a swirl of directionless frustration

it's never the amount
money, accolades, creation
that becomes so infuriating
step after step, I tell myself

till I've turned alley
circling back the mirrored bar-front

where a man of no direction
waits for me

Prisoner, The Hand Of The Bold

Scars scratch the truth
helping you through everyday
on walls that surround you
can't confine you to any place
Let your mind drift far, far away

There are a lot of traps and mental prisons in writing. Rules and limitations from society, genre, friends, band mates, producers,  and even ourselves. Each one boxes in the writer a little more. The creativity becomes a little more restricted. The possibilities less. The outcome more solid. This can be great. It is necessary to wrangle imagination in, or songs become unmanageable.

Prisoner is about living inside the cell. Understanding the condition. Moving beyond without violent resistance. But with creative resistance.

There are no worse punishments than ones given to ourselves.

No greater depths of hell than in our mind.

And freedom is only granted from within.

Wanting success can be one of the toughest cells in a creative prison. On one hand the writer -usually- wants the audience to like the work. But writing what you think people want often produces the worst ideas. Writing for money does even more damage to the spirit. The other hand, writing for completely for the self, can give some of the most creative ideas a chance to live. It is the hand of the bold and the dangerous. It is the abstract. The mysterious. But that can leave piece indigestible. Flighty and over intellectualized. And worse yet, writing for an audience of One, leaves the writer with an audience of One.

I wish we had more time to work on this song. But that is the consequence of working fast. Our albums were all recorded in under the span of two weeks. This pressure can provide great conditions for spontaneous creativity. The pressure drives the mind. The imagination. Reaching new places. It's tough. It's exciting. It's not for the feint of spirit. But it does have draw backs. Sometimes the songs are just beginning to cook, but we are on to the next piece. I wouldn't say I have regrets or disappointments- I love all our songs and I have pride about the work we have done on each one. I feel lucky to not have a song that I am embarrassed about releasing. But sometimes I wish I could work on it more. I am really happy with the new arrangement we are using for Prisoner live. I wish I could record that. Maybe a live record would be good for us...

Songs suffer from trying to do too much. Trying to cover too much ground. Trying to express every side at once. That's when rules help. But which one's to listen to? Which one's to fight?  It's hard to take outside criticism because it feels like a personal attack. It feels like the idea wasn't given a good shot. You can fight for every inch an idea, but I think songs will suffer more. I've learned the problem is not the prison. Just how we feel inside of it.

Gone are the old friends
whose time they won't spend anyway
here are your new friends
who you can depend, won't go away
Let your mind drift far, far away

The truth is, there is no right answer. Only what things we can live with. There are some limitations we shouldn't tolerate. Some walls must be broken. Some amount of personal identity must be asserted. It is up to the artist to decide what is tolerable. Knowing that: resistance to others only further alienates the project.

There are times I have felt trapped. Stuck. Like everything is moving on a schedule. Like I'm unable to move for myself. It is not a good feeling. It's also not easy to break out of it. The worse part is you want to blame others, but it's only the self. It's only the mind confining itself. This song is to remind myself: let your mind drift far, far away.

falling, together.

never knowing a part from the self,

the water, and the rain

we are bound

racing to end, heavens of earth and black tar

they will take us, but at least we can go together

-rene

image source: http://www.commarts.uws.edu.au/gmjau/v4_2010_1/images/prisoner_lg.gif