I Keep Going

"There are always problems... s*** inevitably falls apart on you all the time... when you don't expect it man. You know righ' when you think you can't handle one more thing, just one more thing... you get this little push, to see, just to see if they can bend you a little bit farther." He lost his thought again and began biting at the corner of his pinky nail like he was taking off the cuticle. "But I keep going man, I always keep going."

The street was near empty. The buildings vacant and locked. He's standing at the edge of the circle of light hovering over me and I'm wondering when it got so dark, why I'm alone, and why I decided it was a good idea to leave the club.

We were only parked a few streets away at the end of a business strip filled with a printing company, an office supply store, and a discount carpet warehouse. Somehow I'd walked into a conversation with the only other person for miles. 

He was homeless. Nearly twice my size with one eye unnaturally bulging out like he had been in a bad fight and never healed right. Or maybe the injury was too severe to ever completely fix. The eye really stood out because he had real thin brows and was bald. The beginnings of an old tattoo on his neck peaked out when he looked around, hidden under the collar of his grey sweater.  

His teeth slanted out to the left. Stained from smoking, though his skin was incredibly smooth and he kept his nails short and clean despite how hard it must be for him to find a place to keep up appearances. To be honest what threw me the most was the smell. The smell from his clothes. The smell from his breath. Like an invisible cloud of sour-musk. The sweat of living hung a few feet around him in every direction. 

"Hold, hold a sec man," he said clutching both hands tightly to his stomach and walked into the alley.

I quickly opened the van door and grabbed my bag.

'I came here for a book. I had wanted to read... That's what it was that brought me out here? To read and be alone.' I'd left my current road read,probably Drum-taps, under the middle bench and it was still three hours till the show started. 

Stores, restaurants, this whole half of the city was shut down for the night and our hotel was three hours south. So that left hanging out at the venue or reading.

Sometimes, I see the whole caravan together, the other bands, our band, the crew, and I just can't make myself have a conversation. Even on the road, I get in these bad funks where I still feel like an outsider. Like I did when I was a fifteen-year-old senior in high school and couldn't go to parties cause I didn't even have my learners permit yet... Maybe I'm just more comfortable alone. I did spend my entire teens in the library. This isn't a pity story. It was all fine with me, I wasn't too interested in hanging out with my with classmates anyway. I much preferred poetry and beach boy records to whatever they were up to, but on the road, I wish I was more outgoing. These are supposed to be my people. Musicians I know I have stuff in common with. People who understand what being an outsider is, but there I am with nothing to say and a flood of words stuck inside my head. I have hours of conversations with myself, and nothing to give to others. I just stand silently, listening, taking. Thinking of words I'll eventually write but never say. Even when the homeless man was talking I only gave a lot of smiles and shrugs. Though he wasn't always forward with me either.

"I hate to ask you know," he said when I had first walked up to the van. He held one hand out, keeping the other tight across his stomach.

"Sorry man," I said with a guilty look from wanting to help but knowing the five bucks I had left was going to be for my dinner.

"It's aight, it's aight, just asking man, it's aight cause I always keep on going man. I never let it stop me." And he kept talking while I feel guiltier than ever, and wondered if it was too late to give him the give the five, and wishing I had smaller change.

I would've definitely given him a couple of dollars. And not just cause I was a little scared of him. Bands do a lot of work out of the public eye, the places where we load in and out, if not play, are usually tucked out of public view. We frequent the cheapest places to eat or sleep when you're on tour budget, the quickest routes between cities, the dark sides of the country, small roads, corners, alleys, truck stops, across the tracks and under the bridge where most people often forget to look, or try to ignore... And in every one of these places there are people who live so differently than the rest. Either by circumstance or choice, they ended up on the fringe. Now that I write it, it sounds a lot like being a musician.

It's not a secret the US as a whole has a big problem about how we care for each other, how we interact with each other, and how we try to understand people that live differently. Yes there are the really good people, and the really horrible ones, but as a whole I think we have a turn-a-blind-eye mentality that prevents us from solving the issue of kindness. I see it. The guilt, I felt. In the faces of the asking for help, and the in the faces of the ones that turn away.

I want to be kind. I want to be understanding and helpful. I want to live in a world where good people look out for each other. I want to look at the man and see the person he is and not a reflection of my own fear. He's got enough to deal with without me throwing anything on him.

So I waited for him to come out of the shadows. And he eventually came back from the alley with a small backpack over one shoulder. One hand still clutched tightly to his stomach, and I realized I hadn't seen that hand. It'd been hidden under the end of his sweater the whole time. 

"Just getting my things man... gotta move tonight. You know man? I bet you guys are always driving right? Always moving." He threw his eyes to our van.

"Yeah, we do," I said, "Just got in and have to drive tonight too."

He sighed.

And the air was cold. The buildings looked so unwelcoming when they are closed up. I could hear the highway a few streets away in the distance as a few cars passed. It felt like we were the only two in the city. And he's staring down the dark road, waiting for the courage to move, knowing he inevitably will. He had to. There's nothing for him there. If ever there was a place that felt less inviting, less nurturing, less accepting, less helpful than this street, I don't want to know it. 

"Hey man," I said as I opened the van again and grabbed an unopened bottle of water from under the bench. "Here ya go."

And he nearly fell right there, his eyes fell, his arm that was clutched to his stomach fell low, and he reached the other hand out grabbing the bottle. I think it was the surprise.

"Thank you man," he said his voice dropped low and serious. Stuck the bottle in between his fallen arm and his body and used the other hand to open the cap. 

A little water dripped onto his sweater as he grabbed the bottle with the same hand, and chugged. The bottle crumpled, as he emptied it in one go, but I was only looking at his arm. Motionless at his side.

I have heard some people make more money begging than I ever do playing a show. That crossed my mind as I watched him. Maybe that's true, but it seemed just cynical at the moment. This man was thirsty. From his body to his soul, he was thirsty. And he was drinking like this was the first and last water he was ever going to get. He was drinking like he needed it. 

"Lost it overseas," he said catching me staring, catching his breath and I felt a little embarrassed. I could see him watching me.

"Iraq. I mean I still got it here," He gave his dead arm a pat, and I could hear the thud of substance, "but it don't... I mean I can't..." Then he lifted the sleeve. His fingers were cramped together, stuck tightly pinky against thumb, and the other three pushed in between.

I was at a loss for words, and went back into the van and gave him the last five bottles we had.

He smiled again as he forced them into his bag, "Water, man," he said capping up the empty bottle and throwing it in a near by street can. "Water's always good. Keeps ya going. Ya know. Always keep going. Always."

-rene

Manifest Focus, I Dont Throw Lightning

I've spent a good amount of time (year and a half maybe?) at home songwriting/recording our next project. And if that sounds like a long time... it is... especially for us. This is actually the longest time we've had to work on writing music since we started the band. After the release of our first record, we've been running non-stop touring, writing, recording, touring, and so on. We wrote the next two albums each with about three months prep, and under one week to record everything. ONE WEEK EACH. *

Usually tracking two songs a day, for four days, and two more to do all the vocals. Usually leaving the studio straight to the stage to perform the tracks before they were even mixed. That is incredibly fast. It's 1964 fast. 

When you have a great producer and engineer, like we did, and a tight band, great things happen with a little time. Most of our songs were recorded in one, maybe two takes. A very exciting and creatively volatile atmosphere. There's a lot to be said for this sort of pressure cooker creativity: plenty of spontaneous bursts of ideas but overall it's not a lot of time to dig in and create.

While we were in the studio for a song that eventually became Don't Turn Out The Lights, our producer Dan Auerbach was unhappy with the working chorus. We played the demo. He made some notes on the groove. Did a practice run then went back to Dan to get his thoughts.


Dan leaned back in his chair, and with a sigh and a look of tiredness worn like a comfortable shirt, Dan announced he was going to take a coffee break,  'I want a great chorus by the time I get back.'  He is a man of few words, but he means every word.

Dan has always pushed our band. I don't know how he works with other artists, but for us he always asks for more than I thought we could do. Can you do it all live? With Vocals? Can you sing it better? Write it better? Play it better? And I'm grateful. His drive has taught me a lot about myself and what I'm capable of, so when he asked me to write a better chorus and walked out of the studio without a single word of direction, I knew he was testing me, and I knew I could succeed.

I sat down on the floor of the studio live room armed with an 60's flat-top Gibson and a legal pad, and started running through the song's chords. Repeating them. Listening to the notes. Playing variations on tempos and octaves, listening for a melody hidden inside. Feeling the clock and trying not to worry, I focused on the music. Strumming. The vibrations. Visualizing the notes, the waves bouncing against themselves in the air. Strumming. The subtleties, the patterns.


Then the melody came in focus like a distant image on the horizon. Closer and clearer. Walking to me. In no hurry. Just traveling at its own pace.


I leaned in closer to hear. Pressed my jaw into the shoulder of the wood and felt the chords ringing through my head. I shut my eyes. Closer the details formed. The shape, the feel, the words...

It was about ten minutes when Dan came back with a half emptied mug and sat back in his chair. He was perked up. Everything was done. I gave him the legal pad to read along as I sat on the couch playing the newly written idea to everyone.


Halfway through my performance, Dan put done his mug, whispered to the engineer and when I was done, he clapped loudly and we were ready to get back to work, "Yeah Son, that's right!"


That chorus was born out of a time crunch. I needed a chorus at that moment. And with focus, it manifested, it came to me. So I hope I don't sound like I'm complaining when I talk about now and the amount of time we are taking. I want to try working a record with a different feel and pace. I wanted to know what we could do with a little more. 

A little more time to write. More time to practice. More time to do takes, and mix, and sing. And it all adds up to a lot more time in the long run but that was the plan.

We could've easily retread the same musical territory we've run before. Could've put out another album like Shakedown, our last, but that's not what we're about. Since then I've learned a lot about writing and playing where I feel we can improve technically, but I've also changed emotionally. But most importantly I want to be a man in the present, not history.


This has been a crazy year for me and the band. Our family has grown and shrank. On the industry side, we've had so many highs and lows, from the top of the world to the lowest slugged out tracks of the gutter, that it makes my head spin just thinking about it.


All of that gets filtered into newer and newer songs. It was almost too much to keep up with, leaving me with used notebooks, forgotten computer files and recordings, filled with songs, ideas, and fragments at every level of completion.

Those albums are past. Artifacts. Preserved moments of time. A memory, and I'm not yet at a place to be nostalgic for our own work. I like to build off of the past, not recreate it.

Anyways I've been enjoying my own bed. My own city. My own life. And on my own time. These precious things pass by quickly, but they are the riches of life. So I have no guilt about seizing the chance to wake up to the sounds of my neighbors riding their lawnmowers, my son babbling, or my wife heading to work; not highway truck stop engine revving, hotel cleaners, lobby check-out calls, or a tour manager nervous about the next gig.


I love walking Boerne streets, looking at the changes in my city. Business come and go while I'm gone. I recently came back to find one of my favorite restaurants gone forever... oh well. I love being home for the longer days of summer staying up watching movies, reading books, and playing a violin concert in the afternoon to myself. I like becoming a better person and musician, not just a more popular band. I love writing and writing and throwing it all away and starting again. I love working a song and trying it with just a shade of difference. And those things can't be done while touring.

So day after day I drive a short road between my house and our studio, lock up with my brothers, and think of words/melodies, approach/delivery, style/substance, all in an attempt to move our band forward.


As I'm writing this to you, I'm a few feet from our speakers, listening to songs come together in the final stages (We've been mixing all day which means generally balancing the track. This is close to composition/color/balance in photography) and I've got this feeling... somewhere between anticipation, nerves and ecstatic craziness.

Anticipation because I've been bouncing these ideas in my head for a so long and this'll be the first time I get to hear a result in full. The culmination of hard work. A birth. Finding out if the songs were as good as they were conceived to be. That brings me to Nervousness: working so long on an idea puts the creator so close to it, they are never able to see the faults. But creation isn't easy. It comes with a lot of hurt. I'm not too worried though, I've got much more of the Ecstatic Craziness burning in me and I'm really digging what I hear: the best test for a song. This last feeling comes directly from my state of trying to do something I haven't done before. Challenging myself to go further, the way Dan always has; Challenging myself to dig deeper into myself, be more vulnerable than I've ever let myself; but mostly because I feel like we are pulling it off.


These songs will be of home. Of love. Of this moment. Of loss and change and growth. My reality. The life that grows outside my window. I'm happy to be out of the past, and more than willing to take as much time as I need to get there.

I don't throw lighting

I make no thunder

no way to transcend bone

No ambitious dagger

poison truth, no
shimmering hell for home

Devils play for bigger
game, starry seas

tomorrow and her works

Leaving me stolen strings
breath of body and
all good places of earth

-rené





*photo source: http://i.ytimg.com/vi/nB0-1IjSlxY/maxresdefault.jpg 

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



Warped Wax, Where Did It Go

My love of listening, my growing appreciation of sound composition, started in San Antonio but flourished in Boerne. For that I am grateful to this city, my home. This story is the beginning of finding my home.

 

I don't think it would come as a surprise for me to say, Boerne is not in a cutting-edge city like New York, Chicago, L.A., London, The list goes on... I'm not taking about the people in the city but the lifestyle of the city itself. Boerne's pride is history, tradition, and nostalgia. A time machine, rose-glassed look at the best parts of our past.

You might think it is not the place for someone who wants to be forward-thinking artist. Who wants to be a rejectionist. Who wants to jump off cliffs of creativity without a care to where to land. And while I was younger, in high school, eager to begin my life, I thought like that. But like a lot of my adolescent beliefs I was wrong.

It was on one of these adolescent days, with nothing to do but walk and dream of far distant Americas and the adventures I was sure to have, that I entered into an antique store.

 

I'd been coming to main street for years with my parents, both avid antique lovers, probably one reason why we moved here, but I never paid attention to what was inside.


Usually I waited, moaned, rolled eyes and was difficult. That day I was on my own, shopping for me, and uniquely interested in finding something. Music. But not the music available at Best Buy or Target. Also it's worth a note to say, I was too young to shop online, no credit card, and too young to drive to Austin or any trendier record shops. I was looking for music I hadn't heard before. Tired of the radio, feeling rebellious, I was lured by the charm of rock'n'roll and finding it the cheapest way I could.

To my great teenage delight I found a crate of vinyl hidden under a table, containing a strange array of music I'd never heard or seen before.

These were not perfect by any means, nor collector pieces. They were dirty: covers torn, stained, and ripped, records scratched and dusty. Some in the completely wrong sleeves. Lots of oddballs, Ping-Pong percussion* anyone?

"What do you want for these?" I asked not trying to sound too interested.

The old man at the counter scrunched his nose so much it lifted the glasses an inch as he examined the crate I was pointing at with my sneaker.

 

"What do you want them for?" He laughed to himself, a joke I still hear shopping today: "Do you even know what those are?"

He went on to explain how they were his son's records: mostly from the early seventies, he'd left them at home when he went to college, never picked them up, and they'd sat under this very table for a year or two. He took $10, all I had in my wallet - goodbye lunch tomorrow, for the whole crate.

It took me a while to figure out how to put my father's system together. We had used it when I was younger, but since we moved a few years earlier, the turntable, stereo, and speakers were boxed and stored in different places. Cables and plugs had to be hunted.

Next came a thorough cleaning of every disk, as well as a total examination of every record cover and sleeve.  I was most attracted to The Who and The Beach Boys, a few country records, and a best of Dion and the Belmont's which proved to be phenomenal.

 

I'd like to pause from this story to mention:


This boy and his new found treasure trove worked very hard to get his vinyl sounding great. I'm not one to romanticize the pops and cracks, lack of high and low end, or the eerie warble of warped wax. Those artifacts which some find charming actually bug me because although a part of the experience they are not part of the music. I also do not enjoy people who talk during movies at the theater. But there's an atmosphere and quality in vinyl that's only now being matched. A liveliness, a magic, bred into the medium, which is why it is my favorite format for listening.

  
Early downloads, napster, mp3, CD's, tape cassettes, even the first iPods paled in comparison. And once I heard the difference, it was undeniably better. I couldn't go back. There was a universe of warm, inviting comfort in vinyl. I also didn't care much for the artwork, not that the artwork wasn't beautiful, I was just interested more in the songs within, and soon found out that a quality record inside a torn or distressed sleeve would go for considerably cheaper than any new music.

 

Back to my story.

Finally I had the records cleaned and began listening one by one. Unknowingly I'd planted the seeds of my future, and the toe path of that journey came was in this sleepy city.

 

Boerne, gave me the music education I couldn't get in bigger cities. It was affordable though the selection was erratic, sometimes strange, but always unique. So much great music waiting to be found, and it was all hidden away down the street in dusty bins and slopped shelves, piled on floors and underneath porcelain figurines.

 

Now that I've traveled, now that I've seen shopping center after shopping center with the same stores and restaurants offering the same experiences without any regional individuality, I can appreciate my home so much more.

Small towns and their oddball beauty can only be felt once in a specific time and a specific place. It's precious. I love it. I was lucky enough to be open to new surroundings, even if they were hidden in old packages.

 

 

Where did it go?

My fury of noise                    
       

pitched pain

subtle lulls
 

Tear and tempo                       
       
once so sure

in blood, an bone
 

Crying they found me             
              

when low, very low

life had pushed

I'd looked back                        

only once
but where did it go?

 -rene



*image source: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-dsGis1BnHkzN8SCuf-sY_0xDB5Q-WL_-hhKUHkzCk5u1rTl-mDB5tKXccFrgiClBpMBgsK1hrJ-e8tVJ5h5c0H_y0Y4s10dBo_7_Zg2gic-iK8MUi1lJDYy_nlAuoMeGttpOPMwGIB8/s1600/sagle_ping_pong.jpg