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



ps. as always like, share, subscribe and if you want to talk you can reach me on this blog, facebook and twitter

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?   

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

Some Great Unconscious Radio Station Of Lost Melodies

There's a strange magic that appears in the treks of rolling endless highway; driving tunnels of expansive skies; following roadway lines like a meditative drone. Some beautiful delirium where deep seeded thoughts uproot in the mind with new-surfacing enchantment after hour 22. 

I've seen New Mexican desert sunrise, and it's worth a trip on it's own, I've seen the quick sprint of night racing up and down the hills of Kentucky while constellation's burst out like fireworks firing off the horizon. I've seen endless waves of both shores crashing on cool nights against the borders of our country, and in between all the countless miles, the miracle truck stops, the gas stations, and food joints supplying our journeys.

No musician starts out to be a truck driver, but it should be a subheading in the description. I am a musician, traveler, hauler of goods, loader and un-loader. That along with merch-slinger, salesman, entrepreneur, and insomniac just about describes what I do. 

Come to think of it there should be a way for people to understand what the life of musician is like when they start on this path so I will try: To put it straight, if you want anything else but music from being a musician than don't ever start. If you want fame, love, or money try another line of work.

Back to the small tasks and fevered inspirations.

"...Rene..." her voice is distant like a TV on in the next hotel room. I'm lying in the dark and one of the stiffest mattresses available. If you didn't think recreating the feeling of sleeping on a rock was possible on a bed, than you are not staying in the right over-night motels. "...Rene..."

I groan and roll face down on the pillow. It's not that I don't hear her, or don't want to answer, I'm just too tired to do anything but stare out the slit of light coming in from the wall sized window. Another great feature of motels is a giant window that opens to the parking lot. The curtain wouldn't close all the way and the yellow light from the parking lot is humming in, with a constant sizzle of electricity buzzing like cicadas. My eye is stuck on this light and its ethereal song, and I don't know why, or what I'm waiting for but I feel like it's in there, an answer to a dream, or a prayer... Maybe I was just trying to ignore the wheeze of a passed out drunk guitar player with a heavy snore... It was a very long night.

We'd played until one in the morning, loaded out by two, and drove an hour and a half out to the hotel. After food and TV it was nearly five when I finally stretched out on the bed, but sleep wasn't coming. I'm not good at turning off my brain like that. My heart still pumping energy to every corner of my body. I could hear the sounds of drums in my ears, or maybe it's the whoosh of blood? Da dum, da dum, da dum, da da dum. 

I stayed up reading until every word is blurred together in exhaustion. I was re-reading the same passage for the fifth and sixth times. My legs sore from being wrapped up in the van, my body sore from the loading gear, my throat sore from singing, and I finally pass out with an exhaustive grin on my face hidden under an open book, cause I'm still tingling inside with the roar of music and the hum of tires.

"Lobby Call in 15 ya hear?" With a slam of her fist on the door, her voice trails away down the hall presumably to check the band out of our rooms. I groan seeing that the clock reads seven a.m. I probably got all of half an hour of sleep. I might be able to sleep in the van if it's not too bumpy... I kid myself. My roommate's in the shower and the humidity only helps to bring out the smell of mold breeding into the carpet.

On Tuesday, April 29, 2014 7:55 PM, smokinreno <smokinreno@yahoo.com> wrote:

There's some strange magic that appears in the midnight rambles, the treks of rolling endless highway. Driving down tunnels of dark starless skies, following the yellow line like a endless meditative video-game drone.

Some beautiful delirium, where deep seeded thoughts unroot in the mind surfacing in terrifying enlightenment, emerges after hour 22. 

I've seen the New Mexican desert sunrise, and it's worth a trip on it's own, I've seen the quick sprint of night racing up and down the hills of Kentucky while constellation's burst out like fireworks firing off being the horizon. 

I manage to drag myself to the lobby alone, late, but not so bad that anyone would really notice. We're still waiting for the tour manager to pull the van around to the lobby.

Everyone's cloaked in sunglasses, a few are taking some breakfast from the lobby buffet. I've got my bag at my feet and I'm humming. Was it a song from last night? Was it from the other bands? We pile in, throwing my suitcase in the back on top of a pile of carefully Tetris-like piled gear, and find a seat on the middle bench.

The seat's cold, the window's cold, my body folds into a familiar spot as I close my eyes. Still humming this mysterious melody on repeat... It's playing on a horn, or is it an organ? It's dreamy and evasive. I can't put my finger near it much less hold it yet. If I try to think about it, the melody disappears, but if I try to sleep it comes back into the back of my mind. Spinning around like a looped vinyl unable to move forward in the song.

Two hours fly by, the cities go too, and I wake up from a daze of staring out the window. I have no idea where we are but we are moving east. I roll out a snap in my neck. The radio is quietly talking the news to the front seat drivers. And the melody is still playing. Is it from the radio? A record I know? With heavy eyes I watch the trees streak by my window. One by one. House and field. Cows. Car after car. Over and over. There's something about repetitiveness that zones the brain out. Takes away from what is physically happening, and morphs monotony into a beautifully complete idea. Putting the brain on auto, let's the subconscious and all its imaginative ferocity come out to play.

It's my turn put more gas in the tank, and I'm huddled at the side of the van with my jacket collar high to block the wind. I hear the sloshing chug of gas as it pours into our empty tank like a pulsing snare, and the song in my head starts playing along. It's been hours and I haven't placed the tune yet. I'm starting to feel like it's an original conjuring of the sub-conscience singing out to me. Slowly words start to mold themselves, beats become syllables, words become phrases, and verses, and by the time I'm working on a chorus we are pulling into a back alley of a club for today's load in.

It'll be another several hours till I'm back at a hotel room, writing down the ideas that have been playing to me all day. At one side it feels unfair to say I wrote this, as much as I found this. I heard this, playing to me off some great unconscious radio station of lost melodies.  My mind slipped open, a crack emerged, and in came a song. I don't recommend exhaustion as a method for inspiration, but it is one way to get my mind to a quiet spot. Quiet enough where I am not thinking about creating, but only creating. Allowing myself to take in rather than push out. This is merely scenic driving through the frontier of creativity. Those empty highway roads waiting to be explored. Waiting to be found. Waiting for an ear to speak themselves into, for a mind willing to listen among the clutter of life surrounding us.

your hands like flowers 

talk in subtle ways

I'd love to be the hours

and fields where they play

-rene



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



Fiery Indignation. Family Pt. II

So we can all be family bands. But still there's something different, something unique about a band of blood.

I am two years under Abe, three over Jaime. That's some distance, not as much as others but enough. As I went to middle school, Jaime still in elementary and Abe into high school, the three of us drifted.

Sure we hung out all the time on weekends and after school, but it wasn't close. I don't remember any deep talks, we played video games, watched tv and movies, had our inside jokes, but the personal stuff was kept private. Maybe that's because our parents were private people and we inherited that, but maybe it's because middle, elementary, and high school kids just don't hang out.

I internalized. I kept a lot of things hidden, not just from my family but from everyone. Anyone that knows me from that time, knew I had a temper and a tongue. It might be hard for friends now to picture who I was, or for those people to realize I've cooled off... but I have, and I was.

I was a fighter, quick to fists, quick to fits. My teenage years did me no favors either. My tastes in music and books,pushed me further from the friends I used to have. Deeper into my own thoughts, until I was happy being on my own. Happy living life on the fringes. Making jokes under my breath. Keeping my thoughts hidden away in secret journals, of fiery indignation. Turning isolation into creativity. Turning reaction into desire. My purpose: to observe, to write, to find inspiration to live fully in dreams and thoughts.

My brothers were always there, but not as close as we are now. It wasn't until we found music that we drew back together. We shared CD's, shared bands, stories, dvds, and became friends. And from there it was unstoppable.

I can't tell you how other bands feel about their bandmates, but for me, it's about as perfect as I can hope. I get to carry home with me when I travel, which is good cause the road is a distant and lonely place sometimes. I get to collaborate with artists I respect. I get to laugh all the time. But most importantly, I get to be myself.

My brothers know me. Know my jokes. Know when I need space. Know when I need to talk. I don't pretend, I don't have to be anybody else. This industry has a lot of pressure to be cool. To dress cool. Talk cool. Drink cool. And I hate that. Might be one part of the job I really hate. Cool is nothing. Cool is substance love. Cool is a form of control other people throw on you. Cool is as real as Dirty Harry, or The Fonz. Cool is a dream to laugh at. Cool is trading originality for fad. And writers shouldn't suffer that. I'd take honesty over cool any day of the week. 

Family gives me honesty. Luckily my work is family, so I get reminded when I'm being fake. When I failing myself. When I'm falling into traps. When I'm running off cliffs. When I'm losing. Cause it's so very easy to go.

-rene

Dirty Harry worked in a shop
Every day till his hands were shot.
His stomach grew wide, his hair fell thin
And his wife gave up counting his chins.
Her heart, alone so many years
Malnourished, shrunk, fed on fears
Of loneliness, but holding right
Like long winter's root, for spring's delight.
It should be no shock, this young sun
Found her, with a little time, and won
What was so long lost. Harry kept on
Squint-eyed at work, pushing it down.

Away, away, waiting for the morning.

A bell to strike 3 or 4. A warning

To Harry with force, get yourself home.

To lover to leave. To wife alone. 

- Don't... there's still a few minutes... -

and how do I feel? Like the wind over the shoreline, clouds under stars. I move nothing.

- ...not till the guard calls. -

and she smiles again like we have hours. When the night begins, and dawn is no closer than the body that should be warming this spot.

- and tomorrow? When he goes... -

she doesn't need to ask. That's not the when we need to know.

- here again. And you, Elaine. When will this be over?  -

the bell rings.

- Don't make me, - she says in a breath. - You need me here. Like Harry for his work. Like the author for this story. Like the bell in the tower. I'm struck. -

I don't know why she would bring the story in to this, having forced me to break my meter. But she is right. Never blame someone else for you writing. Especially your own character. It's cowardly. So I nod. Finding my shirt, the bell rings a forth time. Then a fifth. And we hear him on the stairs.

- Tomorrow then. -

- Tomorrow. -

I left the window open a crack. Moving softly down the fire escape. The metal floor creaking beneath my steps. I hear the door close. And he doesn't say hello. He never does.