Thoughts From 39,000

Last month I got a emotionally heavy. Getting those feelings off my mind is good though. I need that every now and again. Like a sad song, these thoughts can build inside of me and need to be processed out even when I'm in a good mood.

And life has been good for me. Though for you guys it might look slow, I don't know if I've ever been this productive before. 

Right now I'm on a flight back home from LA. Cramped up in the middle seat between a sleeping wife, she's is the best part of this, and a large guy who never learned how to share or not invade personal space. Best not to look towards the aisle... Then there's the window. The sky. The miles of desert between Texas and California.

After exploring the city; traveling without working is one of bigger life goals; meeting new people, amazingly talented people my brothers and I are so excited to be working with; the beach; the freak-show; a really great recording studio; it's been unbelievable.

So I'm in the air. Going over it in my mind. Holding on to it. Listening to the engine. 

Dreaming...

---

Of days when we traveled in a used conversion van. Four captains chairs. Little beige mini-blinds on the windows. Rope lights everywhere.

I was 21 and hungry for everything.

We'd loaded up with the four musicians, suitcases, and gear, cutting up IH-35.

"What's comin' up?"

It was getting hard to stay sitting for so long. "Could use a stretch," I added.

I was eager to get to Ohio, Dan and his studio; but after switching my weight back and forth for the last four hours as I switched between each leg falling asleep, and I needed out.

We were only a jump northeast of Dallas into Arkansas at a small convenience store; I stepped out of the van for the first time since we left San Antonio. And already in a different world. Hope.

It wasn't exactly what I imagined leaving Texas would look like, but it was a start.

New horizon. New trees. New air bursting in my lungs pushing me to the edge between life and dream for a nobody from nowhere. I had spent years as an invisible. Wanting. Waiting. Sometimes my childhood felt like a slow fall to death. Knowing the world was busting with life happening everywhere else. And I only had to find it. But I was stuck.

---

"Would you like anything?" The hostess whispered over the belly of my sleeping neighbor.

She was in her late 40's, well dressed with a floral scarf around her neck like this was a jet off a Mad Men ad.

"Diet Coke," I said automatically. It's my junk. My vice.

"More crackers," Rachel said softly to me, still with her eyes closed.

"And more crackers," I passed down the message.

The hostess slashed a couple tick marks on her paper then moved across the aisle.

Rachel shifted her head gently against my shoulder.

Maybe because it was our first trip, or maybe because it was so strange, but I remember this rest stop well.  Better than the hundreds since that I couldn't tell you a thing about.

---

"Hmm," the lady behind the counter looked me over as the bell rang over the gas station door. 

I nodded politely. 

"You look exotic," she said without pause or hesitation. Somewhere between surprise and apathy. 

I didn't know how to answer her with anything other than a smile and another polite nod. A real Texan.

The lady kept an eye on me from behind the counter, as an orange and black calico bounced out from around her feet, rounding the lotto ticket display, cutting thru my legs, and down a small row of protein bars to the back of the store..

I followed heading towards the refrigerators.

"Where you from?... You look different."

"San Antonio," I answered checking back over my shoulder with a quick look at her. She was still staring at me. 

I could feel her examining everything about me, detached and scientific. I felt naked. I felt embarrassed.

I tried to keep focused. Sprite. Coke. Mountain Dew. But that feeling of her eyes just burned the back of my neck.

My heart jumped when I felt a light touch brush against my leg, but it was just the cat. Pushing it's face into my jeans. Wrapping its tail around the other leg.

"She don't like nobody around here," the cashier yelled at me.

The cat sat down to watch me too. It's eyes frozen on my face.

I could hear the lady shuffling behind the counter, "She must think your different."

"Maybe she's a Texan too," I laughed but I don't think she found any humor in it.

The women's stare turned from cold to angry, "wouldn't surprise me."

She rang me up quietly.

Coke. Trail mix. Money.

The cat ran back behind the counter as someone else came in.

She held the change above my hand, "born in Texas?"

"Yeah," I had my palm open. Waiting.

Her eyes looked me over back and forth, "nah, you look too exotic." She said finally dropping the coins.


---

"Here you are Sir," the softness in the hostess' voice pulls me out of Arkansas and into the air. She's holding the drink out to me and searching her tray for Rachel's crackers.

"Hey, coffee too," my sleeping neighbor butts in. His voice cutting low against her ear as she reaches over to hand us the bag.

The hostess flinches for a second then holding back her anger, she softly says, "A hello first," and she does it so gently, and with a sweet laugh too, the man doesn't even notice the poison behind it. 

He mumbles something between a grunt and a hello.

She's calm but her eyes were ready to kill, "and welcome back Sir. Would you like me to get you something?"

The man smiles unashamedly, "Yeah... coffee."

The hostess flashes a brilliantly white smile and flips around towards the back of train. 

My neighbor is back into his fully laid back and slumped position. A real throaty wind sound is gurgling in his mouth right now as I'm typing this.

Thankfully we will be landing soon. And I'll have another week before I take off to New Orleans to start a tour. Cutting north up to New York, looping back west through Canada, south along the mid-west and ending back in Arkansas.

It feels like I've been here before so many times. But each time I leave I have no idea what to expect. No idea what'll be at the end of this flight. Or waiting for me in Arkansas. New air. New people. New horizons.

-rene

Elysian Fields Part 1

Elysian Fields Pt. 1

I rolled over, checked my phone and found a text from Brian. I was lying on the bed in my jeans. Listening to the fan. The other guys were out at a movie, so I wasn't expecting to hear from anyone.

After spending the evening in the hotel watching TV, ordering pizza, sleeping, and listening to the rain I had collected this heavy jittery-ness in my chest like I needed to move. Like I had to get out. Like I had to get into something.

-you make it in yet?

Good guy. Musician. Sarcastic and smart. He was like the kid you looked up to in high school for being so cool, for being above the system. He seemed to have an answer for everything. Like he had just experienced it before you. Older than me but kind and encouraging to younger bands. I forgot he lived here, last I saw him he was going promotion work in Boston.

-got in last night... what's up?

I got out of bed slowly. Opened the heavy curtain up to the steel sky, the empty wet roads, and these heavy grey cube buildings. And for a second I felt like getting back in bed when my phone beeped again.

-playing an early show at Elysian Fields. Put you on if you want?

The road. The pillow. I ran my fingers across my chest exhaling a deep sigh feeling the movement under my fingers.

-give me 30

It really took me a couple of seconds to get moving. Working out the cracks in neck, hunting out the cleanest shirt in my duffel.

I washed my face with one of the little hotel soaps, moved my hair around into place, and fished out a pair of salmon red chucks from under the bed. 

Elevator. 

Lobby.

Once I was outside I was hit with the cool air, the clouded dissipated sun, the instantaneous rush of life. Walking in the full breath of the city I quickly paced seven blocks cutting through alley's and side-streets. Flocking among the buildings, the street lights, the clouds, a small herd of  wild urban calico's and the occasional car.

Finally I stood in the doorway. And for a second, I wondered if I was in the wrong place.

Music was playing. Lights were low. But no people. No one was even watching the door to even find out I was on the guest list. 

I checked the address Brian had given me again. 

- I'm here

The club was dressed in typical post-punk fashion.

There are a lot of clubs like this over the country. Black walls scattered with local art and posters. Heavy red curtains. Air like sweat and candles. A few small café tables. All trying to cover up years of graffiti and abuse. 

- Green room... left of stage

I walked myself over passing the bartender as he came out of the bathroom. And felt a little mixture of relived and guilty that I wasn't playing tonight.

"Just that time of year." "School just got out." "School just started." "Everyone's working." "Everyone's on vacation." "Bad night." "Games on." One of a million excuses for why people won't come out to a show. And they are all valid in their own way I guess, but at the end of the day if people don't come out it's cause they weren't motivated to. By the band, by the club, by the promotion, all of it combines into a tangled mess of blame failing to attract an audience. But those things don't need to be said to anyone there, not before the show, and especially when it isn't my night to fail.  Some people make a point to complain but all there is to do is roll with it.

"It's not so bad," I lied, while fighting to get comfortable at the edge of a maroon futon. Too dirty to lean back on, but the edge was wrecked by the metal support bar underneath. 

Brian dug through his backpack ignoring me.

"The night's young."

"Yeaaaah...." Brian dropped his voice an octave into a gravely roll of disappointment. "It's only a Saturday, can't expect too much."

I opened a couple PBR's from the cardboard box at my feet. Put one for Brian on the table. At least they were cold.

"I got this down the street," he lifted a vinyl I'd never see before. 

A faded psych, purple collage jumble of faces, shapes, and words looking like a b-level Axis Bold As Love. Brian always toured with a portable vinyl player set up in the corner of his dressing room. 

"Nice store. I used to go all the time when I was touring... ummm," He took a drink. Closed his eyes. Holding the moment.

"When I was in Philly... working this little shop. Half my pay was in cash. Half in vinyl... That's how bad I am," his mind wandered away as he pulled the vinyl out of the sleeve, set it on the table, "I have to stop myself from blowing all this... ya know... Won't eat tomorrow."

He gently placed the needle down, with more care than I've ever seen from him, "but... love is wax," and a smile broke under his long stringy fallen hair, narrow nose, and tired eyes.

"You doing alright Brian?"

Brian stayed looking at the record. Watching it turn a little too long, "Yeah. Just not sleeping much."

And I knew that. Sleep and touring just never mix, but this felt different. The way he hung his words. The way he seemed to be down.

"Yoooou READY?" A boomy voice shot out from the doorway.

Brian was too busy looking at the vinyl sleeve to care about the new guy.

Black shirt, black jeans, black boots. Big boxy shoulders, square chin that seemed to land right into his chest, short blonde hair, light blue eyes. 

"Gonna be a f*** all night, am I right?" he shouted over the twangs of a fuzzy tele and a poppy snare, grabbing a beer for himself.

This time Brian looked up nervously, and gave an un-assuring introduction.

"Rene this is... Hunter," his voice went up at the end like it was half a question, "His band is playing soon."

"Hey man," we shook hands before Hunter pulled out his key ring, and slid a key between his middle and ring finger. 

Hunter gave a blank stare at me as he lifted his fist in the air and punched open the can, throwing beer down onto the green room carpet, laughing as landed in big splatters around his boots.

"It's gonna be something," Brian mumbled. But Hunter didn't hear that, he was half way through finishing the can in one go.

Beer ran down his chin as he tried to crush the can in his left hand. Holding it out towards Brian, he dropped the beer, kicked it weakly with the toe of his boot, and sent the can into a spin across the room, spraying everything before it pinged off the wall and landed behind Brian's record player.

"S***!" Brian yelled as he raced to clean up his record. 

"Oh Man!" Hunter yelled, "Got the record."

He didn't care. Couldn't care. It was in his face. Smiling as Brian tried frustratingly to clean up. 

"Rock and Roll! Right!?" Hunter looked at me and maybe, just maybe, I saw a slight hint that he went too far falling over his face. But he didn't apologize. 

I'm not good at fake talk. And I'm definitely not good at confrontation either. So I just kinda gave this face in between 'that was not cool,' and ,'I don't even know what to say.' 

There's another side to the business that some people say is almost as important if not equal to talent. And that's just being able to hang. Being able to work in this ecosystem of artists, business people, and audiences and not alienating all of them. I struggle with that, but Hunter, all the Hunters, make me look so good. 

"Here you go Brian," I pulled a bandanna from my back pocket and wiped up the record cover. It really wasn't bad. A few drops of beer over the plastic sleeve. Nothing that would hurt it, but I could feel this raw hatred radiating off of Brian. His hand shaking as he grabbed the bandanna.

"Not too bad," I said.

Brian fumbled to clean up the edge of his player. He mumbled something I honestly didn't hear. 

Hunter quietly grabbed another beer. "See you after the set... We can keep this going... Right? Just gonna go find my boys."

He was standing half out the door, "Right," he said one more time. 

Brian nervously fumbled into his shirt pocket, and pulled out a cigarette.

"Let's go," he said holding it between his lips. "I'm... let's go."

He had barely made it out the backdoor to the back alley before he turned around at me.

"What an! Ahhh!" Brian was frantic. His eyes just madly darting around the night. "I don't even know what I'm doing here."


Brian turned in circles, trying to light the cigarette, but unable to hold his hand steady. The door slammed behind me in a clash of metal.

This was more. More than Hunter being a jerk. More than an empty club. There was a fierceness in Brian's eyes. A panic. An anger cracking the surface of who he is. I'd never seen a man break before. I'd never seen a person shatter. And it is exactly that. Everything I knew of Brian. His being. His calmness. It was gone. Slipped apart at the seams.

"What is this supposed..." he stammered, "What am I going to do... here... and all the," he pointed into the club.

"I," I struggled to come up with some words to help him but I was stuck, "I... Brian."

Shoulders shrunk low. He was breathing fast and shallow. Turning to the wall. Folding in on himself, the alley, the darkest corner he could find. Like he wanted to turn into brick, and disappear.
"It's alright," I reached out to him putting my hand on his shoulder. At first he flipped away from me. Turned in a circle like a lost animal but he had no where to go. His eyes feeble fighting tears. "Brian," I grabbed both his shoulders, "It's ok."

"I don't want to,"

"You don't have to. This place. This show doesn't matter. You don't have to play a note."

Brian looked at me. Every part of him was working on breathing.
"But.."

"You don't have to Brian. You don't."

His breathing started to slow down. "It get's so hard."

"It doesn't have to be man." My heart sank for him. It still does. Maybe now I think I would tell him something different. But at the time I was over my head. We were both fighting to get back to the ground. Maybe I was part of the problem. Maybe he needed a better friend. But I was the only one there. And I did what I always do. Get back to the show. Get back to the music. "You don't have to. But you can if you want. You can play all this out. Right? You can do this."


to be continued...

-rene

After The Last Note

After the last note, I took a breath.

Two big lights came on above the audience pointing in on us: the band, the full stage, our gear, the interview chairs, the desk with the famous blue late-night coffee mug positioned at the edge. 

A camera swung between me and the audience. It had only been one song. A few minutes. A few heartbeats. Not even long enough to get nervous.

It's so much easier for me to take any big performance, show, festival, TV, if I can focus on one spot. One person. One object. My Drishti. Play there and only there. Let the crowd disappear. Let the room disappear. Let my focus disappear, till there's only me and the song. I had found my spot early that morning during rehearsals. The camera to my left. One singular mirrored eye. I watched it watching me. Sang to it. Ignored it. Came back to it. Tried to win its affections. But that was over now. 

After the last note, I had one breath before the world returned; a brief respite. I looked through the audience for anyone I knew, but they were too far away and those two bright lights came on right at my eyes. I remember hearing a good applause. And the cold. The studio was so cold my left hand hurt. I have an old injury that makes my middle finger cramp up in the cold. I tried to take this all in, holding it as long as I could. But once David Letterman was walking over to me with his hand extended out to my cold, knotted joint, I had to exhale. I had to come back.

"Take Me Back To Texas!" David laughed and the band played. Quick as it began, it was over and the camera swung away. Dave was off talking to Jaime. The stage crew began moving our gear off stage, the audience was funneling out, and I was led to the exit to meet our label guy Grover and publicist Mary who were waiting for us.

"You did it!" she yelled, "Your first TV appearance... and you were dancing and everything!"

"I did dance... didn't I?" I look back at the little stage, it is very little, that sacred ground, that space between the house band and the interview chairs for David Letterman is unexpectedly small and immediately powerful, and all evidence of our band was gone: our amps, drums, the cables and microphones all gone.

"Get your stuff, and we can meet outside," Grover said quickly.

I opened the door leading out of the studio floor... or was it open already? No, Abe was ahead of me, and I'm holding my bass slung over my right shoulder as we get ready to go to a narrow hallway back to the dressing room... and at the door is Bruce Willis. Unexpected as that.

Smiling like he is saying, "Yes it's Bruce Willis."

Just as I'm thinking, "Is it really? It really is Bruce Willis," and "man he is way more handsome than I could have imagined.

The guy seriously looks flawless and is I-don't-know how old... but instantly captivating and tall or was he standing on something... I remember him being tall... it's no wonder he's a movie star. He might have said 'great job' in a low-mumble-action hero way, but by the time I get past by him careful not to hit John McClane with my bass, I don't know how well I was paying attention. Maybe I just made it up.  Maybe it was just a grunt. I never tell people Bruce Willis said 'great job' cause I'm not sure, but I will tell you absolutely without a doubt, that I want to think he said it.

It's two flights up a metal grate staircase to get back to the dressing room. 

One flight above the studio was make-up, where I'd stopped before our performance. Each of us was sent down from our dressing room one at a time. The lady was talking to her friend when I arrived and sat me down on her barber chair without stopping her conversation. She immediately started across my face with a brush, doing her thing. She didn't ask me what I wanted, but that's probably best. I wouldn't have known what to say other than make me look good? 

The make-up room was incredibly bright and small. Spartan. Not even close to what I imagined from seeing movies. A chair, a small vanity shelf with her tools, bright lights, and one of those awful magnifying mirrors designed to show how much more sleep I needed but didn't get. But after a few minutes of her magic I'm looking better than I'd ever seen myself. She was packing up her brushes as I made my way past again. 

"Thanks again," I shouted as I made my way up.

The next flight, and the top of the staircase, are four dressing rooms. 

The first one was for Amy Adams; I only saw her in passing, I almost wish I had a cool Amy Adams story where I was charming or clever and made her laugh, or she was charming and clever to me and made me laugh, or how great would it be if she were not only beautiful and smart but also viciously mean? That would be a great story... but I don't have any idea what I would've said to her other than 'hello.' So it's alright with me we didn't talk.

The second room was for a film crew that followed, Paul Jr. and Sr. for American Chopper who were occupying the third room.

They'd briefly come into the fourth room, our room, before our performance. They said something like "Rock it guys!"

I think our room was a little disappointing for them, maybe they heard a rock band was next door and expected a rock star party going on, but we were just a couple kids in a mostly empty room. I had a bag with a change of clothes.

When I came back to the fourth room to get my bag everyone else had long cleared out. Just a few members from the film crew packing up gear as I snuck over cables, grabbed my stuff, and went back down the stairs. With the heave of the exit door. Out of the cold of the Ed Sullivan, I jumped down into the humidity of the loading alley.

And then I was alone.

On the same street we'd loaded-in from just a few hours before and feeling desperately indescribable. I had energy enough to run and no where to go. I had the feeling of accomplishment and change. But to what? Why? This big moment in my life. A fantasy, and it all seemed to have slipped out of my life already. Like it had left with that last breath, after the last note. Now there was only an echo. This alley. Leaving me with only a profoundly microscopic shift I felt in my heart. A wonderful anxiety. That I had only begun. That this was only a start. 

There was a me before and after.

The morning to afternoon. You could superimpose a photo of then and now and see I still looked the same. The day was as grey and clouded, though only a little hotter. Waves of people still moved busily along Broadway, though you could count more of them. And a musician still waiting outside the Ed Sullivan theater, though this morning he'd never played on this stage before.


-rene

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

for what its worth
 

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I'm almost done."

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

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

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

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

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

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

  

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

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

 

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

It takes time.

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

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

 

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

 

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

The waitress came by to get his plate.

 

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

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

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

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

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

It's up to the artist to create desire.

Desire is worth.

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

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

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

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

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

"What do you guys think?" Jaime asked.

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



-rené