On Leaving Bands

September always seems like the season of new beginnings.  Probably because I was in school (as student or teacher) from age 6 through age 33, September, as the start of a new school year, always seems like a time of possibility, cleaning and decluttering, re-focus and starting new projects.

This September there has been a lot of leaving of bands, for a number of us.  My guitar teacher, after 16 years, decided to stop performing every weekend with his cover band who is reknowned all over the state, because he was finding that when he performed, he no longer got the ego and artistic gratification he used to, and instead just felt the pain of not being with his two small kids.  He was supposed to play the last local concert mid-summer, at the spot where he officially proposed to his wife during a break in a concert by that same band, so it's a special spot for them, but it got rained out (I don't remember another one ever getting rained out, and this band has hardly cancelled a show in its 20+many years of existence).  The show was rescheduled to last Thursday, the last spot in the summer calendar for the venue, and then as it turns out it would be he second-last show ever with this band.  And it got rained out as well.  So his actual last show was way out of town somewhere north of Portage, and we didn't go, but the photos were on Facebook this morning, and it looks like it was an appropriate finale for his tenure.  I'm sorry I didn't get to see him one more time, but I can treasure the memories of the very many times I saw him with them over the years.  I'm proud that he had the self-insight to know that this was the right thing to do and this was the right time to do it.

I've also left or disbanded several ensembles that I've been playing with for a long time.  We made the decision not to continue in the Community Gamelan group.  There were many things that made it a tough decision - a professional group from Bali will be in residence this month and the group is doing workshops with them; the group is spending a weekend at Bjorklunden in Door County, a retreat space owned by the university, where I've always wanted to go; the daughter of the group's leaders, who I remember being just a bump in her mother's belly, learned some traditional Balinese dances over the summer and will be performing them with the group at this year's concert.  But on balance, we felt we weren't getting anything new out of playing, had reached the limit of our expertise on the instruments, and could do something else with the very awkwardly scheduled hours each week.  So we're not renewing for this Fall, and will be taking a break after being there at or nearly from the very founding of the group.

And then I've taken a hiatus from the monthly Music Making group that I started, what, five years ago? It would meet on about the third Sunday of each month, at my house, and people would bring photocopied tabs and we would all play and sing together.  Many people have come over the years, some only once, but the core group was all beginners who one way or another came to the group via my guitar teacher.  It was a Beginner Jam.  We had the basic rule of three chords maximum, and it is amazing the amount of repertoire you can find that fits that rule, but over the years we've all improved and so could tackle more complicated chords and rhythms.  I can't express all the group gave me - it made me a better and more confident guitarist (really reinforcing the lesson my teacher told me, that nobody cares if you make a mistake as long as you keep the rhythm going, because the rhythm is your contract with the audience, who is dancing), I feel like I found my voice as a singer (who thought I could ever do a decent job at something so soulfull as "Feelin' Alright"?), and it made me a better band leader, able to throw solos in time that the soloist could be ready by the downbeat.  I will use all these things going forward, and couldn't have learned them any other way than by playing regularly with other people.  But lately, the repertoire hasn't resonated with me, and I felt unprepared when the day rolled around and didn't keep the jam going at a good pace, and I have a better idea of the songs I really do want to learn and play, which don't fit this model.  And it was a Beginners Jam and none of us are beginners any more.  So I'm going to extend the hiatus indefinitely, although I still need to write to everyone and let them know.

What am I keeping?  I still plan to sing in the church choir, because it's a chance to harmonize vocally with other people, which is one of the best things in life.  That starts up again next Sunday.  And then there's an electric, blues-and-country-and-freeform jam I've been doing with my dear other half and another former student of my guitar teacher, in which I've been exploring others roles like lead singer, rhythm guitarist, bass player, and percussionist, which my ego used to prevent me from being happy about.  This group can play very complicated chords and rhythms, and the songs are closer to the center of what I want to learn right now.  So this one is still going, aiming for every two weeks but actually ending up about once a month.

And I'm toying with re-joining a community Orchestra which I tried for about 10 weeks a few years ago, playing cello for the first time in 30 years but delightedly still remembering how.  That meets once a week, way on the north side of town, super far from work, and so may end up being too much right now, but we'll see.

But mainly, and centrally, we have a whole list of songs, my other half and I, that mean a lot of both of us, that we've been working on as just guitar and vocal duos.  None of them are quite up to speed, but could easily be so with a few nights of practice, and we have ideas of a concert of an evening of these things, or a recording project, or maybe some guerilla appearances at various open mike nights, not sure what will become of them, but this project is very central to my musical interests, and so satisfying to my musical expression, and so it's the current spiritual focus.

So, many of us are leaving bands this September, but it will make room for new bands and new things to learn and new self-expression.

Gamelan concert

It's been a slice of summer this weekend in Appleton. We had a three-day weekend for Memorial Day, and the first two days were so perfect that it felt like I had travelled to a different city several thousand miles away and was on vacation. There were blue skies, green grass, blossoms on the trees, and room-temperature air with very little wind. Oh, and no mosquitoes yet!

The surreally bright colors might have been because I started the day on Saturday with a migraine, and I always get visual effects from them, but maybe not, because everywhere I went, everyone remarked on how beautiful the day was.

We spent a fair bit of the afternoon outside, in the final rehearsal for the Community Gamelan group.  Gamelan is a Balinese percussion ensemble that is taught by repetition, no written music (although many of us have developed our own cryptic way of taking notes), and we're lucky to have a beautiful set of instruments and an instructor resident at Lawrence University.  Our Community group, the LU student group, and the childrens' Gamelan all had our concert on Monday afternoon, after rehearsing our pieces since last September.

Although it was our last rehearsal, our instructor pulled the instruments outside anyway, even though it was different and a bit disconcerting because the sounds and cues were different, because Gamelan is traditionally played outside in Bali, for festivals and important life events. When you play it inside you need to wear ear protection, that's how much it's made to be played outside. But it was lovely and green and peaceful, playing out on the lawn in front of the university house in which we normally rehearse. Everyone who passed by, on bike or on foot or in a car, was smiling.  The sound is a pretty joyful sound, and the instruments are lovely and gold, so it's no wonder, but it made an impression to see all those smiles without exception. Some people stopped to listen and watch.  Our pieces were pretty close, and we didn't stop and start very much, so it was close to a show.

The next day, my sister was helping my Mom plant some flowers in the border of my parents' new condo, which they moved to in July last year, so this is their first spring. I went up to see their progress, and Dad and I stood and surveyed their work. Then we sat out on their little porch underneath their new umbrella for their table, and then Mom had the great idea of going for a swim in their community pool, two houses down.

The three girls had the pool to ourselves.  We had white clouds in blue sky above us (which cleared to just blue by the end of our swim).  We had the clear, rippling water, slightly warmer than the outside temperature.  We felt the freedom of gliding up and down the pool, turning somersaults, holding the pool's side and kicking, dragging arms underwater, all these motions and feelings we hadn't felt in so long, during the long, iced-in winter.  All around the pool there were birds active doing bird business - a father Mallard duck perched at the very crest of a neighbor's garage roof, neck craned up with authority, surveying the scene. A busy chickadee darting in and out of a spot in the back of an evergreen, where we thought he might have some chicks.  Two sparrows getting busy with each other. A seagull, flown over from the dump but still lyrical and white in the sky.  It was the kind of day even a dump seagull looked beautiful and perfect.

From starting the weekend with a stress migraine, the end of the day Sunday was a full contrast. I felt fully relaxed, light in my body, bouyant with the water and sun. Pure bliss.  The next day, the day of the concert, the actual Memorial Day holiday, the temperature had dropped about 25 degrees and it poured rain all afternoon, so I felt bad for people who had that as their only day off, and for those paying respects to fallen loved ones in the spirit of the day, and for those who have family traditions like camping and cooking out. We were inside, performing the concert in a traditional proscenium theater, and barely noticed the weather, playing the music of a sunny outdoors place with a healthy glow still on our skin from the perfect weekend weather.

Mike and the Moonpies in Wittenberg, Wisconsin

It was a birthday weekend in Appleton and parts to the north. My sister turned an unnotable age, nothing with a zero at the end or even a five, but we celebrated still.
 

We had tickets to the Symphony on Saturday night, and dinner beforehand is always rushed, so she decided she wanted a Birthday Brunch at our parents’ place. She requested an egg dish that’s called “Stunning Brunch” for family historical reasons; it has cubes of bread and cheese and green chilies and is baked in a 9x12 pan. We ate in the sunroom which has lemon yellow walls. My parents’ place is open and very light, and always very orderly and welcoming and peaceful, so my mental picture of this brunch, with its yellow walls and eggs and light, was of a springlike golden burst of sunshine. It’s fitting, because I feel the same way about my sister.
 

Because we had Symphony tickets, she had to miss the performance in town of one of her favorite bands in the world, Mike and the Moonpies, who hail from Austin, Texas. A tip had made us see them on the stage in Houdini Plaza one early evening during the Mile of Music, three or four years ago, and she went out and immediately bought all their albums which have been on heavy rotation ever since, but they have not been back to town until tonight, almost her birthday, when they were playing a local bar but she couldn’t go. Like a miracle, though, a friend saw another show on Sunday afternoon at 4 pm, on her actual birthday. Mike and the Moonpies, from Austin, Texas, we’re playing in the auditorium at the high school in Wittenberg, Wisconsin, about an hour and a half’s drive away. 

Originally four of us were going to go, but one pulled out at the last minute due to studying for final exams – she’s a student at nearby Lawrence University – so in the end my sister, her friend and colleage from the PAC ticket office, and me planned to go.

We’d had a brutal few weeks of weather. Rain, which turned to three inches of ice, then snow, then historic cold that reached minus 24F degrees over two days, then warm and melt and rain again, then more ice and more snow. The last shoveling out was the last straw for my sister, who had to move the ice chunks that the plow left at the end of our driveway, with the help of several neighbors, as I was away. During that same storm, white-out conditions on the highway had caused a 131 car chain-reaction crash that left one day and many seriously injured, and all the cars totaled. It had been a few days since that snow, but another one was predicted for her birthday weekend, which caused some trepidation. We all agreed that it was not worth risking life to see this band, so if the roads were icy or blocked with drifting snow or in low visibility fog, we would stay home, and she planned an alternative peaceful day just in case. 

But, joy of joys, the snow ended early in the morning, and the roads were all dry and clear, and so the conditions were great for our drive. We saw some patches of blue sky, and the snowy fields and gentle hills to the north of town, setting off the red barns, were beautiful, like paintings or photographs in a calendar. I had to carry the mental pictures because I was too slow with the camera – by the time I got my phone out the scene had changed.

We got to Wittenberg about an hour before the show was due to start. We found the high school where it would be, and there were about three cars in the parking lot and not much movement evident, so we decided to drive back down the street and get gas for the trip back, but just as we were leaving the school parking lot, we saw a camper van towing a trailer, and just knew that must be the band.

We stopped at a very well-stocked gas station which also had a little gift shop, with pretty nice clothing, jewelry, leather purses and home decorations, painted signs with sayings on them about wine and coffee and things. We didn’t buy any gift shop items, just snacks and drinks. We also sussed out options for dinner after the show, which were pretty limited in a town that doesn’t even have a stoplight.

Back at the school, the doors were open and a few people were sitting around. There was a long lunch table set up with merchandise, and another one with a small sign advertising the three shows in the series, of which this was the first one. We showed our tickets to a girl near a money box, and she kind of shrugged and said, yeah, go in, and didn’t need to scan or collect or tear our tickets, so we retain them as souvenirs. We were able to buy raffle tickets for the high school dance team, who was having a 50/50 raffle which are usually a good deal.

While the entry into the show was very humbly just a high school cafeteria, the auditorium itself was actually pretty nice, with comfortable seats and a proper PA system aside the stage. A very kind middle-aged brown-haired man greeted us and showed us to our seats – he turned out to be the promoter who had organized the concert series. We were about half-way back. The front rows were starting to fill in. Most of the other patrons were older, white haired, clad in warm coats.

(During the first part of the show, Beth and I received messages from our Mom, to let us know that our cousin had passed away, after a long battle with ALS, but that’s a story for another entry.)

At the appointed time, the kindly promoter took the stage, thanked us all for being there, announced the next two shows (The Bellamy Brothers, and I can’t remember the second one, both in April), and then invited the dance team members up to the stage to draw the winners from the raffle. They gave away three CDs, one each from the artists in the series, and then the 50/50 pot which was just over $200. It was the cutest, but most normal and matter of fact, opening of a show that I’ve seen in years.

The band then took the stage – without the keyboardist who’d been with them in Appleton, with a new bass player since we saw them last, but same drummer, lead guitarist, and most importantly pedal steel guitarist who is my sister’s favorite. My sister will remember what they opened with, but I remember the sound – perfectly realized, unabashedly traditional country. They played for several hours, covering material from all of their albums, plus one George Strait, one Willy Nelson and one Freddy Fender song that were more familiar to the crowd. Mike’s voice sounded a little beat up from the road, but the energy and performance was great. There was silence between many of the songs, because the crowd applauded politely but not for long enough. At the end of the show, though, they stood and hollered and called the band back for a multiple-song encore. But didn’t buy much merchandise – I could walk right up to the table, where I got two CDs, a shirt and threw in a beer coozy so the manager didn’t have to make any change.

We ended up dining at the local Subway, which also contained a pizza place. We drove home just at twilight, rapturously recalling the show, hearing my sister’s friends story of her family connections to the towns we drove through, and watching the warm sunset light on the snow.

Jamie Kent and Wild Adriatic at the Appleton Beer Factory, March 3 2019

It’s been a cold week in Appleton. The past few weeks have been brutal in their various forms of winter - snow, ice, gloom, subzero temperatures. Three weeks ago, a polar vortex made the temperature drop to 24F degrees below zero for two days - days when I couldn’t stay home from work because we had an important live video conference, so my sister and I were both out in it. After that we had several big snowfalls, adding up to a record for any February. Then, we were saying today that it was just one week ago that whiteout conditions caused a 131-car accident on a stretch of highway that all of us drive all the time. It seems much longer than one week ago that it happened, and sort of cruel that today only a week later was sunny and brilliant blue, although still crazily cold and icy in patches.

It was a great day for doing comforting work with fabric with your Mom, and that’s what I did all afternoon. My Mom and Dad moved here in July, and in her old home Mom was very involved in the rug-braiding community. She has made probably more than 100 rugs of wool strips, following the techniques laid out by her teacher Norma Sturgis in her instructional book. Dad always says that Mom has one of the best senses of color in her rugs. So, convincing her to move here to be closer to her daughters meant tearing her away from all of that, and we haven’t replaced that community, but I am learning to braid, and I hope to go with her this summer to the annual braid-in in Salida, Colorado. She is taking me through the steps - choosing colors, tearing strips, making the “T”, starting to braid. Today we worked on lacing, and splicing the lacing cord, and how to add a new color. We worked for about two hours, and were both weary at the end. The wool is a bit hard on your hands. It irritated my sister’s skin, so she prefers quilting with cotton fabric. It can be hard keeping the sides of each strip folded in just so. I felt like I was wrestling with the fabric for every loop. But braiding is one of the most forgiving crafts. Bumps and twists will work themselves out as you walk on the rug, and the process doesn’t change the materials so you could in principle take apart and redo anything without any loss but time (and with the gain of practice).

We sat in Mom’s sun room, with the blinds tipped a little because the sun was so bright off the snow piles outside. She was working on a round rug with light blue, grey, and a grey-purplish plaid, a gift for a cousin. Mine is dark forest green, tan, and green-and-cream plaid. Neither of us exactly has a plan for what colors we’ll use as we go along. I asked Mom how you decide, thinking she would quote some principle like that you always start with light and then do a dark band, but she answered with a question, “How much of that green plaid do you have left?” Not that much. That’s how you decide, or at least one way.

I had to leave before dinner to go to a show at a bar and occasional music venue downtown. My sister and her friend had seen it and got tickets, and I got one for me and one for my significant other. The show was early, since it’s Sunday night, and featured two bands who became familiar to our town through the Mile of Music Festival, a summer celebration of original Americana music that will be in its sixth year this summer. Appleton in a music town, with a Conservatory at one end of the main street and a big performing arts center and bars featuring live music at the other.  So we know how to pay attention to a musical performance and how to listen, and we’re not shy about whooping and dancing and singing along. So the bands that come to play the Mile notice this about us and express their appreciation for us from the stage, and many have starting returning between festivals to play single gigs.

Tonight was one of those, with two acts - Jamie Kent and Wild Adriatic. We got to the venue not long before it started. We got very good parking spots in the next block, and I was rugged up in my big calf-length down coat and lots of wool, but it was still fiercely cold walking from the car to the bar. There was the slightest little breeze but it was enough to drop the four degrees down to a chill I could feel through the sleeve of my coat. 

The bar was busy when we got there, packed but not uncomfortable. Jamie went on first, a solo acoustic set and then joined by a second guitarist. He sings catchy and sincere songs that are right in the Americana genre of the Mile of Music. The crowd gave a warm reaction, and it was so nice to be out among other people. It felt normal, and fun, after weeks of extreme and treacherous weather, when even the simplest things like walking out your own door felt dangerous (wind chill, icy steps, crazy big icicles overhead).

The rest of the group I was with hadn’t seen Wild Adriatic before. The crowd filled in a bit when they took the stage. They play in the nexus of rock, blues-rock and soul, and they’re not a band whose records I would put on at home to listen to, personally, but they are a very good live act. Very loud, but strong, not blarey. Strong beats, and a good drummer, but so relaxed. They are all completely confident on stage, and seem not to take themselves too seriously. We stayed for about five songs, including one they said was written about Appleton, which then morphed into a medley of a number of different soul hits, and then back, with a rhythmic riff played on guitar and bass in unison that got the crowd jumping up and down, and when it stopped we let out a roar, a sound you only hear from a crowd when band and crowd have joined together.

It was a little bit of summer in our winter. A gig you would walk to in sandles during the fest in August, which a big room full of us struggled through the cold to get to tonight. I feel grateful to the performers to have come play for us. We’ve had a few difficult weeks, and really needed this show.