oh, to be you

I'm now at the stage of life where I hear lots of interesting things from my peers, in the way of their ideas about the world.  The mid-thirties are a weird time of thinking you know what you're doing, all the while living with the secret fear that you have no idea at all.  It's different from your twenties when the fear has not yet presented itself; you're just an obnoxious know-it-all who does and says appalling things with no idea that you'll regret ninety percent of it later.  I have a sneaking suspicion that the forties will be about simply accepting that we have no clue.  I'm kind of looking forward to it, I'm not going to lie.  Because, you know what I hear a lot of these days?  Dudes talking about how much they "can't listen to (insert awesome album of yesteryear here) because it just doesn't sound any good".  I know way too many recording engineers.  And only three of them are exempt from this rant.

I don't claim to be an engineer, and I'm not claiming to know every single thing about sonic values, pre-amps, compressors or mics.  I'm just a musician who makes records.  I have recorded myself as well as other people and we've all survived it.  That said, I've been listening to music pretty much every second of my life since birth, and I just finally need to say this: HEY SUPER UNKNOWN "ENGINEERS", GET OVER YOURSELVES.  I recently heard some smack talked about a band that I hold in the highest of musical esteems, the Smiths.  Now, I understand what goes on with the Smiths, kids.  I know Morrissey can be a bit dramatic and even maudlin at times.  I don't think he would dispute that claim.  Perhaps Johnny Marr's guitar style isn't for you (in which case you might be deaf, but, hey).  I can even almost handle the idea that not everyone needs to know the thirty-thousand words to 'Cemetry Gates'.  Almost.  But, if you're going to tell me that the reason you've never given that group's music a chance is that you don't like the sounds they got, in 1987?  I'll meet you behind the school at 3:15.  Be ready to fight.

This opens up a whole can of what-the-hell for me.  Because, where does it end?  What's the criteria for acceptably recorded and/or produced material?  Does it have to be from 1990 or later?  Does it have to be un-famous?  Is a song or album without merit if the quality of the actual recording is below this undefined standard?  If any of that is true, it's just total mayhem in my mind.  Some of my very favorite music was made in what may well have been a garage or bathroom, and I love it just the same.  Without even touching on the vast expanses of great music made throughout the ages, I can find fault with this short-sighted approach when applied the last twenty-five years of punk, new wave, electronica, rock and pop music.  Let's take Operation Ivy's one record, for instance.  I don't know a single person in my generation that didn't live for that album.  Not only did it merge fast, sloppy punk with upbeat ska sensibilities, but the song subjects spanned everything from hot girls, to music in general, to coming together as opposed to always being separated by bullshit.  So WHAT if it sounds like it was recorded in a living room with maybe two mics with socks over them?  On the other end of the spectrum in 1989, we had Pretty Hate Machine by Nine Inch Nails.  I can't pretend to know how this record was made, but in my mind, Trent Reznor recorded it on some Tim Burton-esque machinery in his mother's basement, while wearing a leather dress.  When you look at it through that filter, it's the best album ever made, miraculous even.  But even if you don't, are you going to really sit here and tell me that the songs didn't change your life when you were fourteen?  That you didn't sulk in your room with bad eye make-up on, shrieking along to 'Head Like A Hole'?  Were you just born up above it?  Well, now you're down in it.

This brings me to my favorite part of those who suffer with acute cases of Engineeritis: lack of valid output.  Every single one of the people who complains about great music for sport makes nothing of the kind.  This is not to say that they're not all musicians - because they surely are.  They all wanted to be rock stars, whether they'd admit that or not.  Somewhere along the line, the fear took hold and they started recording more than they played out.  It might have started with close friends' bands, and then expanded to the circle around those folks, and so on.  Before they had a chance to notice, years had gone by, they'd gained thirty pounds and many moons had come and gone since they'd been on a stage.  Alas, they still make a record of their own from time to time.  The songs are uninspired and safe, the vocals are drowned in effects, but damn it - that three thousand dollar pre-amp makes the guitars sound just perfect.  Exactly six people own copies of said album, and the bitterness in the heart of the Sad Engineer Guy continues to grow.  They resent all who are not as afraid as they are, and they continue to criticize all who take the chances they never did.

The quickest way to tell an expert from a wannabe is this: the experts would never claim to be such.  I've had the immense pleasure of having my last two albums mastered by a proper genius by the name of Doug Sax.  That dude has worked on more great music than can be listed.  He has the frickin' Lifetime Achievement Grammy, know what I'm sayin'?  And everytime I've been around him, he's been interested in what I'm doing and how I'm doing it.  He doesn't act like I'm a fool for making records at my house with whatever gear I can scrounge together (most of which is borrowed from Gary Paczosa - another genius).  He asks thoughtful questions and tells me what he likes, and where he thinks I can do better next time.  The man's all class.  The two engineers that I've worked with who's styles and philosophies I LOVE, are still rocking out.  They're getting up there and exposing their guts just like everybody else.  That's why they rule to work with.  They're not judging the plays from the sidelines; they're still in the game.  They don't act like they know it all; they're still learning.  I hope I'm never done learning.  I hope I always listen to music and love it so much that it makes me scream, cry and flip out.  It's a gift, pals.  A gift.

The truly great ones among us just do what they do, because they have to do it, not because it might measure up to the Imaginary Standard of the Hate Brigade.  Regardless of whether or not their music is what you're into, the sounds are not the point.  The message, energy and innovation are the points.  You can spend the rest of your life tinkering around in your caves with your toys (all of which will be obsolete, at some point), but you're not changing anything in the world.  You're not saving anyone's life, least of all your own.  To quote the very best:

"Don't forget the songs that made you cry, and the songs that saved your life... 
Yes, you're older now, and you're a clever swine, but they were the only ones who ever stood by you."

 ~Morrissey/Marr of the Smiths
(That's right - the goddamned Smiths.  What.)
 

Keep on creating.  Use what you have.  Believe in yourself.

Thanks for listening,
~buick audra

for those who think and feel

The calendar claims that something is almost over, and that something new is soon to follow.  Our culture has a frenzied way of announcing new diets, behaviors and future goals right around now, and in years past, I've done the same.  Today, I've got none of that for you.  My diet has consistently focused around vegan Mexican fare and various coffee beverages for the better part of twenty years now.  I tend to do too much, rest too little and wish I'd done differently later.  My body, aside from the occasional new tattoo, hasn't really changed since I was about seventeen, no matter how much I pay attention to it or neglect it.  And, I write basically the same song over and over, but trick you all by employing the magical assistance of a capo from time to time.  This is it, it would seem.  New year or not, I live in this body and this mind.

I sat on my couch all day yesterday, still battling with the residual illness of my most recent bout of strep throat.  I watched what felt like fifteen thousand episodes of the The Office (the American one), and half-assedly knit a birthday gift for a thirteen-year-old I'm sort of related to.  This is what resting looks like for me.  It's dreadful and dull, and all I've really got in me these days.  It's been a long year, after the thirty-four long ones that preceded it.  Next year will be the same, and I no longer have illusions about that sort of thing.  I was born with a certain set of equipment that makes my life feel like this.  Some days it's incredible; others, less so.

I'm usually a musician.  When I feel or think things to any kind of extreme, I write my way out of it.  It's been a handy coping mechanism, and one that I place tremendous value on.  I very much believe that it has saved my life a time or two, and for that I'm quite grateful.  On a lighter note, it's also given me more laughter and delirium than anything else, hands down.  Because of this, it has priority seating in my arena.  The past four years that I've spent in Nashville have been the most prolific for me, to date.  I could get into bragging about how much I've written and recorded in that time, but I've recently realized that I think that's gross.  The race to win, at whatever it is people think they're competing for, looks really lame when you see it from the sidelines.  Who cares if I wrote one or three hundred songs?  Anyone who does care is weird, in my opinion, as it's no one's business but my own.  Let's just say that I made some work that matters to me.  That's what counts.  Some of it's wrapped up with a tidy bow and some of it's still in process.  Lately, progress is at an all-time low, and I mostly think about the work in the abstract.  People are waiting on my actions (some more patiently than others), but it changes nothing.  I don't have the drive today.  And yes, that feels very strange for me.

I recently watched the documentary about the band Rush.  Aside from that group of men being profoundly inspiring in every way, their story gave me some comfort and hope to hold on to.  Not being a diehard Rush fan, I was unaware of the timeline that their music followed, most notably around a very long hiatus they took in the wake of Neil Peart's personal losses.  His daughter and wife both passed away within a very short time, and Peart literally drove around the country on his motorcycle for several years, abandoning everything in his life, including the music that had been so central to his story up to that point.  All three band members assumed the project was over, and they accepted that, wholly.  That was what blew my mind.  No ego was entered into the equation.  No terrible non-Rush project formed out of the ashes.  No shitty solo albums emerged.  They just accepted what was happening.  Isn't that just the key?  I've never been part of a real brotherhood like that, where if one of us needed to fall apart, the others would allow it and love that person through it.  Nor do I have that within myself.  I wasn't taught it.  That kind of love, tolerance and acceptance is the product of masterful parenting and support.  I didn't get it and I don't have it to give.  (I can hear my friend Josh correcting me, telling me that I do, in fact, have this quality to give... And I love him for it, but it isn't true.)  It doesn't mean it's not mine to have in this lifetime, but I am currently without this component.

On my couch, my mind listens to the Committee of Useless Thoughts, and we all begin to agree that I'm probably nuts beyond repair, destined to repeat the patterns that I'm wired for.  My six-month-old Taylor guitar is snug in her very nice case in the other room, untouched.  Two of my dear friends bought me my own SM7 microphone for Christmas, and it's still in the box.  I have eleven songs that await my editing and post-production, and they're trapped in the hard drive until further notice.  Lastly, I'm three songs into a really wonderful new record with a band that shaped up towards the end of this year, and I can't move forward on it at all.  I've got nothing.  And I'm having a really hard time accepting all of it.  Who am I these days?  Where's the girl who's always working on five different things, with a high fever about all of it?  I don't have any more of an idea than you do.  But, if you see her, tell her to call me.  I'll be watching reruns of a TV show.  And when I run out of those, I'll find a new show.

I heard Tom Waits on the radio the other day.  He was dodging personal questions that were being asked in an interview by rambling on about all sorts of other eccentric B.S., as is par for his particular course.  He's artful in that dodgy way.  Most of what he said was what you hear in his music, and having been a listener for many years now, I'd heard it all before.  But, he did rather eloquently describe the stage that I find myself in lately.  He compared the creative process to the structure of music.  To paraphrase, "In order to have music, you have to have rests.  Sometimes you're the sound, and sometimes you're resting."  So, after many years of being the sound, I'm in the rest.  This too shall pass.  This too, shall pass.

Thanks for listening,

buick audra

refresh and god bless

Man, it's been a month since I've sat still and written a word.  It hasn't been for lack of things to say, but rather sheer absence of down time.  It's been a busy (and awesome) month, to say the least.  But, I'm grateful for a quiet moment to sit here while the banana bread I'm making for Eric McConnell rises.  It smells amazing in here.

So, after several weeks that included producing the vocals on my brother's new album, having two dear friends come to visit the Fort from Boston and working on songs for a new record that I'm a part of with some dudes... My thoughts for tonight are on the chances we give others as well as ourselves.  Let's hope I can mold these ideas into something you can bite into.  Sometimes my mind feels like it's just a series of bright colors and melodies, and the articulation of such can be tricky.  First, let me say that I'm filled with peace and gratitude right now.  I'm aware of how beautiful life can be these days, and it's helping me to shine new light on some otherwise dark areas.

I once had a friendship for twenty years.  I held the relationship in impossibly high regard, as it had weathered all kinds of tests, both physical and emotional.  Sometimes I think I worked harder on the presentation of the friendship than I did on the connection itself, but that's all behind me now.  It ended some years ago, leaving me with a pile of unanswered questions that I sift through from time to time, hoping for new insight.  It does come, slowly but surely.  Once in a while I hear something awful about myself that they've said and all of the old, bad feelings come flooding back.  You see, the worst thing that happened to me in that dynamic was that I felt like I never got to grow up to the other person.  Not literally of course, but figuratively.  Who I was at age fifteen was who they held me to being, all the way up to thirty-two.  It just didn't work.  The best that I can do today is forgive us both and keep my own mouth shut.  Hurtful behavior plus hurtful behavior doesn't equal forward movement; it equals further damage.  A wise person once said to me, "Don't be sorry, be different."  This is me being different.

I think we have a filing system, as a society.  We have labels that we apply to people we know (and don't know) that make it easier for us to navigate life.  In my community of fellow musicians, I hear it all the time, particularly the negative files:

•  "Oh, he's not even there for any of the records he supposedly produces."

• "If you want a grumpy, indifferent engineer who won't give you any feedback - he's your guy."

• "Nobody ever works with him twice."

Mind you, every single one of those statements has been made in my presence a multitude of times by people who have never worked with the folks they're talking about.  They're going on hearsay, or gossip.  They're going on insecurity and therefore judgment.  They're going on fear.

In family settings, these character assignments are present as well.  Someone is always The Mess, while another is the Overbearing Over-Achiever.  And don't forget about One-Who-Is-Blind-To-All-Bad, and the popular Overly-Honest.  I've been called a number of these things, and have done the same in turn.  We get used to the roles we all play, and just ramble through life believing our own titles.  Well, I invite you all to look again.  Look at your loved ones.  Look at yourselves.  Look at who you all are today and celebrate the new information, if the situation calls for it.  Some people will be in the same place that they were the last time you checked, but not everyone.  That super uptight cousin of yours might have spent the last five years doing yoga and learning how to let things roll off of her back a bit better.  Your brother may have learned how to talk to you about who he is and what he's about.  Your kid might be working on their stuff in a twelve-step program.  Who knows.  All I'm saying is that there's a whole lot of life out there, and it forces us to grow, sometimes in spectacular directions.  By closing the book on the possibility of change in others, we say that we also can't be expected to improve on who we are.  And we can.  We do.

With some lighted road behind me, I see now that I've likely disappointed as many people as have disappointed me.  That's a sobering realization, particularly after thirty years of thinking I was the only one who ever sustained injuries in the wreckage.  It also helps me to understand that I'm just a traveler on the path, and not out on my own, as I so often feel.  Everyone's doing the best they can with what they know.  As we learn, we do better. 

Here are five things that have always been true about me, since nearly birth:

1. I love Michael McDonald.
2. I don't love the Beatles.
3. I believe in the existence of vampires.
4. I cry every single time I see Kermit sing the' Rainbow Connection' in the Muppet Movie.
5. Instrumental fusion jazz makes my brain short out.

And here are five new truths about me, from the last year or so:

1. I still don't know my way around Nashville very well, after three and a half years.
2. I love Car Talk on NPR.  LOVE.
3. I'm going to move to Los Angeles next June.
4. I really enjoy editing in ProTools.
5. I like those spicy pepper flakes on my pizza.  I've seen people use them for years and never knew what I was missing.

See?  In big and small ways I'm evolving, even though I may never care (ever) about the Beatles.  I truly hope that I'm given second chances when I blow my first ones, and aim to be the kind of person who can grant that to someone else.  It's always rewarding when I do.  Once in a while I get to experience a whole new side of someone I love, and it's usually because I've let go of their title and just allowed myself to hear what they're saying in the moment.

(And, for the record, I'm absolutely dying to work with all of the guys that I listed by way of their respective reputations above.  I ain't scared.)

Thanks for listening,

buick audra

ordinary, table for one

tal·ent  /ˈtælənt/ Show Spelled[tal-uh-nt]  noun

1. a special natural ability or aptitude: a talent for drawing.
2. a capacity for achievement or success; ability: young men of talent.
3. a talented  person: The cast includes many of the theater's major talents.
4. a group of persons with special ability: an exhibition of watercolors by the local talent.

Talent's a funny thing.  It's a word I've heard a million times in my life, yet its impact and application have changed for me over the years.  When you're a kid, it's something you hope you have, to be able to show off and wear as a badge.  Before vanity kicks in and takes over, it's really our intangible qualities that we hope make an impression.  Parents are kind of nuts about that sort of thing, as well.  How many times have you heard someone proclaim that their baby is already showing signs of being "gifted"?  But, what's gifted?  To me, if you can sit down at a piano at age four and play Beethoven's 'Moonlight Sonata', you're gifted as hell, but can also claim no credit.  You clearly didn't work for that, but are just wired for greatness  I don't think you're gifted if you can put the square peg in the square hole.  I think that just means you're not slow.  Ah, but talent... I think talent implies gain over time.  It means some ass-busting transpired along the way.  But, that's just me.

I'm fairly certain that my brother showed earlier signs of musical aptitude than I did.  He was like the living, breathing version of Bamm Bamm from the Flintstones, as he would bang on anything that could be treated like a drum.  But, he would also sit at out mother's piano and gently play the keys.  He never hit them or clanked around like you might expect a toddler to.  He seemed genuinely interested in the sounds he was creating with his little fingers.  Me, I was off in my bedroom throwing myself around to 'Fame' by Irene Cara, a song that can still send me into impromptu belting in a public place.  Bo and I both played instruments growing up.  I rocked a clarinet for ten years while he made his way through alto saxophone, trumpet and eventually drums.  I remember when he got his first drum kit for his fifteenth birthday; he could already play.  He sat right down and got to work building patterns and making beats.  I was awe-struck.  I've never been like that with anything.  For me, it didn't come as naturally.

I got my first guitar when I was twenty.  It was a reissue of a sixties Fender Mustang, turquoise with a red pick-guard.  I chose that one because it was the right-handed, affordable version of the guitar Kurt Cobain had played.  I knew nothing about guitars, and I think my reasoning was that if I had to start somewhere, it could at least look cool, never mind how it sounded.  Luckily for me, it sounded alright.  I had several guy friends who played, and they were always holed up in their rooms with popular songs they loved, figuring out the parts on their instrument of choice.  I, of course, skipped that step.  I was impatient to get to the good part, where I got to sing songs that I would eventually write.  So, I started there.  I have a list somewhere of the motley and bizarre assortment of songs that I've learned by other people.  It's fairly short.  I've simply got no interest in it.  I don't mean to say that I don't kneel and pray at the altar of other peoples' music, because I do.  I just don't need to sing it when I'm the one on stage, you know?

I've spent the last fifteen years closely examining my guts and writing songs about them.  It's not always been a fun or pretty process, but it's been my process just the same.  Some songs are better than others.  A few of them have changed my life and made me believe that I'm really onto something.  Others have been thrown into the pile of Process Songs, to be revisited another day, if ever.  More than that, I've been figuring out how to sing the way I want to, and how to make guitar fit in with the other two practices.  I make lots of racket, some of it bad, all of the time.  My mother is a natural singer.  She was born like that.  Her voice is majestic and crystal clear; everyone who has ever crossed her path remembers her for it.  At no point did I think mine would ever reach that level of beauty, but I also knew early on that singing would have a different role in my life than it has in hers.  My singing is about telling you something.  It's not about being pretty.  If I sound alright along the way, god bless.  But, I often don't, and have lived with it for a long time.  The message still gets sent, and that is my primary purpose this time around.  I'll be pretty in my next life, maybe.

I recently worked with someone who thinks I'm good at some, but not all, of the things I do.  My ego took a hit at the announcement of this opinion, and it's given me pause.  Going in blind, this person assumed that I was one of those aforementioned Gifted People, but that my gifts were not yet fully realized to the extent that they could be.  (Laughable.)  While I agree that I've got a long way to go, in almost every area of my life, I've already been on the road for a bit, friends.  For starters, I was a positively horrid guitar player in the beginning.  My hands had zero natural relationship to that instrument and it was years before I played anything close to a proper chord.  Singing over said act was even more absurd.  Singing at all was a mess unto itself.  I have tremendous struggles with vocal pitch that have lessened some with years of practice and knowing what works for me - but you should have heard me back then.  My first song had two chords and was dull as a butter knife.  I think the following twenty or so were about the same...  I can assure you that no one in my life mistook me for a special talent of any kind.  But, I stuck it out.  I played, sang and wrote badly until it all started to improve.  If I've been given any gift at all, it's that I am driven to do better, to do more.  Always.

I'm never going to be the best in the room, and sometimes that's tough to sit with.  I play with all kinds of proper geniuses and savants and just straight-up ass-kicking people, people who can play anything.  It's true that if you stand me up next to them, I'm always going to come up short.  Yes, I can put the square peg in the square hole, but I often choose not to.  I think there's something to be said for the weirdos who don't care what fits where.  I say throw the damn peg out and fill the square hole with glitter.  I don't think F chords should ever be played major.  I don't know how to play a single Metallica song - and you know what?  I don't even like Metallica.  Big deal.  Doesn't mean I need to wear a helmet, it just means I don't care about that particular set of rules.  If you desperately need to find someone who fits that criteria, the world is crawling with them.  But, if you're looking for me... Well, I'll be writing my slightly-better-than-terrible songs on my turquoise Mustang, using all the wrong chords.  And I'm taking full credit, too.  My gift is my guts, but the rest is all me.

Thanks for listening,

buick audra

ship without a rudder's like a ship without a rudder

I saw the Lemonheads last night, for the very first time.  It wasn't the real Lemonheads, but rather Evan Dando with a bassist and drummer... Still, it was as authentic as it's been for years now.  There is only one Lemonhead anymore.

I got into that band later than I should have, and even then I was only sixteen.  I moved to Boston at that age, and they had just become huge following the release of their fifth album, It's A Shame About Ray.  The first three things that I ever knew about them were:

1. They used to have two singers and songwriters, but the other guy (Ben Deily) had quit the band.
2. Juliana Hatfield was going out with the remaining lead singer dude, and scored a bunch of vocal spots on the album because of it.
3. That guy did tons of drugs.

I had just moved from Miami where I had spent the previous three or four years attending any punk, hardcore or rock show I was allowed to.  I owned way too many over-sized t-shirts for Krishna and straightedge bands, and an equal number of ill-fitting army fatigues.  I preferred safety to danger, structure to chaos and life to death.  Drugs scared the shit out of me.  They still do.  It might have been my first awareness of a musician I loved being an addict.  I dare say it was even before the grunge thing had turned so scarily dark.  Andy Wood of Mother Love Bone had died, but he was never that pivotal artist for me... And it was still a few years before Kurt would pass, and eventually Layne.  And anyway, those dudes were all the frickin' way over in Seattle.  We were in Boston, and this guy Evan was making truly great music right down the way, you know?  I remember that being an exciting time, like there was something happening and we were living through it.  For as many bands as I saw in Boston over the years I spent there, I never saw the Lemonheads.  We were all too young to get in to those shows when Ray was out.  We could see all ages shows at churches or Food Not Bombs rallies, but all the venues on Lansdowne St. were off limits.  Even the Middle East and T.T.'s were a toss up.  It all depended on the show.  But, you could guarantee that you were too young to get into shows where the principle song subject was getting fucked up.  So, I missed it.

I've been away from Boston for a while now, but have followed Evan's story here and there.  It's quite a story.  I don't need to tell it here, because it isn't mine to tell, but along the way he has made some incredible music.  He's also had some pretty ideal band mates in that catch-all band of his, not the least of which were Karl Alvarez and Bill Stevenson from my favorite band, the Descendents.  That line-up toured together about five years ago, and I cannot believe I missed it.  Sigh.  The tours are legendary for the dramas that occur, and so I wasn't sure what to expect last night.  This tour is supposed to be the celebration of the twentieth anniversary of Ray.  They've been advertising that the band will play the album in its entirety.  That almost happened.  Almost, but not quite.

I was the girl who got to the show before doors even opened last night.  After waiting for twenty years to hear these damn songs live, I was eager to be somewhere good during the set.  I had two hopes for the night: that Dando would show up, and that he would play 'Rudderless', my favorite song he ever did.  Seeing as how he's the front man for the band, and that song is on the album in question, one might presume that these were givens... And that person would be foolish to do so.

There were two opening bands, both of which are supporting the whole tour.  They were entertaining, and excited to be a part of the show.  But, let's face it, when you're all there to hear music that you've loved for an age, you just want to hear it already.  Evan took the stage solo at about 10 pm.  He played about a half a dozen songs like that, with just a Les Paul and sounded really true, for lack of a better word.  He sounded true.  The guys joined him after that and they started to play the album.  It kicked ass for all of two songs.  Two.  Then Evan claimed that he was losing his voice and couldn't play over all the noise of the band.  The next two songs were supposed to be the title track (and biggest hit of his catalog) and my song.  He capo'd up for 'Ray' so that he could sing it lower, and played it like it was just some song.  I suppose it is.  He started to play 'Rudderless' and then decided not to, for fear that he couldn't sing it.  My little gay heart cracked a bit, but I was committed to just letting the experience be what it was going to be.  After all, he'd shown up, hadn't he?

All told, he played for an hour and forty minutes.  That's a really long show.  People like Prince play sets like that.  Throughout the course of the night the band rejoined him for about six more songs and then let him finish alone.  He played most of the album that he was supposed to be honoring and just a whole lot of other music, some of which was his and some of which wasn't.  It wasn't all amazing, but a lot of it was, and it all went through me.  It left me with a lot to think about today.  Aside from the performance, here was an artist who played to an audience like we were all just hanging out in his living room.  He was oddly conversational and interested in what we all wanted to hear.  He accommodated what he could, and apologized for what he couldn't.  Yes, he was struggling with his voice, but he hung in there, and his guitar playing was great.  He remembered the words to roughly thirty-five songs, and I know that he didn't anticipate playing some of them.  Even before he went on stage, he was out in the room all night.  He watched both of the opening bands from the audience and was actively happy and engaged with what they were doing.  Who's like that anymore?

I have no idea what goes on with Evan Dando.  I don't know if he's still married, divorced, on drugs, sober, happy, murderous, Satanic or Baptist.  And I'm not sure I care.  The dude's a fellow traveler.  He wears Converse just like the rest of us, and is doing his thing, which happens to be writing really incredible pop songs.  I've learned a lot from him in this last twenty years on my own journey of trying to be a good musician who is, at the end of the day, true.  And, I continued to learn last night.  Even when it wasn't going well for him, he played through.  He smiled at the ground and swore aloud.  His beautiful chord progressions had the occasional "FUCK!" layered over them, and it was perfect.  It was exactly as it should have been.

And, the very last song he played was 'Rudderless'.  Thanks, Evan.

And thank you for listening,

buick audra

This isn't from last night, but it's lovely and you need to see it.