THE DIFFERENCE
(tour diary: JOSH MALERMAN, the HIGH STRUNG)
Ok. Some of these are obvious:
YES... there are more people in the room. YES... the sound is bigger and better. YES... there are fellas who greet us at the shows and carry in the gear for us (something I ought to put a stop to, I'm getting a little soft, aye). But the real meat here... the real difference between playing a show
with Son Volt or playing one of the 1300 we already have lies not in these surface (and alarmingly fun) pleasantries, but in HOW WE BEHAVE on a tour this size. What a thing! A little ol' band like us! Opening for this juggernaut and finding ourselves in the middle of a night-life... a whole world... we thought reserved for someone else... aliens maybe. Oh... we think big... you can't play 300 shows a year for four years unless you're thinking big... but the way I think and the actuality of these shows hasn't lined up. In other words... I imagined it wrong.
Ok. There's the whole playing to the "back of the room". I just sang our songs to 2000 people in Austin, Texas and for the frist time I'm understanding that FIRST rule of theater. How do you connect with the fella drinking a beer at the furthest end of Stubb's great open expanse? I'm not sure... not sure how to articulate it... but I think I'm discovering it has something to do with expending enough energy so that it ripples.... first handed to the first couple rows... then sent back a bit... to that sweet spot in the middle where things usually sound best... beyond them... to the rows who can see the people before them having fun... hopefully electrified some by this strange trio they hadn't expected when buying their Son Volt ticket. And if we can ripple that thing... send it all the way back... then I can SEE it when it comes back to US. So... I think we've learned it ...somewhat... and (apologies to Fayetteville and Little Rock) I think it took us a couple shows to learn it.
But even this... that theatrical doctrine... even this is not thee biggest of big differences. The real thing is how I see Chad and Derek and I carrying ourselves. I'm not talking about drinking or talking or even how we respond to the people working these theaters or the members of the band we're opening for... no... the way we carry ourselves in relation to OUR OWN BAND.
Does the word "professional" frighten you? As a fan of rock n' roll... does the word make you a little sick? "You can't be professional" you say! "It goes against everything rock n roll stands for" you say! "It's an abomination!"
But ah... ah ah ah... what if a band were to learn how to do their thing (in our case, playing with as much enthusiasm as our little bodies can muster) in a professional way? Without curbing anything? Sounds like it's be fine, right? Well... let me tell you... the difference I see in the High Strung on this tour is the look in our eyes. Like... we were accepted on to a hell of a tour... we said yes, smiling... and then experienced a real moment of actual fright at having to handle the situation before us (a situation we just didn't know until a week and half ago). And then... you're in the middle of it. You're sweating (all good bands sweat) and you're singing and you start looking around the room and you say to yourself I CAN DO THIS... I CAN RELATE TO EVERYONE IN THIS ROOM IF I TRY AND LOOK EVERY ONE OF THEM IN THE EYE. Now... let's not be silly... you probably wouldn't relate to everyone in the room if you met every single person individually... but from that stage you can guess... or reach a certain level... because they are here to hear SONGS and you are there to play SONGs and Goddman if that isn't a perfect little match. It's the look in the eye. Derek still makes the same jokes. Chad still smiles when he sings back-ups. I still sing about grisly characters from GET THE GUESTS and MOXIE BRAVO. But when we look at each I can feel it that something is different. And you know what it is? It's like when you get a new job and you're about to pee your pants that first day because you think you might have no idea how to do it... and then you see... a couple shifts in... how you can do it after all. Yes! That's it. That's the difference. We are passing our Son Volt exam! And when I see my father next am I going to tell him how many people those guys brought out? You're damn right I will! And I'm going to tell him about the dudes loading in our paltry gear? Why not! But none of this is going to resonate quite as much as the look he sees in his son's eye... the one that says, "I'm home, dad, and me and the boys just did well."
Until tomorrow (where I plan to tell you about our show tonight in Birmingham) I remain,
JOSH MALERMAN
the HIGH STRUNG
HOW A PERSONALITY CAN EAT ITSELF (notes from the road #2):
JOSH MALERMAN, the HIGH STRUNG
Check it out... we played the Variety Playhouse in Atlanta yester-eve and something happened (immediately) after we took our bow (which we actually do)... something worth noting. There was an old man... a big guy... wearing a wind-breaker and a real beat up baseball hat. He had that (you know) real drunk look in his eye (like even his eyes were loaded with the booze now and were bulging with it) and he kept flashing me the peace sign while we were playing. Me, being the sort I am, smiled every time he did it and even sent him the ol' two finger salute myself. Now... there was a real pretty girl standing next to him at the foot of the stage (Paula? I think so...) and the second we were done, as I was wrapping up my cords, the old fella' sticks his hand out and says, "Zip!" I don't know what he means but it doesn't matter... I reach my hand out too and shake. But his grip! I thought his huge mitt might have absorbed my hand! He says, "Zip! You remember me?" I look at the pretty girl and we both sort of nod like maybe this old guy isn't playing with a whole stack of sticks and I say, "My name’s Josh... thanks for dancing and stuff-"
"Zip! You remember me? You remember you and me and Mark Wills?" And his grin is HUGE. Something sinister has crept into it and he still has my hand. There's 800 people behind him... in the darkness...waiting now for Son Volt... but this guy in the light is convinced I'm someone I'm not.
"I don't know Mark Willis," I say. "I'm not from around here."
The old man released my hand and stepped back a step... his face snarled up a bit... he looked a little disgusted but really he looked disappointed.
"Why are you doing this, Zip? Why are you pretending you don't know me?" Ok. NOW the people around him are looking at me too. And suddenly (except for the super pretty girl) I'm getting the feeling that these front rowers think I AM doing something fishy to this old man. Lying to him. Denying him. Ok. I'm flushed... totally sweat soaked (we play hard, aye) and I keep saying things like "I'm sorry but" and "No no... not me" and we get all our gear off the stage and Chad runs up to take care of the CD table and I step into the back hall because Derek and I are going to load the car together. And the guy is THERE. Standing in the darkness of the hall... the beat up brim of his hat shielding his face some... and I hear Derek outside and I hear Son Volt getting shit together and I hear the bouncers and backstage dudes too... but for this one second I'm alone in this shadowy hall with this old man.
"Zip," he says. "What's the matter... you don't remember your daddy?" I froze. Because now things had exceeded something normal. Because now the guy thought he was my father.
"I remember my daddy," I said. "He's in Michigan. I'm sorry."
And I hear him scoff... grunt sort of... and it echoes and the whole big show and crowd and all is going on around us..
"You're daddy's not in Michigan," he says, "your daddy's right here...I remember you as a boy... when you were this big, Zip. Don't you?"
I'm scared. A little at least. But before I have to make any real action a huge bouncer comes backstage and (I told you the guy had heavy eyeballs, man, full, bloated stones for eyeballs) he sees something is amiss and he says, "You Ok?" to me.
And something really awful happened to me. Something sort of fucked up. I started to wonder if maybe this guy WAS my father! That the conviction with which he spoke was so tremendous that maybe some part of it had to be true. I started to believe him. But not enough to say so out loud.
"I don't know this man." (now with the tremble in my voice of a man who is actually denying his
father... one stormy night in Atlanta... backstage after a hell of a show)
"I've never seen him before"
(like a little liar!)
"He thinks he's my dad."
Of course he's NOT my dad. Of course I'm right in what I'm saying. But if you could have been there... the shadows back there... like the devil was introducing himself to another in the long line of musicians he's met over the decades he'd found them appealing.
"You gotta' go," the bouncer says. And by now Derek steps into the hall too and another bouncer and the old man is taken away... sort of dragged but more like led... out through the alley door... not tossed... but told to go. I'll tell you what... the man believed I was his son. Whatever else he might have believed that night doesn't matter... because for one second... after an unreal show in a great theater space in Atlanta...an old man looked me in the eye and experienced MEMORIES of my growing up. He had stories. He had feelings about it. He had things he'd wished he'd said and he had things he'd wished he didn't. It's incredible.
Here... this will make you feel better...later... after Derek and I finally did get the bus loaded and I heard Son Volt's first song starting, that same bouncer came back outside and told me the old man was near the Playhouse entrance now... talking about how he's a bounty hunter and how I (that's right, ME) did something very wrong... that I was ok for tonight, dig, but that he and his people were watching me... waiting... getting ready to settle the score.
What do you think it was? I went from being his old friend on stage to his son backstage and then to someone he was hired to find later on. Do you think the bad thing I did was not remembering him? Or do you think it was that for one ridiculous second (with the assistance of the surreality of the Variety backstage) I considered that he might be telling the truth.
Aye. To Chattanooga now! And may I NOT run into a ghostly version of my mother in the crowd!
JOSH MALERMAN
the HIGH STRUNG
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THE HIGH STRUNG's GET THE GUESTS album is out now on Park the Van Records
http://www.myspace.com/thehighstrung
http://www.parkthevan.com
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