good morning ~
(click the link / fogged out Rockaways to listen)
today’s track is one of my favorites I’ve made in a while - different layers of voice and delay pedal, stretched and warped and slowed.
playing a really amazing show in NYC in June - - my buddy tj douglas who, in addition to writing beautiful songs, does important, heartbreaking work as a palliative care chaplain at a hospital. their strength really amazes me! and they have a new album coming out in a couple of weeks. me and my buddy dan kleederman will be joining tj at their release show at stone circle theatre in ridgewood on june 14th - - here’s a ticket link and here’s the flyer:
I woke up in the morning still stoned from the one half of the one square of weed chocolate we dutifully took down right before Furiosa kicked off at the drive-in. Meant to leave at 8am, didn't hit the road until ten or so, but I walked out to my car with the oversized wobbly feet of an R. Crumb illo - I would indeed keep on truckin'.
It was the first time I've driven my car into the city since last spring when the poor vehicle got its undercarriage so violently manhandled by marauders - a very Mad Max universe occurrence, come to think of it, I wonder if the catty thievers were wearing football shoulder pads and spikes when they yoinked.
Down the corridor of decommissioned rest stops on 87, over through New Jersey on scenic 17, confusion on which part of the GW Bridge to take, trace the outer edge of Manhattan as I barrel down FDR - though I very much love riding the choo choo I did have to marvel at how swiftly I could haul myself directly to Brooklyn. I listened to a podcast about Marvin Gaye.
My plan was to bop into Red Hook and say hello to my friends who run a shop on Van Brunt. I thought they would be having a party there, but I was completely mistaken - they were doing a pop-up in another part of town entirely and would not be back anytime soon. I bought a birthday gift anyway and chatted with the fella working the register, then I sipped a cup of coffee. I thought about walking around Red Hook a bit and taking in the brine - hanging out there in the 2010s was an important era for me - but nostalgia failed to grip me the way it usually does. I like where I am now - I yearn not for the days of bodega beers, OKCupid, and dumpster diving baguettes. So I started driving to the beach and immediately headed the wrong direction on the BQE.
At the Rockaways I beheld an occurrence of oracular weather - an enormous plume of fog and haze, localized entirely. I parked in a spot that was 100% illegal and shuffled down the boardwalk, from which I could not see the waves, so dense was the ground cloud. Still, I swam, the lifeguards incessantly tooting their whistles at me - New Yorkers not being allowed to wade past their waists is something other cities should make fun of them for. I laid out and read my little book while invisible planes rumbled overhead. As I was leaving I noticed that the line at the Venezuelan place was preposterously long, holiday weekend, no arepas for me. With the smell of salt on my skin I got back in my now considerably more sandy but completely un-towed car.
Arrival at the gig, which was really just my friend's birthday party (the best type of show). I offered forth my gift and was given in exchange a beautiful box of novelty socks from Superdawg, such is the type of mensch she is. I sat down and diligently arranged my guitar pedals on the pump organ which had been very cutely anointed with a painting of a happy cabbage. Later, after I had sung my songs, a number of people would tell me that I looked like that happy cabbage - what a nice thing to say!
There were hotdogs in the kitchen served with gusto and a variety of remarkable toppings - caramelized onions, kewpie mayo, mustards of every varietal. The majority of the pit band for the Broadway production of the Sufjan Stevens ballet trickled in, I chatted with friends and acquaintances, the vibes were excellent and summery. Much like my dip in the ocean, I felt surrounded and held by a vast entity, both tender and crushing. At one point my friend said "I feel like I should put on music, but actually I don't think I have to" which felt to me like a beautiful summary of contentment in that moment: polite party chatter, the sweetest music of all.
I am learning to love again the experience of playing guitar and singing, something I grew to really not enjoy for a minute there. Maybe it was the close proximity - I could distinctly make out the pupils of every single person that watched me play. Or maybe it's that playing for an audience of other kind music freaks and nerds makes you feel respected and beheld. I neither requested nor discouraged audience participation and some beautiful vocal harmonies did indeed emerge, how lovely. My set ended with a cover of a Carly Rae Jepsen song, one person shrieked in recognition and we all chanted "back on my beat" together.
The next set featured saxophone, three dozen percussion instruments, and two pedal steels, one of which was a wild synth/steel hybrid that looked intensely complicated and also resembled a time bomb from an action movie. I was grabbing a La Croix from the fridge when the music started and I got stuck in the kitchen. I had a lot of trouble figuring out who was making what noise while I sat beneath the cool wind of the open window.
Meant to leave at 10pm, didn't get on the road until 11:30 or so. "If I get karaoke started, would you sing at least one song?" In what world am I to deny such a request? But it was of course a production. The chatter continued, my friend handed me a booklet of temporary tattoos of horses stuffed with cash. I don't think I can take this, I said, meaning it, but she was slipped away before I could put up more of a fight. Matt got on the mic and bounced through a magnificently goofy rendition of "Shout" by Tears for Fears, banging along on the auxiliary percussion. I am a man of my word: Cher was delivered. And as I snuck out down the stairs, an uncanny and frankly moving version of "Sometimes" by Britney Spears unfolded - I could hear the sugar on the breeze all the way down the block back to my unburgled whip.
But what about you? Are you a happy little cabbage? Has the haze of confusion settled onto your journey through the past? Have you seen Furiosa yet?