I find myself cracked open more this time out, a little more raw, more exposed, more volatile and more given to declarative absolutes (read: more opionionated) and we’re only three Nights in of 50 by the time we get to Santa Fe. It’s anyone’s guess what I’ll look like when we’re done this tour.
I think this cracked open thing is self-made, a byproduct of a deal I made with myself to take more responsibility for the sonics, be as locked in as possible to the groove, to manage the electronics at my feet better, and to take creative risks every Night (trumpet!). It might be that this contract is driven by the stirrings of the end of the Nights of Grief and Mystery, an ending that appeared the very first time we played eight years ago and has always been in sight but is closer now. At least, it gets talked about more in the quiet between Nights. Who knows what’ll happen. No one get’s to see beyond the edge. Not really.
So, how do you live an ending? One answer—the best answer—is go deeper, go wider, turn out the lights and get to know the thing again in the dark, renew your vow to it, let every bad memory of it take its’ rightful place beside all the exalted ones so both can lock step into the uncertain future. Start saying goodbye to the thing just as you say hello to all this new found land, and try not to be greedy with the moments you have left with it. There’s the chance to suffer a bit, too, in order to do the thing a little while longer.
Charlie and I drive from Fort Worth to Santa Fe while Stephen and Nathalie fly to Albuquerque for a gig. It’s on this drive I start to taste the raw nerve endings. I talk poor Charlie’s ear off for most of the 9 hours. It’s not completely uninvited…I have a “no music in the van” policy that is law, so it’s either the tires singing or me talking. Charlie is great with shaping noise, but kind of lousy with silence, it seems, so he puts up with me. We are welcomed in Santa Fe, pour ourselves into the Night there, and then into the van the next day, the four of us, headed for Tucson.
Tucson welcomes us with drought, scorching heat, and then a monsoon chaser (an improbable repeat of five years ago when we got rained out of our outdoor venue and had to scramble to find somewhere to play). A few lightning bolts, downpours, and a power-outage later, we are at it again in front of a small but intrepid crowd.
“You’ve bat 2 right out of the park,” Jenkinson says to me afterwards in the greenroom.
“I told you, “ I said, “I’m trying really, really hard this time.”
Maybe that’s all this “cracked open” thing is: the result of trying really hard. All this inward consideration can feel selfish until I catch a few echoes from from the people who come and it’s confirmed: I’m just one of many for whom something happens in the 2-hours we are in front of the mics.
Onwards.
gh
Photo: Practicing trumpet in the motel parking lot, Tucson, Arizona, July 16, 2023.
Gregory Hoskins 