Tag: dark road diary

Wherein we keep you apprised of making our way down the dark roads and dark, dark woods on our saunter around the continent on these Nights of Grief & Mystery.

Sometimes you are asked to prevail.

Some nights you are just asked to show up and do your thing. Other nights, you are asked to prevail.  New York always asks the latter of us. 

gh

Wherein we keep you apprised of making our way down the dark roads and dark, dark woods on our saunter around the continent on these Nights of Grief & Mystery.

The Church of What’s Happening Now

We made a deal with ourselves, with each other, with whatever brought us together a few years back, that – having tried, mind you, tried and tried again – we wouldn’t play churches. Call it bad faith: I’m not sure I’d argue. Call it a fall from whatever grace would have us: a case could be made. But we put it in the contract: No Churches. No Used-to-be-Churches either. 
Obviously a good number of people have associations with such places that won’t or can’t be overcome, and so are deeply dissuaded from darkening the doorways. Given even the documented histories, that’s understandable. And I for one have spoken or played or performed under more crucifixions, tormented stick figures, metaphorized and raptured butterflies rising from the rack, back lit by incontestable stained glass vignettes, than is wise. But the tactical strategy for the prejudice is this: for reasons unknown to me, they built these places in the old days so that people in the pews couldn’t quite make out what was being said at the front of the hall. The sound, almost always, is swimming, turgid, swampy in all the ways you wouldn’t want, and unwarm. And entombed.

So we pull into Portland, Maine yesterday, and we adjust the set list to bring back one of our operatic favourites: Never Be a Poet. We’ve done so because we’ve been booked into the Maine Irish Heritage Hall, and the story is about my first trip to Ireland, and about all the weather of fatherhood and frailty, and because Portland has a noble history of welcoming ragged survivors of The Famine in the mid-1800’s. Beautiful confluence. Until we pull up to the Maine Irish Heritage Hall. And it is a proper Gothic pile, a nineteenth century used-to-be-a-cathedral, in fact. Oh oh.
Without our man in the house, Charles, we’d have been in the shit, in every way that can be imagined. But his chops with the knobs, and a way-too-long sound check, and a quick dressing room revamp of the set list to accommodate the utter lack of light on stage and cut down on us moving around, and a band that trusts itself now to rise, and faithful Erin-led local organizers/workers, and especially a curious, slow to warm but beautifully locked-in crowd of the children of the children’s children who Came From Away in those ruinous days: all of that wound itself around this once and only night granted to us to grieve and be mystified, and for a while all was marvellous and well. Street legal devastation of the uninvestigated life proceeded. The people in the book signing line testified to it, were strangely grateful for it. Elegant praise. Generosity of spirit. Burgundy in the back room afterwards. Reasons to live.

Amen.

SJ

Wherein we keep you apprised of making our way down the dark roads and dark, dark woods on our saunter around the continent on these Nights of Grief & Mystery.

Highjacked, held hostage.

Some nights more than others, the emotional current seems to run higher.  There are a lot of reasons for this and I don’t know them all, and last night in Turners Falls…a full house, an old theatre, an absolute crack team of young people on the ground there (led by the intrepid Erica) setting the scene for us…was properly a high-octane Night, a perfect way to start this tour.

Sometimes, fatigue is the the crack that emotion seeps through for me. I’m not a fan of tears on stage, but occasionally I’m highjacked, held hostage by the moment until it relents. Last night was that kind of night for me, both in the dressing room and on stage. There was a different kind of fatigue in the house, too: the one that makes itself known living in these times, in this country specifically: people tired of carrying a weight they didn’t realize they were carrying.

So the wreckage was deep and very much in evidence for us in Turners Falls last night. I was lucky to be a witness.

gh

Wherein we keep you apprised of making our way down the dark roads and dark, dark woods on our saunter around the continent on these Nights of Grief & Mystery.

4 Years On…

According to the elves that live in silicone chips in my cell phone, 4 years ago today I was sitting in the El Quijote bar (right beside the Chelsea Hotel) in NYC. I was drinking not-so-great red wine and expensive but equally not-so-great gazpacho. Still, I was geeking out: it was THE El Quijote attached to THE Chelsea Hotel. I was waiting to meet up with Stephen at the venue a few blocks away for our first official gig…just the two of us.

Tonite, I’m in a Days Inn in Utica, NY. 

SJ is here, too.

And 7 others who in various capacities have thrown in their lot with us on dark road: Lisa, Charlie, Adam, Gabe, Colleen, The Spaniard, The Choirmaster. The packing, the repacking, the driving, the rendezvous-ing, the driving again, the border crossing, the border fingerprinting/picture taking/question answering, the driving, the diner stop, the driving…all leads tonite to a Days Inn in Utica. 

Tomorrow we begin. Tonite, we were driving on dark roads in America.

Wherein we keep you apprised of making our way down the dark roads and dark, dark woods on our saunter around the continent on these Nights of Grief & Mystery.

Another Kind of Light

You begin in the light
and you end in wisdom,
if the gods prevail.
But otherwise,
light.

SJ

There are some songs you can play in the morning or afternoon and there are songs that need the night. Some kinds of performative work live happily on a sun-drenched stage and others wilt under that kind of light. I’ve always felt more at home singing my stuff knowing that night has fallen, or at least is about to. The dark helps to contain things. Like being tenderly cupped in giant hands, the way we do with an insect we’re trying to transport out of the house to freedom without hurting it. The dark helps deliver a performance in the same way.  

Clearly, the world changes at night. Behavioural patterns of all kinds shift in flora, fauna, and town folk. “I said, the night is a dangerous thing,” I once wrote. I was afraid of the dark for a long time. But then again…

If you look deep,
deep enough,
into the heart of night,
you’ll see that it is just another kind of light,
if you look deep enough into The Heart of Night.

From Take A Little Walk, gh

I wrote that once, too.

So, this tour, its not Grief & Mystery: its NIGHTS of Grief & Mystery. Because that is when grief, mystery, and all their relations show up at your door, insinuating themselves into your kitchens, living rooms, and beds, without your permission but probably with your blessing.

We turn the house lights down, affording you a kind of privacy and inviting the blurred edges the dark offers, and we bring up the lights on stage hopefully just enough that you can see the kindness in our eyes. We don’t use the light to illuminate us, per se. We use the light to accentuate the dark.

Sometimes we are lucky enough to have someone at the lighting console who helps in this regard. Like Jeremy in La Tulipe in Montreal. Thank you, Jeremy.

Wherein we keep you apprised of making our way down the dark roads and dark, dark woods on our saunter around the continent on these Nights of Grief & Mystery.

Charlie

This is Charlie. Charlie is joining us on the road as Front of House Sound Engineer. Charlie is gold. Charlie is a godsend. 

We have learned the hard way that we need to have someone at the soundboard who knows and cares for what we are doing on stage. We were lucky enough to have Joe Meekums with us in the UK for a few shows and we quickly learned how to love the soundman. We needed someone from this continent for this tour, though.

Enter Charlie. He is young and, shockingly, wants to be an FOH guy. He has no hidden aspirations to be in a band and is not a budding recording engineer who is just biding his time as a live engineer until he can get a studio gig.  No, Charlie wants to be a live sound guy. Chances are, a few years from now, you’ll be at a massive concert somewhere and it’ll be Charlie at the board. 

So we have traded the lean touring machine of the duo back in The Day for a bigger machine that boasts nine (!!!!) people on the road. But this machine has a proper mechanic tuning up the engine with Charlie in tow. I know (and you can hear my sigh in this) that not everyone will be satisfied with the sound at the concerts. It’s always something.  Having Charlie at the console is our way of doing everything we can to ensure what we are doing on stage gets to your ears in the best possible way.

And he is a ginger.  So, he’s in good company in this band.

gh

Wherein we keep you apprised of making our way down the dark roads and dark, dark woods on our saunter around the continent on these Nights of Grief & Mystery.

The Choir

They spin gossamer with their voices and drape it on to the rest of us. They are a projection from somewhere else…not quite earthly. Skilled and passionate, we in the band quickly became addicted to them.

“We’re not gonna get used to this, right?” was the cautionary phrase thrown about during our run in Ontario and Quebec. Turns out they are joining us on the rest of the tour.

Yes. We are going to get used to this.

gh