who's the benefactor?
october 2024
good month, october. it really hit its stride in the final stretch: less sunny and 75°, more overcast and swirling leaves in the streets; friends and family in said streets for block parties and candy harvesting and long-distance running. an embarrassment of riches in the music department with releases from my hero LIZZY MCALPINE, TUCKER ZIMMERMAN, BON IVER, and THE SMILE. just. to. name. a. few.
i saw a lot of shows. one fewer than expected after MJ LENDERMAN postponed his gig at The Basement East to attend to the devastation in his hometown of Asheville. no matter—he’ll be at Brooklyn Bowl in january. as a consolation, i saw the world’s biggest pop star spit on a clear plexiglass stage a lick it up during a little number called “VON DUTCH”. HORSEJUMPER OF LOVE brought heavy, heavy sound to The Blue Room. and yours truly is now a regular at a humble open mic night at—and i never thought i would type the name of this establishment in bold letters—Ethel’s Tabernacle.1
after witnessing some 50 shows this year, i’ve now stood on the other side of the microphone. and it feels pretty good. mostly. my first go was nerve-wracking despite playing to a crowd of two (2), but every subsequent night has been sweet and fresh and satisfying in a way previously unknown to me.2
it’s gotten me stewing on amateurism, on performance, on the way we relate to the people who play our favorite songs. after my first open mic, i scooted over to The Basement East to see NILÜFER YANYA lead her airtight band through a blistering set full of intricate riffs and magically layered rhythm parts. i stood in the crowd, my sense of awe renewed and colored by my own experience. i compared the effort it took for me to string together the right chords and words to play a few songs with the living, breathing organism that emerged from the living, breathing people on stage playing their parts, singing their harmonies. and not a single mistake… that i could hear at least.3
but what sort of pressures are exerted on the people playing shows at that level? or on bigger stages? from the sound of it, CHARLI is pretty strung out… i needn’t add to the excess of commentary on CHAPPELL ROAN. near the end of his show at Exit/In, PORCHES finished a song and said “i’m broken”. the crowd laughed, he didn’t. was it part of the snarling garage rock bit or a genuine admission? hard to say, but Justin Vernon had just done an interview that i read and liked, and for the rest of the PORCHES show i felt myself watching with a sense of guilt, apology.
maybe we should never fill arenas and instead just play our stuff in the nearest dive bar, waiting for someone to stumble in, or in our living room for our loved ones. not possible, obviously. and besides i’d have nothing to blog about.
maybe playing songs for people feels good until it doesn’t and then something has to change. we’re watchers, i guess. here’s a SUN KIL MOON song about the time the Korean boxer Kim Duk-koo died after getting knocked out during a bout in Vegas. the crowd was probably pretty big.
SHOWS IN OCTOBER: CHARLI XCX + TROYE SIVAN (SWEAT) / HORSEJUMPER OF LOVE / MJ LENDERMAN / COLTER WALL / NILǓFER YANYA / PORCHES / KATE BOLLINGER
SHOWS IN NOVEMBER: THE DESLONDES + SABINE MCCALLA / JESS WILLIAMSON / ADRIANNE LENKER / HOTLINE TNT / RATBOYS / whatever you invite me to
Brett Flener once brought me to Ethel’s on a random weeknight and we were the only ones there and if you had asked me that night “will you ever come back?”, i would have said “100% no”.
thanks to Sophia a.k.a. STARGURL for hosting the open mic, listen to her new album.
a few things: 1) comparison is the thief of joy, 2) i ran into NILÜFER YANYA on the corner of S. 14th and Woodland the night after her show, she had a night off and was meeting friends at Lipstick Lounge and we chatted 3) i ALSO met Malcolm Gladwell at the Shell gas station on Shelby. something cosmic is happening.