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Tuesday, December 17, 2013

TRAVELS

Travel has been non-stop these days. Started in New Mexico, up to British Columbia, down the West Coast, through Arizona and back to New Mexico. Lots of nine hour drives where I luckily was not behind the wheel (Thank you C + J). Then through the Winter wasteland of Ontario, Michigan and Illinois. This week I will drive down to Brooklyn with two of my favorite women in tow.
Since November, I have played shows for 10 people and for 1,000+ people. I have performed both alone and with 5 geniuses backing me up. I have sung lots of other people's songs in an attempt to pass them off as my own. Individuals who have seen me / the band have cooked up a wide range of opinions, my favorite being, “And while Meg Remy is adorable, her voice, especially live, sounds not just like a cat being tortured, but like a cat that was given helium being tortured - and, in protest, it proceeded to scrape its little claws against a chalkboard. A chalkboard that was covered with other live, tortured cats. The music accompanying her was awesome. But that voice? No, thank you.”
I was shocked by cities like Portland and San Francisco, places I used to idealize that are now charmless city-sized WHITE smart phones. (Make sense? Please don't get mad at me for judging this way.) I fell in love with mountains and high elevation spots and New Mexico in particular. Through friends I learned about the radioactivity of the Pacific Ocean and what really happened in New Orleans. I saw blood family and old pals who used to act as my family. I bought strange herbal cigarettes called Ecstasy and was given a satin jacket with the words “BORN TO RUN” embroidered on the back. I saw minimal car crashes but imagined hundreds in my mind. There was sun, snow, rainbows and most phases of the moon (even a possible UFO formation sighting). I shot 5 cartridges of Super 8 film and I am still not sure if any of the footage turned out.
For the first time U.S. Girls played proper “big time” shows where the headlining band was cool and had a tour bus. We traveled as a group of 7 in between two white four-door cars, some of our instruments not even in cases. Even so, we had a taste of how the other half lives and we liked it, meanwhile confusing feelings surfaced. How do you get to live like the other half? Luck? Hard work? How does it happen that 1,000 or more people come to see you and hear your music? What gives?
Even after these experiences, life (for me) is STILL all about music and art and love with a big chunk of fear mixed in. I wish I could express more about these travels, things that came to me, images I saved in my brain but I am not a writer, just a rocker. This is the best I can do.

3 comments :

  1. A... creative person, at last. Sexy in words, hot in music. Lol, that's all bullshit. Portland? Whitewashed? Whaaaa? So Ill keep my pulse regulated until you make it to Melbourne Florida. I've championed you. Love me back.

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  2. Thanks for sharing a bit of your story. Keep on doing what you do, and ignore that nonsense review - you have a great voice!

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