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Uncle Mark Reynolds

He wasn’t my uncle. I’m not even sure if he was anyone’s uncle. (Hell, I never even thought to ask him why he was playing out under that name in all the years I’d known him) What he was a local musician who’d been part of the acoustic scene in Atlanta for years. He was also one of the nicest people I’ve ever known.

The first time I heard THAT VOICE he was still part of “Ashley and Mark” out in Carollton, GA, when music was still just a hobby for me.

The first time I met Mark he was booking for Eddie’s Attic and I played a writer’s night with him and Kevin Montgomery. It was my first REAL show and still one of my favorite memories. Kevin and I really hit it off and at one point Mark left the stage for a bit, ostensibly to take a break, but mainly because he could tell Kevin and I were really feeding off each other and he just decided to pull himself out of the mix for a bit to let us go. I’m not sure how that comes across for anyone reading this, but it was quite a gesture.
I played a number of other shows with Mark. Once I started my first band I was still talking to him off and on in his capacity as “Bud Bass” the booking person for Eddie’s. Radiant City planned a holiday show/single for charity one year and Mark sang on the song. I tried to convince him that he and I should do the David Bowie/Bing Crosby “Little Drummer Boy” bit in between sets at the show but we never had time to work it out.

Then he suffered a heart attack and everything changed.

During those initial weeks afterwards I spent a lot of time at the hospital with his family and close friends. I can’t even recall today how I ended up being one of the people there. I don’t even think I really understood it at the time, I hadn’t really thought of myself as one of his close friends. But I’m glad I got to be there, to be supportive. There was a benefit put on by Eddie’s Attic that resulted in a show and a CD. I made a goofy little speech before one song implying that Mark had a secret life as a superhero.

He was a candidate for a transplant, but he was told that it would buy him about three years and at least one of those would be spent in recovery. He opted to just live his life the way he wanted. In the end, he got his three years anyway, on his terms.
It makes no medical sense, it’s merely a poetic device my brain has constructed. I know that. But Mark had a voice that could shake mountains. He had a voice that was too big for his body to hold. Whatever animates us put the voice inside him because someone had to hold it and it had to be someone with the will and strength to carry the weight of it the longest.

Most of you reading this won’t know who Mark is. History is full of the comings and goings of amazing people no one knows. You should have known Mark.

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California is a trendsetter, as always

I’d just like to say, after having listened to this crap all night, that there was never any recall vote and I don’t understand (okay, I do, actually, I’m speaking rhetorically) why no one ever pointed it out. The way the ballot was structured (vote yes or no on the recall, then vote for other candidates if you voted yes) means that he was recalled the moment the decision was made to vote on the issue, they just allowed him to run again to win it back.

I’m sure that Davis was probably just as bad as I have seen him painted recently, but it seems to me that recalls should be reserved for some sort of severe transgression, rather than just one party’s desire to claim an office early because they suddenly find themselves with a candidate they think they can win with if the election is quick. This is an amazing and dangerous little precedent to have set and you can expect to see it a lot more.

This country grows uglier every day.

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12 July: Atlanta

10 High (Atlanta, GA)
w/ Adam McIntyre, Feable Weiner, YOU

This show was more stressful than most. It began when I asked Nicole, who does the booking there, if I could have Adam on the bill. She didn’t actually have any sort of kit from him and so basically agreed to it based solely on my word. She decided to make it a four-band bill, adding YOU from Atlanta, and Feable Weiner from Nashville. I had seen YOU a couple of times before and was already a fan, and Nicole told me that Feable Weiner was another really great pop band out of Nashville. I felt a little like the show was sort of on my head, not just because I knew she was nervous about having someone on the bill that was an unknown for her but also because I happen to like her a lot.

Adam went on first. I think he’s got a much darker view of his show than what I saw. I was still worried about the crowd overall but it was already a decent size during his set, and definitely a great turnout for a band that no one knows in town. They played a pretty tight show for a band that apparently was operating on only two rehearsals, playing a lot of his new record. Good arrangements, solid stuff. Nice, frankly, to feel like I had a chance to expose him to people who would be receptive.

Feable Weiner was next, who I’d never seen. They reminded me a little of a cross between Weezer and Sloan which is not a bad cross to be. The crowd was still trickling in, which was good. Stranger still was that I didn’t recognize most of them. With FW being from Nashville I assumed the majority of the crowd was YOU’s, but apparently that wasn’t necessarily the case.

YOU was third. I’ve seen the three times now and every show has been different. In some ways they could be mistaken for being sort of a novelty; this show their theme was country and western night and they were dressed in western shirts and cowboy hats and opened with “Take It Easy” by the Eagles. But after that they went into their originals, which I can’t quite easily categorize other than to say it’s pop and damn good pop. The place by this time was pretty packed, probably around 200 people or so, maybe more, I’m really bad at these estimates. But I finally relaxed about the turnout, and now merely worried that they’d all leave before we went on.

Still thinking the crowd was mostly YOU fans I decided to move “Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey” from the middle of the set to the start, thinking if I could grab people then maybe I could keep them for a while. It seemed to work, assuming that was why, because we kept the majority of the crowd for the rest of the night, which considering we went on a little before 1am was pretty good. We probably were only down to about 175 by the time the end of the show rolled around and we were playing “Antmusic.” Lee thinks we may be doomed to playing that all the time now as it always goes over huge.

I was really worried beforehand about the show going off, about having a crowd when the club took my word for the bill, but Nicole was really happy at the end of the night. It’s also gratifying to look up during your set and see so many people bouncing around and not recognize them. But also to see the faces you do recognize. It’s ALSO gratifying to look up during your set and see the soundman singing along to your songs.

I think we may be on the verge of a hiatus for shows, to try and focus on new songs, as well as the feeling that I may have stretched my crowd a little thin lately with so many local shows. For the first half of the night, while the crowd was slowly coming in I was worried the show would be a bust in the end and that’s what I would be left with in the intervening months. But the turnout was better than I ever expected and they stayed for the whole show.

Thanks to anyone reading this who was able to make it out. It means everything to me.