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28 Mar: Atlanta

28 Mar – Eddie’s Attic (Atlanta, GA)
w/ Michelle Malone

We started off well and ended well, in spite of little things in between. After making a point last time of talking about how I need to stick with the acoustic on the songs I use it on, we started in on “Sherman” and I broke a string during the song. I managed to swap guitars somewhere during the bridge and ended up playing electric for the whole show anyway. Sometimes the fates are fickle. The crowd seemed good, we got a loud cheer for “World Where You Live” and then good cheers afterward. I think we were a bit subdued, again. It’s the stage, for one thing, being so small (and smaller still with two bands worth of amps on it), there’s really no room to move at all. But the club itself feels quiet, and it’s hard to start capering around the stage even if there were room.

There’s something about coming home after a show in town, though. I don’t notice it when the band is on the road, though I did have it when I was out solo. I come home completely drained, and usually starving. There’s just a very particular feeling to it, the weariness of bringing the equipment in, of changing out of the clothes… it’s like a deliberate forestall of relief, and the feeling when I finally sit, have a drink, a little food, it’s like nothing else. Probably about as close to relaxation as I ever get.

I was sitting here, with an overcast sky, taking in that weird nostalgia I only get at the start of spring and autumn… and I started thinking. I used to go see local music just after high school. More or less it was people I knew. I saw Uncle Green at the Metroplex and actually travelled with them to a few shows out of town. I saw another friend’s band, called the Mystery Cycles, play a place called Margaritaville on West Peachtree. But the first time I ever went out to see a local act I didn’t know was at a club called the White Dot, which used to be on Ponce de Leon Ave.

It was Michelle Malone.

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The Suggestions, the Tender Idols, IKE

Last night I went out to see John Brodeur and the Suggestions. Well, actually, they’re just the Suggestions now. I stumbled on the show by accident… Sunday night I just happened to decide to flip through last week’s Creative Loafing and saw the listing for the show.

John was the guy who was organizing the Elvis Costello tribute show that I was supposed to do but in the end couldn’t afford to get myself up to New York to do it. He had found me online somehow and asked me to do it and then I met him at last year’s IPO in LA when he was, oddly enough, playing the same day and same club I was.

So, last night he was playing the New Faces night at Smith’s. I assume just because he was doing 10 or so dates and that was the night he was close to Atlanta and could book the show. But New Faces night at that club is basically where they consign local bands; the show costs a $1 and when you show up you tell them which band you’re there to see and they keep a count, ostensibly so they know which bands drew and can have them back. In practice, though, the count seems irrelevant; the numbers they claim they expect are unrealistically high for a show on a Monday. You get booked back based on the usual whims.

When I got there it was the middle of the second band. There was a decent sized crowd and they were clearly there to see that band, whose name I don’t recall and who sounded like a typical modern rock band; a little growling, lots of kick drum and bass, white boy up front alternating between rapping and singing. I could see the rest of the evening coming a mile away. The crowd already had started to empty out by the time the Suggestions went on, and the place was more or less empty by the time they were done. It was like watching my band on the road (well, sans-Indigo Girls tours) and it was frustrating to watch.

I went up to talk to John after the set, I started to re-introduce myself since we’ve only met once and I haven’t even emailed him since last year, but he beat me to it and recognized me. We talked a little about odds and ends, the upcoming IPO festivals, and their tour so far. I told him if he wanted to come back through I could get him a weekend show with a crowd that was expecting pop. We swapped CDs (the one glorious perk of being a struggling musician) and he asked if “Jeff Lynne” was on the one I gave him, that he really liked that song. That was pretty good. I also talked to Ian Webber (used to be in the Tender Idols, has a new CD out, if you like Ron Sexsmith or Neil Finn you should try to find it) who was working the bar. He’s thinking seriously about moving to Seattle in a month or so, looking for a music scene that has a little more life to it, as well as other major markets that are close by.

Ike, John Faye’s band, drew a crowd here the last time they played. They seem to have some sort of following in town. John B. knows John F. and Cliff Hillis (they were in the Costello tribute, too), and there doesn’t seem to me to be any reason why their fans wouldn’t have come out to see John, had they known the show existed. I play shows and I go to these shows and I begin to see familiar faces… I know the crowd exists, I know the record stores they frequent. But they tend to be people who go to see what they know, and the biggest trick is getting them to come out. I’m a broken record on this, I know. But when I said ‘organization’ before it may have been a poor word choice. I just think there could be some way, to use a vulgar term, to ‘brand’ this sort of thing. Something that, when the people who like pop see the name they can feel some sort of reassurance that the show is probably a safe bet. Plus someplace online they could find out about touring acts coming to town, too. I don’t have particularly grandiose plans for anything, but just some way to get the crowds who like it out to see it. I know I can get the show booked at a known club and on a weekend. If it doesn’t work it doesn’t work, but at least I can feel like I tried and was proven wrong, that they don’t come out because they don’t want to.

I’m just thinking out loud right now.

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22 Mar: Atlanta

22 Mar – the Earl (Atlanta, GA)
w/ the Yum Yum Tree, the Features

I haven’t played the Earl in about a year and a half. The last time I was there was only the third show with the Million Box, my previous backing band. We were still sort of forming as a unit and it was the first show where I felt like it had it’s own identity. We did well, brought in 60 people on a Wednesday night at midnight. But even so I could never get back in. Being a pop band is a tough sell in Atlanta.

The way I finally got back in was through the kindness of Andy Gish of the Yum Yum Tree, who asked us to play this show with them. We opened and played a good show to a good-sized crowd. I feel fairly sure most of them did not know who we were, but I think a lot of them were also fans of the Features (who went on last), a pop band out of Nashville. So we were playing to a crowd that was expecting pop of some kind. They applauded but there wasn’t much interaction, which felt like a let down after our set but they kept that attitude for most of the night, so at least it wasn’t just that it was us.

I talked briefly with a couple of the guys in the Features after their set, but I don’t think they really put it together that I was the guy that opened. The person who does the booking there was working the door so hopefully that will help my case when I start trying to re-book.

I feel a little like I sold myself out somewhat. I left my acoustic at home and decided to do the two acoustic songs on the Telecaster. They sounded fine, but afterward I was a little mad at myself for doing it. Sometimes you can work yourself up over a show and start second-guessing what you do and you start to try to plan a show based on your idea of what the crowd will want. In a way that’s all well and good, and it’s not that it backfired at all, but I don’t think I’ll do it again. In the end I’d rather go down or be ignored as me. The fast and soft stuff is all mine, and there’s no reason to change that to try and win anyone over. If they buy the CD they’re going to end up with that side of me anyway.

I also talked with someone about the whole idea of having some sort of loose organization to try and band all these struggling Atlanta pop bands together. I’d been spending some time over the past week trying to pin down ideas, then it turns out I meet this guy who’s already halfway there. It seems silly to try and compete; it would sort of defeat the purpose. So now I’m not so sure what to do.