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slipjig3I've been writing and playing my own music since I was fifteen, but it's been a largely self-contained thing up until recently. Sure, I play for friends, at song circles and the occasional open mic (and one ill-fated attempt at busking in Saratoga Springs), but the last time I played a full set at an actual scheduled gig was in 1995 as a member of the duo The Boneyard People with then-recently-ex-wife Lauren. (Last solo gig was twenty years ago.) I've never had a "musical career" to speak of.
I think that might be changing.
Three things from Pi-Con:
One
I knew some time ago that the amazing![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cluegirl was scheduled to do a hour-long Pi-Con set, and was very much looking forward to hearing her play. Then she asked if I would accompany her on guitar, and I squeed and happydanced in a most undignified manner. I figured I'd step up to do a few numbers that we'd played together before, like "Battle Raven" and "This Way," maybe one or two others I'd learn for the occasion. Instead, I ended up driving out to Troy on Thursday to learn more than a dozen songs in three hours in preparation for the show on Friday. Gulp. You know those nightmares where it's finals and you haven't been to class all semester? Yeah, it felt a bit like that, especially since the songs weren't mine to screw up. figmentj was there to shore up my self-confidence, which helped immeasurably, but my knees were knocking even when I sat down.
Long and short of it, though? We. Kicked. Ass.cluegirl exudes talent like incense, and she f@¢*ing owned that stage, blowing everyone out of their chairs and clear to the back wall. And as for me, all the nerves and butterflies were gone by the time the music started, and all of my feared moments of forgetting how a certain song goes or where the changes are never materialized. Yes, there were rough spots, brief lapses of memory for both of us, but we were nailing the endings and reading each other on the fly and both in that locked moment, the one the musicians out there will know what I mean.
Goddamn, it felt good. We're already making plans to make music together again, sooner rather than later. Cannot wait.
Two
Not long after the show,maverick_weirdo, who was music coordinator for the event came up to me to pass on the message that Abby, the con chair, was blown away by the show, and was surprised to find out I could play guitar as well as I did. (She passed the same message on herself before I left on Sunday.) He also invited me to do my own solo set at 7Pi-Con in 2012. Duuuuuude.... More with the squeezing and the happydancing.
Three
The musical guest of honor of the weekend was the great Heather Dale, a multiple Pegasus Award winner, unspeakably talented and one of the nicest people you will ever meet. She was the host of a Saturday afternoon themed song circle, the theme to be determined by the host. My filk-appropriate repertoire is pretty damned thin, so I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to comply with whatever theme was chosen for the crowd, but as I headed for the elevator with my guitar in hand I silently prayed that I'd be able to play "Strowler's Song," which is The Song. It's a song from the point of view of a traveling musician that I started writing in my head on the drive home from StrowlerCon last year (which not-so-coincidentally was the first time I saw Heather play live), and it's the moment when my songwriting truly leveled up. Something extraordinary happened there, I can't explain what, but every time I play it I turn into something more than myself, if that makes any sense at all. I tend to be self-depricating and low-key when talking about my music, but that's the one where I can say, without hesitation, that it's seriously good.
The circle had already started when I arrived, andmaverick_weirdo leaned over to whisper the theme to me: Inspiration. Oh, hell, yes.
I glanced across the room atcluegirl, who had been there when the song debuted at Arisia, and she was making meaningful gestures and eye expressions at me, hinting strongly that yes, this had to happen. I texted figmentj to get the hell down there, and she arrived just seconds before I started. The thing about "Strowler's Song" is that as good as it is, it gets better every time I play it, so I was riding that wave of adrenaline and unnamed Something, slipping into that little fiery sphere I go into when I'm in full-out performance mode. Toward the end, though, I felt like I should try to open up a bit and actually take in the people around me, which I tend to block off in the name of focus and staving off stage fright. And that was when I realized people were singing along with the chorus, including cluegirl and a few others. And Heather.
Whoa.
The end of that song is a suspended moment of quiet, with just vocals and me beating on my guitar for a rhythm track, then just vocals, then nothing. And in the wake of that silence came the applause, and leading the applause was Heather. "Wow," she said, "what a song!" She confirmed that it was more-or-less new, and that it was original, and said some other really nice things that i don't recall because I was too busy hyperventilating. I got to do one more before the song was over, an unabashedly dirty one called "Love in Zero G," which was also received well, and went away from the experience bouncing and smiling and figuring that was the end of it.
It wasn't. We attended Heather's official show that evening with her guitarist and partner Ben Deschamps, which was nothing short of stunning. (Seriously, if you ever get a chance to see them play, go. This is not open for discussion. You will not be sorry.)figmentj hadn't seen her in concert before, and was gobsmacked by the end of it, so we went to the merch table afterward to thank her and buy a few CDs, since we were missing a lot of her recordings. When I handed her my money, she quickly pointed at me. "Oh! Do you have a few minutes to stick around? I want Ben to hear that song."
I stood there blinking for what amounted to a few seconds but seemed like three weeks, then ran off to get my guitar. When I came back, Heather had taken three chairs and set one up to face the other two, a private performance. It didn't stay private, though, as a small congregation gathered as I started playing, includingshadesong, who is hosting Heather and Ben's house concert in November and who hadn't heard "Strowler's Song" before. It went just as well as before, with maybe a few rougher edges due to nerves, and Heather sang on the chorus along again, eyes closed. Ben really liked it, as did everyone else, which was when 'Song spoke up: "Hey, Adam! Maybe you could open for the house concert." Which Heather and Ben enthusiastically chimed in on, 'round about when I started losing consciousness.
So, it looks like I'll be opening for Heather Dale on Monday, November 21 atshadesong and yendi's place in Watertown. I'm already trying to put together a set list and thinking I should write something new before then, and doing a lot of blinking into the middle distance and trying to remember where the hell I am. I've long called myself a musician, but there are musicians and then there are musicians, and somewhere along the way I seem to have turned into one of the latter. I'm pondering the CD I'm working on that will have to get finished, and figmentj is making me a website even as I type this, but I'm still looking around in awe at the path I didn't even know I was on.
Wish me luck.
I think that might be changing.
Three things from Pi-Con:
One
I knew some time ago that the amazing
cluegirl was scheduled to do a hour-long Pi-Con set, and was very much looking forward to hearing her play. Then she asked if I would accompany her on guitar, and I squeed and happydanced in a most undignified manner. I figured I'd step up to do a few numbers that we'd played together before, like "Battle Raven" and "This Way," maybe one or two others I'd learn for the occasion. Instead, I ended up driving out to Troy on Thursday to learn more than a dozen songs in three hours in preparation for the show on Friday. Gulp. You know those nightmares where it's finals and you haven't been to class all semester? Yeah, it felt a bit like that, especially since the songs weren't mine to screw up. figmentj was there to shore up my self-confidence, which helped immeasurably, but my knees were knocking even when I sat down.Long and short of it, though? We. Kicked. Ass.
cluegirl exudes talent like incense, and she f@¢*ing owned that stage, blowing everyone out of their chairs and clear to the back wall. And as for me, all the nerves and butterflies were gone by the time the music started, and all of my feared moments of forgetting how a certain song goes or where the changes are never materialized. Yes, there were rough spots, brief lapses of memory for both of us, but we were nailing the endings and reading each other on the fly and both in that locked moment, the one the musicians out there will know what I mean.Goddamn, it felt good. We're already making plans to make music together again, sooner rather than later. Cannot wait.
Two
Not long after the show,
maverick_weirdo, who was music coordinator for the event came up to me to pass on the message that Abby, the con chair, was blown away by the show, and was surprised to find out I could play guitar as well as I did. (She passed the same message on herself before I left on Sunday.) He also invited me to do my own solo set at 7Pi-Con in 2012. Duuuuuude.... More with the squeezing and the happydancing.Three
The musical guest of honor of the weekend was the great Heather Dale, a multiple Pegasus Award winner, unspeakably talented and one of the nicest people you will ever meet. She was the host of a Saturday afternoon themed song circle, the theme to be determined by the host. My filk-appropriate repertoire is pretty damned thin, so I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to comply with whatever theme was chosen for the crowd, but as I headed for the elevator with my guitar in hand I silently prayed that I'd be able to play "Strowler's Song," which is The Song. It's a song from the point of view of a traveling musician that I started writing in my head on the drive home from StrowlerCon last year (which not-so-coincidentally was the first time I saw Heather play live), and it's the moment when my songwriting truly leveled up. Something extraordinary happened there, I can't explain what, but every time I play it I turn into something more than myself, if that makes any sense at all. I tend to be self-depricating and low-key when talking about my music, but that's the one where I can say, without hesitation, that it's seriously good.
The circle had already started when I arrived, and
maverick_weirdo leaned over to whisper the theme to me: Inspiration. Oh, hell, yes.I glanced across the room at
cluegirl, who had been there when the song debuted at Arisia, and she was making meaningful gestures and eye expressions at me, hinting strongly that yes, this had to happen. I texted figmentj to get the hell down there, and she arrived just seconds before I started. The thing about "Strowler's Song" is that as good as it is, it gets better every time I play it, so I was riding that wave of adrenaline and unnamed Something, slipping into that little fiery sphere I go into when I'm in full-out performance mode. Toward the end, though, I felt like I should try to open up a bit and actually take in the people around me, which I tend to block off in the name of focus and staving off stage fright. And that was when I realized people were singing along with the chorus, including cluegirl and a few others. And Heather.Whoa.
The end of that song is a suspended moment of quiet, with just vocals and me beating on my guitar for a rhythm track, then just vocals, then nothing. And in the wake of that silence came the applause, and leading the applause was Heather. "Wow," she said, "what a song!" She confirmed that it was more-or-less new, and that it was original, and said some other really nice things that i don't recall because I was too busy hyperventilating. I got to do one more before the song was over, an unabashedly dirty one called "Love in Zero G," which was also received well, and went away from the experience bouncing and smiling and figuring that was the end of it.
It wasn't. We attended Heather's official show that evening with her guitarist and partner Ben Deschamps, which was nothing short of stunning. (Seriously, if you ever get a chance to see them play, go. This is not open for discussion. You will not be sorry.)
figmentj hadn't seen her in concert before, and was gobsmacked by the end of it, so we went to the merch table afterward to thank her and buy a few CDs, since we were missing a lot of her recordings. When I handed her my money, she quickly pointed at me. "Oh! Do you have a few minutes to stick around? I want Ben to hear that song."I stood there blinking for what amounted to a few seconds but seemed like three weeks, then ran off to get my guitar. When I came back, Heather had taken three chairs and set one up to face the other two, a private performance. It didn't stay private, though, as a small congregation gathered as I started playing, including
shadesong, who is hosting Heather and Ben's house concert in November and who hadn't heard "Strowler's Song" before. It went just as well as before, with maybe a few rougher edges due to nerves, and Heather sang on the chorus along again, eyes closed. Ben really liked it, as did everyone else, which was when 'Song spoke up: "Hey, Adam! Maybe you could open for the house concert." Which Heather and Ben enthusiastically chimed in on, 'round about when I started losing consciousness.So, it looks like I'll be opening for Heather Dale on Monday, November 21 at
shadesong and yendi's place in Watertown. I'm already trying to put together a set list and thinking I should write something new before then, and doing a lot of blinking into the middle distance and trying to remember where the hell I am. I've long called myself a musician, but there are musicians and then there are musicians, and somewhere along the way I seem to have turned into one of the latter. I'm pondering the CD I'm working on that will have to get finished, and figmentj is making me a website even as I type this, but I'm still looking around in awe at the path I didn't even know I was on.Wish me luck.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-29 06:10 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-31 02:37 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-31 01:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-29 06:16 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-31 02:38 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-09-01 04:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2011-08-31 02:38 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-29 06:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-31 02:38 am (UTC)Strowler's Song
Date: 2011-08-29 06:50 pm (UTC)So stick it as bonus on album? :D
I wish I had been around to hear you and all these folks, they sound fantastic!
You turned me on to SJ Tucker and... I've said that you write good songs. Just watch out for those darn squirrels......
Re: Strowler's Song
Date: 2011-08-31 02:45 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-29 07:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-31 02:45 am (UTC)Yea!
Date: 2011-08-29 07:57 pm (UTC)The guy who does the "room counts" (so that we know how many people attend which events) happened to stop by the room while you were giving your "private performance" he told me that it had better attendance than some of our panels.
Re: Yea!
Date: 2011-08-30 02:14 am (UTC)Re: Yea!
Date: 2011-08-30 03:00 pm (UTC)Re: Yea!
Date: 2011-08-30 08:17 pm (UTC)Re: Yea!
Date: 2011-08-31 02:45 am (UTC)Re: Yea!
Date: 2011-08-31 02:46 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-31 02:46 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-29 08:16 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-31 02:47 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-29 09:29 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-31 02:47 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-29 09:51 pm (UTC)Very happy for you!
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-31 02:47 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-30 12:12 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-31 02:48 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-30 02:59 pm (UTC)♥
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-31 02:49 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-30 09:26 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-31 02:49 am (UTC)