The week before the show was spent trying to not practice too much. We scheduled two practices for “4 Cold Walls” and one for “6 Floors Up”. The first “4 Cold Walls” practice was flat, no spark, dead like the parrot wired to its perch in Monty Python…no matter how much you try to convince everyone it is alive, it just wasn’t.
The final “4 Cold Walls” and “6 Floors Up” practices were great. For both we ran the first set, stopped, looked at each other, and just smiled. At one practice we actually floated the idea of just stopping there and going home. It was about as good as it could get.
We arrive at the Freight Saturday evening early, about 6:30. The first band “Last Exit” is on stage doing the sound check. Everyone is in good spirits and excited about performing. Hilary Perkins the TTS director is there and gives hugs all around. Dave Zimmerman, our coach, checks in with the bands but largely leaves us to our own warm-ups.
Stage time! Dave does the introductions for “4 Cold Walls” while we wait in the Green room. Up the stairs and out we go. The first song is “Drinkin Dark Whiskey” where I do the kick and it is a pretty good one. So far so good, in the grove, we’re moving at a good beat, the break works out ok. Then we go right in to “Wichita”.
Now remember, I have been playing dobro less than 2 years and this is my first performance in probably 35 years so it shouldn’t be too surprising to learn there are a few unexpected gremlins that tend to pop up when I play under stress. One of the gremlins is what I call “happy fingers”. Basically what happens is that my fingers are so happy to be playing in public that they go off and do their own thing, seemingly independent of the body and mind they are attached to. The other gremlin that shows up under stress is almost as destructive, “random rearrangements” which causes me to modify dobro arrangements on the fly. The little buggers decide to strike simultaneously for my Wichita break. Somehow I rein them in and get through the break, but with more slop than I wanted.
On to “Broke Down and Lonesome”, got the intro, but my break here has been only about 70%. Earlier in the evening I told one of my friends that I am playing on the ragged edge and I am beginning to feel like I’m on the wrong side of that edge.
“Like a River” came off ok, I hit the intro, which I sometimes forget, jumped my break a little early, but recovered.
The last two songs are possibly our “4 Cold Walls” showcase songs. With “If it Hadn’t Been for Love”, Wendy and Terry have some killer parts. Wendy absolutely smashes the vocals and Terry’s break is great.
Our last song is one of my favorites because I get to sing a bass lead. This is the bluegrass gospel song “When I Get Home, I’ll Be Satisfied” which we arranged a 6-part harmony to open and close. Now, everyone says they really like my voice but then they seem to giggle when I sing. I haven’t completely reconciled these conflicting observations, but since I enjoy the vocal part I don’t pay much mind. Apparently it works. My wife hadn’t heard me sing my lead and told me she couldn’t stop laughing…..I assume she was laughing out of surprise and awe.
Dave introduces “6 Floors Up”. We come on stage and get to work. The first song was Woody Guthrie’s “Do Re Mi” which sounded good to me.
There are a couple of things I should mention about being on stage at the Freight. One is that, thankfully, the stage lights were pretty much in my eyes making it all but impossible to see much of the audience…their faces were blissfully in the dark. But then I began to notice something different with the sound. The monitor volume had been increased……a lot. With “4 Cold Walls” I really couldn’t hear myself in the monitor…now, oh jeez even when playing a good 6 inches away from the mic I couldn’t hear the rest of the band over my playing.
I kick “Old Folks” and “Don’t Get Too Close” and performed the break and fills ok without too many gremlins chasing me.
But, Scott decides to do some unrehearsed stage banter before “Wagon Wheel”, looks at me and gets an evil glint in his eyes. Uh oh, he mentions my name and something about fantasy and the internet...oh boy where is he going with this…and then he takes it in the direction of baseball…whew…I guess payback for the blog.
Scott was ramping up the crowd, he did a good job because he got a few cell phones in the air. “Wagon Wheel” is where my gremlins really started their carnage though. I sing harmony on the chorus for “Wagon Wheel” and have a double challenge, I have to walk behind Scott to share a mic with Lisa and then get back to my mic to cover instrumental parts following the chorus. The second challenge is to hit the right note in the harmony, which I have been struggling with. So, I go stand at the mic a little early to make sure I am there for the chorus and don’t trip over the instrument stand. So far so good. I can’t find the right vocal note for the chorus……and then the carnage begins…….I remember too late to get back to my mic for the instrumental….the gremlins are having a heyday. I get some unexpected respite from their grief and hit the other vocal and instrumental parts in “Wagon Wheel”.
“Against the Wind” was our next to last song in the set, where I had a long, fairly prominent break. Everything is going well, though it seems a little fast. Then the break comes. Remember I mentioned earlier that I needed to hear the rhythm guitar to keep my break on track and also remember the loud monitor volume. I should also mention “playing on the ragged edge” comment again….these are not 3 things that work well together, especially when trying to contain stubborn gremlins. The first half of the break went ok but I the long pull off run for the second half flat fell apart. There is a point at the end of the break where I recover to finish but I really wanted this break to work.
Our closer was “Bonaparte’s Retreat”. We stacked this song with tricks and it is a lot of fun to perform. I get to kick this song, we hit everything just like we are supposed to, racing for the finish line, hit the syncopated parts and end.
I feel exhausted……
How can I summarize my TTS experience. For starters there isn’t a simple way to wrap it all up. Take 6 people, strangers with different levels of musical experience, different musical tastes, different personalities, and throw them together in a small room for 8 weeks and see what comes out the other end. In some ways it is remarkable that the bands come together as well as they do and don’t simply implode.
The roots of the TTS success are Hilary Perkins and the coaches, Dave Zimmerman, Dan Booth, and Jacob Groopman. Dave, Dan, and Jacob were able to manage a group of disparate, overachieving, sometimes cranky, individuals from teens to 50 and 60 somethings. They did it with exceptional style and grace and were able to help us learn how to pull it all together. Hilary of course manages the whole kit and kaboodle….and almost certainly has a harder job than the coaches. Hilary was largely behind the scenes once we started practicing, but was never far away and clearly moving along other aspects of TTS. I have worked in several organizations and teams and I marvel at how skillfully these guys managed the whole effort.
But it doesn’t matter how many coaches and directors there are if there aren’t musicians. I believe the body and soul of TTS really are the folks that come to play. From my experience, it is rare to meet and play with such a fine group of individuals; people who are willing to compromise their egos and dreams to make dream that they can all share. I hope we can keep the momentum going, keep the dream evolving, and make something more out of this.
I’ll close with this last Twain quote that I think captures the essence of TTS:
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
