I’m playing a house show in Pittsburgh tonight. Really it’s
the only show I’m playing, the rest are just open mics, so far. The confidence
I had in putting together a coherent “tour” seems baffling now.
It all started with some little dweebuses singing
“Haroldddddd, where ya wanna goooo??” and then some slightly larger dweebuses
singing the same in a hungover haze. I was astounded to roll over in my tent
with few tenants (I’d like to submit the portmanteau tentants to Webster’s), to
hear my sluggish co-counsellors singing the refrain of my own song. If I can
have some children sing back my own song that’s one thing, but my peers
enjoying my music might mean I’m onto something.
But what if having a literally captive audience was my only
advantage. In a world (camp) where there is no internet, or tv, or music
players really, then maybe you value all entertainment so much more. We put on
really milquetoast skits, with just some ratty old costumes, and that
entertained people. And that was great for camp, but there’s a big difference
between playing charades with your family and Whose Line Is It Anyway.
Of course this isn’t a TV show that probably supported the
entirety of ABC Family. It’s a show in a basement. I put my CDs in a pizza box
to sell. That seems like the right aesthetic, plus it matches my affinity for
efficiency (read: laziness, if you’re my mother). It’s the right kind of place
to play noisey drunk punk. But maybe I’m not the most conducive performer of
this stuff without the camp scene. Sans campfire and trees, do I still rock?
I’m not nervous that I’ll mess up. I basically can’t play the chords wrong. And the secret sauce that’s in every musician’s hot pocket, is that if you mess up your own music, nobody’s really gonna notice. I’m nervous that my music, acoustic, in a basement, at a math-rock show, won’t carry the same weight it did in the wilderness. It’s competing with exponentially more decibels just by being in a city.
I hate chairs. They never let me sit in them for more than
like 2 hours. Then I have to get up and go do something else. Someone make a
good chair.
I do love love love house shows though. They’re just the
ideal party. There’s real live humans playing music for your attention (maybe a
small amount of money), drinks are as cheap as you need them to be. You can
smoke and you can smoke. Anyone you like can come. Even some people you don’t
like. You can go outside and there’s different rooms. Just like how more
bacteria can grow on sponges because the surface area is greater, there’s just
more room for activities at house shows.
So go to a house show in your city, I guess will be the thesis statement of this post.
So go to a house show in your city, I guess will be the thesis statement of this post.
