When I first came to the Valley as a UMass English MFA student in the mid-'90s, I was fresh off a four-year stint in a Pogues-like Irish band in Texas. I wasn't a virtuosic player, but I was an enthusiastic flailer who got by on having good rhythm. My old band had a decent run, drawing some big crowds and making the cable-knit sweater Celtic crowd swallow their pipes in apoplexy. I came here for grad school encouraged by the possibility of continuing my musical endeavors.
I found the Valley's atmosphere quite stifling at first. When, one blizzardy day, I had to make an urgent phone call at a small town gas station, the owners said I could use the phone, but wouldn't answer my inquiry about where the phone actually was. The crusty couple looked on with a silent, deadpan disdain as I tried to find the thing. Clearly, I was not in Texas anymore.
The same was true in the musical world to some extent, though exceptions were certainly on-hand. An established group of players seemed to have the ears of Northampton, and the overly careful, rootsy aesthetic in evidence had never been my cup of tea. So I set out on a more jagged original rock course, short-handed though I was in terms of the unself-conscious requirements of being a great performer. Whatever songwriting brilliance I might have possessed didn't translate to what I could do behind a mic onstage in the Bay State Hotel back room with Down All the Days (later The Mud Prophets). It did at least eventually win us a Grand Band Slam award in "experimental/progressive" way back in '99, before I worked at the Advocate.
Dreams of some brand of rock stardom fill the head of everyone who takes to the stage with an electric guitar, whether they'll admit it or not. But surfing the musical ocean takes skill of a meta sort. Being a good performer helps, sometimes a lot. But that's a skill that's easier to learn than it might appear. In order to ride a big wave, several other subcategories of skill are required. You have to be able to take on the un-high-minded business of the business, but caring about the minutiae of business when you just want to write songs isn't easy. And promotion takes a cigar-chomping, brass-tacks approach not many musicians possess. Being able to live on Slim Jims doesn't hurt, and neither does being handy with van repair. Not having a stable relationship helps with traipsing all over the place to play to crowds of three or four. There's a lot more to rock success than three chords and the truth.
In the face of such stuff, my own idealism quickly was dealt a blow or three, even as I watched some friends and/or former bandmates go on to bigger things (most notably Phil Peeples of the Old 97s and Brian Lane of Slobberbone). So perhaps, I told myself, being a local success is fine, plying one's trade an hour or two away and coming home to sleep it off. Because I was pursuing writing, I never really planned on making a living at music, anyway—I just liked to play. But the demands of being in a rock band, even what I thought by then was a good one, were wearying. Put three opinionated dudes in a studio, for instance, offer up a provisional mix of a song, and you can often roast hot dogs over the ensuing conflagration.
I didn't thrive in that world. So after a while, I was off to new territory. It's that thing that happens to most musicians eventually: jazz, the friendly MRSA of the musicians' hospital. There's nothing wrong with jazz, of course. Far from it. Playing it demands that you learn to listen at a different level, that you learn theory so well that chords become slippery options, not a set-in-stone "progression." It's music for those who can't be entirely contained by the squareness of pop and rock.
Nonetheless, in some ways, it's a buzz killer. You walk over the bridge, and you don't necessarily bring an audience with you. Those who rock do not "jazz." You have to find new listeners, people who smile and "mmmm" when you come back to the melody after the kind of extended soloing that leaves all but jam-band diehards glazed into catatonia. All the same, I labored to turn my flailing into something more refined, spending a couple of years without gigs, learning the ways of Gypsy jazz, the guitar-driven Django Reinhardt school of playing that's more guitar-friendly and accessible than the usual sort of jazz.
But here comes that surfing metaphor again. The ocean one must surf in the jazz world rolls with demands that one find high-caliber musicians who can hang with inverted minor seventh quotidianated flat nine consumptive chords. Putting together an impromptu jazz lineup is much like trying to round up cattle in a rainstorm at night, cattle who demand a wagonload of premium hay to come up to the barn (they don't come cheap, and honestly, why should they?). The basic demands of the rock world—that one write songs, arrange them and play them with passion, regardless of virtuosity—don't enter the equation as often. Most people want to play stuff they already know. If you want to create jazz-tinged songs, not solos, you have to find just the right crew to straddle those worlds, certainly possible, but a tough goal even in the Valley.
And after Gypsy jazz and adventures back in the rock world, I've also tried a new lineup: me, accompanied by me. I say this not to toot my own horn, but to flesh out a common Valley solution to the endless difficulties of a working musician: how to collaborate with others, maintain a lineup, come up with material, find gigs, promote gigs, on and on. Many is the Valley singer/songwriter, and that's one reason why.
After two decades or so of surfing musical waters, 13 years of that in the Valley, I feel like I've learned a few things about these particular tricks and this particular place. I have a healthy respect for those who face the same problems and come up with elegant solutions and beautiful music.
And, of course, I've worn the Arts Writer and Arts Editor hats at the Advocate, a perch from which I am privileged to hear almost everything in the local music world. It's almost criminal to begin lists that should be miles longer, but there are powerfully good players here in almost every genre (Jim Armenti, Zack Danziger, Jazer Giles, Guy Devito come quickly to mind, among many more). There are big names (Archie Shepp, Yusef Lateef, Evelyn Harris, Thurston Moore, Kim Gordon, J Mascis, Staind, and, again, more). There are local players and bands who make extraordinarily original music (Fear Nuttin, Rusty Belle, Stephen Katz and Bill Nace, among others) and bands who've made a habit of virtuosity and hard work in whatever genre (Primate Fiasco, The Equalites, Cold Duck Complex, Leah Randazzo, The Alchemystics, Ed Vadas and Ameri-mf-cana, Tony Vacca, of course among many more).
It's rather like taking a break on the beach sometimes, watching as people take to the waves. I'm lucky—there are plenty of talented people who live and play here, and I get paid to lend an ear.
The Valley has much to offer musicians, but it's a demanding climate in many ways. A lot of people like music, but the usual sources of audience—colleges—don't seem to be as engaged with local music as they are in most college towns. Getting an audience of non-musicians interested works in certain genres, with certain age groups. If you don't find yourself in that territory with what you create, it's not easy to gain that ever-elusive "following" club owners want of you. My hat's off to the players here who make such tough equations work out. It's far from easy.
In the end, surfing this particular stretch of water, like any, has its rewards: there's probably a good collaborator or two somewhere in the Valley looking to play Baltic surfpunk or Balinese funk. That's very cool. And the Valley has its limitations: making music doesn't pay well here (and increasingly, not anywhere), and the number of places to play never seems to change much. It's an embarrassment of riches, but often a dearth of buyers. Regardless of my musicianly habits, as Arts Editor, I fondly hope that things like this Advocate issue will keep on reminding Valley residents that all sorts of worthwhile and interesting sounds are just around the corner, awaiting discovery.
Even if there are no teeming thousands in the Valley waiting to propel musicians to the stardom they no doubt richly deserve, there are people and places here that are receptive to most anything. So maybe—and this is the beauty of the Valley—you can play whatever strange thing your brain constructs. And in so doing, create something, destined to fade before long, that'll have its moment in the sun and fade back into the Valley's tides and flows. Best to ride the wave, look around from its crest, and figure another one will come along after this one breaks, as they all do. The musical moment is the thing, and the Valley is a place of lovely moments in need of discovery. Most places can't boast that. Keep an ear out. There's no telling what you'll hear.
