OK, I know I’ve been a little distant lately, but I really wanted to make sure those last two posts got some time to marinate. If you haven’t already read WHY I PLAY MUSIC, then click that link and do so. Hint: Bruce Springsteen is involved. Also, I’ve just been really fucking busy. So, there’s that too. But, that’s no excuse as I definitely have a couple hours a week to sit down and write, but haven’t really been inspired to do so. I feel like I’ve been living in the past for the last couple months, and it’s a strange feeling when everything in the past six months has felt so future-forward. I don’t particularly mind revisiting my past, despite some pretty strange and dark times, but I’m feeling very deja vu-ish these days. Allow me to explain (or don’t, but then why the hell are you reading this in the first place?).
It’s been almost six months since I moved to Charlotte, NC. I started playing acoustic shows around the area, and for a while that was fun. Then, I got the hankering to get a band together so I could play my songs the way they were meant to be heard. I first met a drummer, who I feel a strong musical kinship with. He just gets what I’m trying to accomplish and knows how to get us there. We soon added a bassist and will be doing some shows as a power trio in the near future (this week, in fact). We found another guitar player to round out the group after realizing there were just some additional guitar parts that we couldn’t live without. We’ve been spending the past month and a half getting up to speed, so it’s almost like I’ve been relearning my songs for the second time. Some of the songs feel new again, as they have an energy that only a fresh set of ears can bring to them. Some of the songs feel like we’re aspiring to recreate something from past that doesn’t quite fit right anymore. That’s not a dig on the new players, but more about the way I feel about the tunes. Just like some of the old Bradley Wik and the Charlatans t-shirts that have been through the washer/drier a few too many times, they’ve shrunk a little and I’ve sort of outgrown them. They still fit, but not the way they used to. That’s life. It’s also weird to worry about how a show will go again. The last band was together for years. Those years worth of rehearsals, shows, etc. makes a band pretty damn tight. When a good chunk of your shows are of the two to three hour variety, you get a wide swath of material down so you don’t have to play the same 20-30 songs each time. But, that takes time. And the only place to start is at the beginning, which is where we are at. I feel good about where we’re at, but it’ll be a little while until we’re battle-tested and ready for anything.
So, why does that feel strange? Well, replace “Charlotte, NC” with “Portland, OR” and I could’ve written that exact same thing eight years ago…
I had just moved from New York City (greatest city in the world) to Portland, OR and was putting together a band for the second time. In NYC, we were Bradley Wik and the Crooks (maybe you were there and were one of the like 30 people total that saw us there…) but that band disbanded in 2009 after we realized we were all too broke to record, tour, hell, too broke to even rehearse as rehearsal rooms were like $25-30/hour. And then, on top of that, my guitar player, the venerable Jon Fickes, returned back to his home state of Washington to get his old high school band back together. After that, I played a few more shows in NYC by myself (including one final show at the Sidewalk Cafe where I played my last song at 2am to literally no one, as the sound man had stepped out for a smoke. So, I played “Mr. Tambourine Man,” complete with a three-minute harmonica solo just for kicks…) then decided to pack it up and try someplace new. From there on out, that paragraph above is exactly my first six months in Portland, OR. It’s fucking uncanny. It’s fucking eerie. It’s fucking… a third thing that I can’t think of right now.
I’m not someone who likes to live in the past. So, although this is an entirely new adventure, I can’t help but feel like I’ve gone back in time for a spell. It’ll be OK soon enough though. Once we get through our little run as a power trio, we’ll have a little time to start learning some new songs. That will undoubtedly snap me out of this deja vu and I couldn’t be more excited as it’s been years since I’ve introduced new band songs. Not sure when we’ll be recording them but there’s definitely another band album that will be coming out sometime in the not too distant future. I’m fucking thrilled I get to write new band songs. Not sure if it’s because of the Asperger’s I have or what, but I typically only write songs when I need to. So, now that there’s finally a new need for Rock N’ Roll tunes, I’ll start putting pen to paper on those soon. Since I was playing solo for a couple years, I only wrote sad bastard, acoustic tunes. Again, not sure why that is, but I love putting my Rock N’ Roll pants back on and living in that world again. I have a few tunes already ready and the themes/ideas/sounds are starting to develop in my brain. It’s energizing.
Random interjection: I think some people don’t understand how important the drummer position is in a band. I guess, for some bands, they’re more interchangeable. They’re there to keep time and hold everything together. But, for me, that’s not really the case. If I, as the singer and songwriter, am the quarterback, then the drummer is the center. Every play starts with him. The center can set the tone for the game. You can get by with a decent one, but a great one can be a game changer. They’ll help call out the protections, recognize blitzes and make sure the other lineman are all moving in sync. Some are more pass blockers, they let the play develop a little and react to it. Some are more run blockers and want to dictate the action to the defense. It’s weird that for me to understand something I usually have to relate it to sports, but that’s what I do. Also, not sure why I felt compelled to say this but it’s what came into my brain at that moment.
Anyways, the main thing I wanted to talk about today was how much our musical tastes, inspirations, playing style, sounds, etc. are constantly evolving. I know, duh, right? But, it’s strange to me (maybe that’s the Asperger’s and since I likely change less than most people) how people evolve so much throughout their lives and careers and it’s especially strange the way it manifests with music, art, books, movies, etc. Since I love music, I’m gonna talk about that.
Here’s a fun fact about ol’ Bradley Wik: he initially hated pretty much everything Neil Young recorded outside of his live album “Weld.”
The one exception to that was the song I have mentioned in previous posts, “Helpless” which hit me in a very specific way. I too was from the country. The town I grew up in had a population of 3000. We were near an enormous marsh (the Horicon Marsh) which was a huge bird sanctuary. As a kid, I felt like I was helpless to change so much in my life. So when I heard the verses:
There is a town in north Ontario,
With dream comfort memory to spare,
And in my mind
I still need a place to go,
All my changes were there.
Blue, blue windows behind the stars,
Yellow moon on the rise,
Big birds flying across the sky,
Throwing shadows on our eyes.
Leave us Helpless
They just killed me. I thought it was written for me. But, apart from that song and “Weld,” I found Neil Young to be quite dull. Now, he’s one of my favorite artists and one of his records (“Tonight’s the Night”) is my fourth favorite record of all-time. For the record:
“Born to Run” - Bruce Springsteen
“Blood on the Tracks” - Bob Dylan
“Darkness on the Edge of Town” - Bruce Springsteen
“Tonight’s the Night” - Neil Young
This spot used to fluctuate week to week. But currently, and likely forever going forward, it is: “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” - Kanye West
Past #5’s include: Bob Dylan’s “Blonde on Blonde,” Johnny Cash’s “Live at San Quentin,” Damien Rice’s “O,” Jeff Buckley’s “Grace,” Stars’ “Set Yourself on Fire,” Tom Petty’s “Damn the Torpedoes,” The Hold Steady’s “Boys and Girls in America,” and the Gaslight Anthem’s “‘59 Sound”
So, what changed? Obviously, I haven’t changed that much. I mean, I have; I’m older, have listened to much, much more music, had new experiences that help me understand some records better, etc. But I haven’t changed in a hugely significant way. But, what has changed in a big way is two-fold: context and what I want from an album.
Context:
When I first listened to Neil Young, it was because I was going through my obsessing-over-folk-music phase. To me, there were only three artists that really mattered: Bob Dylan (first and foremost times a thousand), Woody Guthrie and the Carter Family. So, when I first heard Neil Young, I thought “well, he’s not as good as Bob Dylan,” and that was that. No reason to spend hours upon hours going through his enormous back catalog when I thought he had nothing to rival “Blood on the Tracks,” “Blonde on Blonde,” “Bringing it all Back Home,” etc. I was judging these things on a "Bob Dylan equals 100, where do you come in?” type scale. If Dylan is the scale, then obviously no one is going to out-Dylan Mr. Dylan himself. Duh… Bradley was so dumb back then…
The second time I tried to get back into Neil Young was when I was going through my Rock N’ Roll phase. Neil rocks pretty fucking hard on some of those records, especially on “Weld.” Hmm. Let’s give it another shot. BUT, again my scale was fucked up. I cared about two bands FAR above all else: Bruce Springsteen and Led Zeppelin. Neil Young didn’t tell stories better than Bruce or rock out harder than Led Zep (I don’t think anyone does. Rage Against the Machine came the closest, probably…). So, once again, back on the shelf he went.
I was confused. Everyone kept telling me how much I should love Neil Young and kept recommending me listen to this album or that album of his but I just couldn’t get into it. I didn’t know why he had almost god-like status to a lot of music lovers. And these were people I greatly respected and had turned me on to countless other artists I adored. But, in Mr. Young’s case, I was just missing something they were hearing.
But, it was my fault for playing the comparison game. I’m not sure if it’s an Asperger’s thing (I love lists and to rank things) but I do it with almost everything. It’s the reason I only own four guitars. My Martin D-15 is my favorite acoustic guitar ever, my Fender Strat is my favorite electric to play and my Fender Tele is my favorite sounding guitar. The fourth is a cheapo 3/4 sized Martin that is the campfire, travel, just sits out so I can grab whenever, kind of guitar. But, I’ve had the other three for well over ten years each and have no immediate plans to introduce anything new to the family. If I have a favorite, why do I need another? That’s what I was doing with music early on in my listening career. If Bob Dylan is the greatest thing ever, why do I need to listen to anything else? It didn’t make sense to intentionally play worse records to me.
The third time I tried to get in Neil Young’s music was the one that held. So, what changed to make me suddenly do a 180 on the same music I’d heard so many times already and so readily dismissed? The second point here: what I want from an album.
What I Want from an Album
The context of the third try was through my love for Pearl Jam. I was going through a “is Pearl Jam the greatest rock band of that generation?” type of phase. I devoured their live “official bootlegs” like a maniac. Of course, they played a few Young tunes like “Rockin’ in the Free World” and “Fuckin Up.” If I loved their versions, why wouldn’t I now like the originals? I decided to give Mr. Young one more chance.
But, what I didn’t know at the time was what I was wanting from music was changing drastically. Early on, I would gobble up music at an alarming rate because it was all new to me. So, I loved everything that sounded different or interesting in some way. But, since I was a kid with very limited income, I had to prioritize and cherish the CD’s I actually bought. So, it was a question of Dylan’s “Highway 61 Revisited” OR Young’s “Harvest.” Led Zeppelin’s “IV” OR Young’s “Everybody Knows this is Nowhere.” I couldn’t get both so I had to choose the best one and that was that.
Once I had a little more money and I was growing my record collection, then suddenly I was after every record that told stories no other record told. It then became “can this record give me something that no other record can?” That’s when I could truly appreciate Neil Young’s songwriting and albums. It didn’t need to be better than “Born to Run” it just needed to scratch an itch that I couldn’t get to otherwise. Neil’s albums didn’t quite sound like other records. They felt different too. They were looser. They didn’t try so hard. He wasn’t trying to be anyone other than himself and had no urge to change in any way. He was uncompromisingly honest in both the songs and recordings. It was refreshing. Their was off-key singing and missed notes playing. Tempos hemmed and hawed but it felt so human. It felt more Rock N’ Roll than most other Rock N’ Roll records. It had a sort of punk feel almost. Instead of being a project, the albums felt more like artifacts. That is just the way he sounded on those three days. Like if he had recorded a month later, it could’ve sounded drastically different.
That approach is what I wanted to recreate with my album “In My Youth, I’m Getting Old…” We had done the tracking in separate rooms, all solos/vocals overdubbed, songs with multiple bass tracks and up to six guitars at once, etc. album the first time for “Burn What You Can, Bury the Rest…” And I love that album too. But, we got a lot of comments on how the album didn’t sound like we did live. It’s hard to recreate that energy when you're alone in a room with a guitar and headphones on listening to a click. So, I thought of Neil and his who gives a shit this is what we sound like approach to making albums. They didn’t have to be sacred works of art, they just needed to be real and honest and tell a story people can’t get from another record. I go back and forth. Part of me wants to obsess over each piece, make sure it’s exactly as it should be before moving on. But, the other part of me loves albums that have rough edges. It’s Rock N’ Roll for fuck’s sake. Smooth stones skip right over the water but the jagged ones get grabbed and pulled in. That’s what I wanted. Are there things I wish I could change? Of course. I don’t think anyone has ever made a record and said “it’s perfect. It’s exactly as I heard it in my head. I’m 100% satisfied.” But, I wanted to recapture that human element that a lot of music lacks these days. I have a friend who can sing so well you could tune a piano to him, but every song on his records still have auto-tune. There’s something lost in that. Sure, technically, it sounds “better” but does it?
The biggest thing Neil Young could give me that no one else quite could was: Neil Young, in all his ragged glory (see what I did there?). And by putting it out there so raw and real and human, no one could ever match that same energy since it was so wonderful and unique to him. No one will ever “out-Neil Young” Neil Young and I’m so glad that in some ways I did change enough to be able to appreciate him fully.
(dictated but not read)
