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Live Music in 2012 (Part 3)I’ve been working on this article for a friend for a while now. It is still in drafts, but I’d consider this a late draft. This is the 3rd and final part only, but it is broken up into three sections (the second and third are in the comments).
Personal Music
Like many in my generation, my parents made sure to introduce me to The Beatles at a young age. Like perhaps not as many in my generation, my father also made sure to instill in me an appreciation, if not a love, for the music of Frank Zappa, an appreciation which did grow into love and that I still hold to this day.
Music, in some way or other, has always been part of my life, but it wasn’t until middle school that I finally began finding music on my own. It began with bands like Green Day and Blink-182. Later, I discovered a fascination with groups like The Violent Femmes and Velvet Underground.
By high school, I began to discover independent music and local music as suddenly, one band led to another, and that one to another and so on.
I was fourteen years-old the first time that I went out to a local bar to see a local band. I had actually been invited by one of the members of the headlining band—then, a five piece act known as “holiday.”—via the online forums of another local band, whom I had recently seen perform.
It took some convincing to get my parents to let me go. My father, when he disapproved of these sorts of things, would relay his veto from the depths of his bedroom through my mother. Of course (whether he realized it or not, I don’t know) his messenger often did not share his opinion.
Instead of nailing my father’s decree to every wall in the house, my mom would sometimes begin planning with me a way to change his mind. Usually we were successful.
So, at ten PM—on a school night—my mom drove me and my then band-mate Derek (like many boys my age, I thought I was in a rock band) to a place named The Call in Providence to meet up with one Titus DosRemedios and see if this “holiday.” was any good.
In fact, they were very good. They played music like I had never heard before and performed in a way I had never seen. I was enthralled.
Even more impressive, they were available to speak to before and after; to hang out with and learn about what instruments they used, which songs were their favorite to play, who their influences were…unlike any other group I had ever listened to before, holiday. was immediate and present. The bands making all of the music I listened to prior seemed far-off in time and space, but not holiday.—they were accessible.
I began promoting holiday. like it was my job. Soon, everyone in my extended group of friends had heard them or at least heard of them and many were passing on the music to their friends as well. A few years later, when the guitarist began substitute teaching at my high school, he was widely recognized as “that guy from holiday.,” an epithet I hope he enjoyed.
The band would do me a few favors in return for my support and friendship over the next few years, playing for free at some family parties. These favors coincided with a growing series of strange connections among people on the peripheries of my life, the culmination of which was at my own high school graduation, at which holiday. (with a different name and lineup) played sandwiched between two bands, one of which was the same act that inspired me to write the post on an Internet forum that led to my initial meeting with Titus nearly four years earlier.
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Able Thought creates music, live.
The one-man-band known as Able Thought, like the two acts preceding, features an acoustic guitar, but he also makes use of an iPad, various pedals, and recording devices with which he creates each song as he goes.
Able Thought introduces himself quickly and quietly as he finishes setting up. He speaks far less than Marq Twain or Titus DosRemedios.
On the one hand, Marq Twain is a fictitious character, speaking narratives. On the other, Titus is an earnest performer, sharing his experiences and painting the pictures of his life. But Able Thought doesn’t tell stories like either of the other two acts.
Some of the audience who had come to support Marq Twain and Titus begin to recede as the next wave of guests, there only for Able Thought, wash over top, rolling into the bar and to the stage like the tide to the shore.
Unlike Marq Twain or Titus DosRemedios, Able Thought’s stories aren’t told; they happen. The process Able Thought undertakes in playing each song is a story in itself.
For most, he must first record a beat digitally on one of his devices and set it to loop. Next, he begins playing a riff, or sometimes a pre-recorded track that he then plays over. Finally, he starts the rhythm on his guitar and begins singing, manipulating the various parts with pedals as he goes and the story is told as a song suddenly emerges from the separate pieces.
Between the first and second song, chatter breaks out of a swift applause.
Able Thought creates music like a child playing with blocks. He’s completely focused on what he’s making. Adjusting pieces as he builds, his youthful enthusiasm is infectious and his wonder, inspiring.
Later, after the night of music is finished, Able Thought excitedly invites anyone still hanging around to sign a large, black plastic box he uses to transport merchandise and some of his equipment. Much like the night’s other two performers, he is as thrilled to connect with people as he is to play his music for them.
The lone musician on stage embodies the inner kid that drives most artists, yet his work is not without a good deal of maturity as well. By nature of the way he must perform, many of his songs are cyclical, reflecting the repetitive nature of modern life and the routines every human being inevitably falls into and struggles to break from.
Some songs relate the soft-spoken rage of an artist committed to his work despite minimal recognition, while others loudly proclaim his determination to remain soft-spoken and ignore the unappreciative masses, focusing instead on that which is important, such as art.
The desperation of Able Thought’s performance communicates each of these ideas clearly, if perhaps his lyrics do not.
At first it’s the novelty that is impressive, but the longer the set goes, the more the audience is drawn-in by his words and melodies. Each song explores sounds and ideas at length and Able Thought’s entire performance feels like the musical equivalent of a study in still-life paintings. Without becoming tedious, he leaves no option unconsidered.
As Able Thought plays his music, he looks more like someone in a home recording studio than a solo artist on stage. Yet he still manages to put on a show.
With the end of each song, the response from the audience diminishes, but their attention remains fixed.
His long set is a journey and trying to recall each bit, even shortly after its end is difficult, as one song bleeds into the next. Much like his songs, the individual parts are interesting, but Able Thought’s performance feels more appropriately appreciated as a whole than as a collection of pieces.
When he finishes, Marq Twain, Charlemagne Ghandi, and Titus DosRemedios join him on stage.
Post edited 5/05/12 7:06PM
As the four performers combine efforts, playing a medley of songs to finish the night, I can’t help but wonder how they all came together. I know each of them from different times and places in my life, but the way they’ve come to connect is a mystery.
Watching them sends longing and nostalgia swirling down my spine.
As I step back now, the connections are bit more clear and I realize that despite living on its skirts for nearly a decade, this particular music community is something that I am not quite a part of and will never truly understand.
I have known the artist known as Able Thought since middle school. He introduced me to music I had never heard before and possibilities I had never considered. At thirteen and fourteen, he showed incredible ambition—something he’s lost none of. Prior to meeting him, I had never really considered that anyone our age could write music, but he did…and not too long after the first time I went over to his house, so did I.
After my first meeting with Titus DosRemedios, I followed his band closely, seeing many shows over the next few years. The members of the group returned my loyalty with friendship and did me the honor of playing at my high school graduation party with two other bands. The Loud and Cloudy opened and the group whose forum facilitated my initial connection to Titus closed.
By then, the band Titus was in had become known as “neo nouveau.” The new name came with two lineup changes, at drummer and bass. Larry Valliere, previously of The Quiet Turnaround, was now playing with Titus, as was Chase Leonard, a brilliant drummer who is as talented as he is fun to watch. Larry would later rejoin a former TQT band mate, performing music under the names Marq Twain and Charlemagne Ghandi.
And that other band that finished the night at my party? They and the members of neo nouveau were all friends, naturally. Chase and Titus would both make cameos with them over the years and members of both groups would mix and match to create other bands. At least once, they all performed together as one massive group known as “Beggars and Choosers.”
On the other hand, The Loud and Cloudy were a band consisting entirely of my own friends, one of whom would later become the musical act, Able Thought.
All along, the story was never really about music at all.
It’s not about the death of local music, the dilution of popular music, or the love anyone has for music itself. The story was always about inclusion, friendship, community and connection. If local music really does die, if popular music loses all innovation and creativity, if MTV never shows another music video again, those who decry the condition of the art will not lament the demise of sounds and melodies, but the death of a community.