Weeknotes: March 25-29, 2024
Monday, March 25
A warm spring evening invites a walk. Hands in tattered jean jacket pockets, eastward over the Forest Street Bridge, still partly under construction, but open to traffic. I wave to my neighbors who are crossing on the other side, then hop over a pile of debris where the unfinished sidewalk ends. Up the hill past the old ladder company and the brewpub. Daffodils that survived a frigid weekend skirt an old oak on the easement. A trio of kids lazily bobs on a front yard trampoline while their two dogs rush over to the fence to check me out. At first they downplay my passing, but the larger dog gives a sudden bellow and soon both are chasing me the length of their territory. I jaywalk south by the corner store where a man in a black tracksuit emerges swinging a plastic sack of beer. It's 5:00 and everyone is knocking off for the day. At a small white house a 12-foot Home Depot skeleton dominates the yard. With nowhere to store it during the non-October months, it gets dressed up in the costumes of each season like a concrete porch goose. They'd better remove its red beard and leprechaun hat. It's almost Easter. Across the street a young mom navigates her tiny, tottering daughter past the elementary school entrance that I mostly know as my polling place. The lost turtle signs are still up on several telephone poles. Ground zero for Ypsilanti's lost reptiles.
At Prospect Park a young girl in a purple hoodie sits alone atop the massive black cannon, a 19th century coastal defense relic from New England that has somehow ended up in a Midwestern city park. I walk across the grass to a green painted park bench and sit facing Cross Street. A martin house is perched upon a high black pole. Underneath it squirrels prowl the turf and robins wander dopily, feeding on grubs and worms. My head is all over the place, lost for a while in reckless fantasies, then jarred back to the present where this beautiful green day presents itself. Two low flying birds zoom past at eye level, startling me. "Whoa!" I exclaim out loud. A Piper Cherokee, also flying low, heads east parallel to the road towards Willow Run Airport. On my feet again, heading west up Cross, hands back in pockets, and smiling easily at a couple holding hands. Down the hill past Standard Printing where I get my posters made. No headphones, no distractions. Just the town and its evening buzz.
Tuesday, March 26
Driving west on Washtenaw I come up behind an old Subaru with raised tires in the right lane. Its bumper sticker reads "I ❤️ Aging & Dying" and it has a vanity plate that spells "BRTWST." A sticker of a cross adorns the rear window. I can't even begin to imagine who the driver might be. I never get a glimpse of them. It's a cliché March day; cold, but somehow humid, gray, and almost comically gusty. My hat blows off my head and I have to chase it down the sidewalk like a cartoon character. Outside Liberty Station the flagpole is making a fierce racket. Inside the lobby a woman has parked her handcart directly in front of my mailbox and rather than apologize looks up irritably as I reach over it with my brass key. Amid the usual junk mail is a check from a music licensing company. It has likely been sitting in there for a month since I last visited. It's not even why I'm here. I came to make a field recording of the ambient sounds of the post office. I wait for handcart lady to slouch away, then repeat my entrance and mailbox-unlocking sequence, this time recording it. It feels a bit theatrical and will probably be underwhelming, but I'm hoping it might add some texture to a song I've recorded about this location. Back outside I stand under the flagpole for 30 seconds and record its clamor. I have no windscreen so it's probably unusable.
I walk a few blocks north to the bookstore and buy cards for two friends celebrating birthdays this weekend. As I head back towards Liberty Station a man begins a street corner diatribe. He's working up a good head of steam and I surreptitiously switch on my recorder while I pass, hoping to get some colorful content. A minute later I look down to see that it wasn't recording. Damn. There's handcart lady again, still loitering and giving me an unfriendly look. Heading home I stop at the bank. A different bank than last week. The first time I visited this branch it was like walking into a high security prison. Entry is gained through an elaborate vestibule with a metal detector, a tray for offending items, and red and green lights above the door. A sweet voice comes over the intercom, explaining the rules. I've been here enough times now to know them and place my keys, phone, and watch on the tray. While I'm making my deposit, the teller Nia gently repeats her spiel to two more incoming customers entering the vestibule. It must be a long irritating day for her and I appreciate the kindness and patience with which she treats this task.
Wednesday, March 27
Gear talk:
After a career of feeding endless 9V batteries and shaky power supplies into my effects units, I have finally graduated to a professional pedalboard rig. When GLMS was at our peak, I toured with an old wooden Pepsi crate I'd cut up and modified. It was painted a bunch of different colors and had weird toys mounted onto it. I drilled a large hole in the back panel to feed cables through, but it was always a tight squeeze and I never widened it. It was all very messy and DIY. At the end of the gig I would stuff the crate and all my cables into a thrift store Samsonite suitcase that smelled like cigarette smoke and sweat. In subsequent solo acoustic years I only used a tuner and preamp and just set them on the floor. After adding a few more effects to my kit I briefly used a handmade walnut pedalboard my dad built for me, but lost it at a gig sometime in 2021. Last year, just before TMSP began gigging regularly, I finally broke down and bought my first manufactured metal pedal board.
Real talk:
I'm ashamed to admit this, but when I was younger I was sometimes unfairly critical of older musicians who rolled up to a gig with a bunch of nice gear, but had no good songs. I had a chip on my shoulder about it and often wrote them off as weekend warriors. Truthfully, I was just jealous, but that unearned cockiness of youth is a tough shield to put down. I will always remember a solo show I played opening for a touring band from Chicago. They had a basic alt-rock name and also looked the part. I wasn't in a good headspace at the time and I immediately put them in a box. As they loaded what looked like the Guitar Center showroom onto the crusty dive bar stage, my smugness grew. All gear, no songs, I figured. I couldn't have been more wrong. They were possibly the nicest band I have ever played with. I was the asshole. After my own lackluster set, they blew through a bunch of tight melodic rock songs with great hooks. They had hard-won chops and immaculate stagecraft, and despite a guitar strap mishap where the lead guitarist simply plopped down on one knee and finished the song without missing a beat, their expensive gear served them well and only made for a better experience. On top of that, they were so kind to me and had positive, insightful comments about my own songs. I've never felt so humbled. It's a lesson I never forgot and from that point on, I did my best to approach every gig with humility and respect.
When my fancy isolated power supply arrives in the mail I spend an hour carefully drilling holes in my pedal board and mounting it underneath. I properly wire each unit for and pull out my amp to give it a go. Run through a chain of four pedals, my guitar has never sounded so clean. I can't wait to show up at our gig on Friday, an older guy with nice gear, a career's worth of songs, and a good attitude.
Thursday, Marc 28
It's opening day for the Tigers who start their 2024 season in Chicago. Last year MLB instituted a bunch of new rules, hoping to speed up the game. Pitch clocks, defensive shift limitations, larger bases. I thought I'd hate it, but was surprised to realize that I didn't really care. I'm all for traditions, but why freeze baseball in time?
Last May I started writing a song about it. It's not my first baseball-related song, but this one was more about my own reactions to change, using the new rules as a metaphor. It was about 80% written when I ran out of steam and shelved it. With the new season about to begin, I spend the morning revisiting the song and finish up its last verse. I then spend an hour recording a demo. It goes so well that I demo another new song and have them both finished before noon. The rest of the day is a blur spent catching up on the work I ignored during this burst of creativity. I'm so busy I only listen to about half the game (starter Tarik Skubal pitches six scoreless innings to give the Tigers a 1-0 win).
Later, K and I attend a fundraiser for the Friends of the Ann Arbor Skatepark. She was a big part of this committee back in the early-2010s and I helped out as well. Getting that skatepark built was a huge effort involving many people and many similar fundraising events. It was a fun period in my life. In the summer of 2014 I helped my friend Chuck DJ the park's inaugural skate jam with Tony Hawk, Andy Macdonald, and some other big pro skaters. It was so hot I remember some of Chuck's vinyl warping in the sun. I haven't interacted with most of these skatepark folks since then. We wander around the room looking at hand-painted skate decks up for auction and catch up with some familiar faces, but it's like stepping back in time for me and that's not really where I feel like going tonight. I bow out pretty early.
On my drive home a line of cars is backed up on Fuller just past the VA hospital where about 15 turkeys saunter in and out of the road, making a fuss. I always love seeing wild turkeys and am glad the other drivers respect these big birds.
Friday, March 29
Greg and I play an opening set at a benefit show for Fido, our bandmate and dear friend who recently lost his partner to cancer. Fido is a magical human and one of my absolute favorite people. I've never met anyone more resilient. Before the show we walk around downtown Flint. Saginaw Street is all torn up amid a big restoration project. We turn the corner into a crew of young skaters bursting past in a vaporous cloud of weed. The city seems awfully quiet for a Friday. Apparently they're all at FidoFest. We play a couple GLMS songs as a duo and close our set with a slow ethereal version of Kiss' "Crazy, Crazy, Nights," similar to the one by Norwegian group Susanna and the Magical Orchestra. Fido has been a member of the Kiss Army since he was a kid. He's an OG Kiss fan and has become a Flint legend himself. I spot him just off stage right filming us and belting out the chorus.
Later, we stand outside the venue reminiscing with my brother about all the Flint gigs we've played over the years. A string of lights in the alleyway across the street reminds me of an old Irish bar… Kelly's? I think I'm looking at where it used to be. We did a series of semi-acoustic shows there, six of us crammed uncomfortably into a little corner, playing our hearts out and probably sounding terrible. One of hundreds of weird little gigs that failed to advance our career. So many great memories with these guys. On stage, Fido is sitting in with the Jon Fett Quartet ripping through a thunderous “Mississippi Queen” drum solo. We sneak out to the opening riffs of “All Right Now” and text him our goodbyes from the car.