Schleprock

I have some big news to report, but not quite yet. Soon, soon. Meanwhile, let me tell you about this show The Reference Desk played at Jacob's Lounge in Dartmouth on the weekend. This is not a self-congratulatory story, if that makes any difference to whether you feel like reading it. It is a bit long, though.

We were the first of three bands, and there were quite a few people there. Quite a few hip people whose opinions I actually care about, including the members of the other two bands. I always get somewhat nervous playing live shows, but this night I was extra anxious. It probably had to do with the big news I'm not telling you about yet, plus I wasn't sure whether Amber would be coming in from Musquodoboit Harbour with her aunt who has probably never attended an indie rock show in her life and already has mixed feelings about me, plus I'd heard there might be a fairly sizeable crowd according to the Facebook event page, possibly because Joel Plaskett may or may not have mentioned the show on stage a couple of nights earlier. Anyway, for whatever reason, before the show even started I felt like this:



And also a bit like this kid:



(Sorry — no good English versions of that scene available. We've all seen it though, right? Poor Lawrence...)

Unfortunately, I didn't have Jack Black there to tell me how cool I am, so I just had to tough it out feeling uncool and incredibly self-conscious. Sometimes that can work out OK, if I can just go with the shy weirdo vibe and inhabit it as an interesting persona. David Byrne taught me that trick. But there were extra problems this night, because the microphone I was singing into was a weird kind I'm not used to, and I couldn't figure out how to get the angle right while still being able to see what my guitar-playing hands were doing, if necessary. Turns out it's more often necessary than I would have thought.

Besides all that, there are no monitors at Jacob's. Usually the musicians on a stage get to hear their own special mix of what everything sounds like through small speakers that are aimed at them (monitors), because they have to be behind the speakers that are pointed out at the audience (the "PA"). If the microphones get in front of the latter speakers, they'll feed back like crazy, because those speakers are generally super loud. But even though they're loud enough for the whole audience to have its ears blasted by them, they're also directional, so that listening to what's going on from behind them gives you a weird, muddled perception with no detail. So the smaller speakers give the musicians a quiet but more accurate idea of what they sound like. Sometimes the monitors can even be given a special mix that's different from what the audience is hearing, if a musician needs to hear certain things better than others in order to perform well. That's called being a "diva." Not really — it's perfectly acceptable when available, although I always feel a bit sheepish about asking for "a little bit more of the rhythm guitar" or whatever.

Anyway, if you're a musician, sorry for the preceding paragraph. The point is that Jacob's doesn't have monitors, so it can be kind of hard to hear what you and your bandmates are doing. Last time we played there, it didn't seem to be a problem, but this time it was really throwing me. I had to be extra careful about my singing, to make sure I wasn't accidentally belting out some completely inappropriate note. That meant I couldn't just relax and let my voice do what it felt like doing to a certain extent. I also could barely make out the bass, and my guitar sounded like utter garbage to me — somehow both too loud and too quiet at the same time. It's an awful feeling when you're trying to get a song across to an audience, and you really want them to like it, but to you it sounds just terrible. Hard to fake being into it in that case, and probably just embarrassing to everyone if you try.

So I just kept playing, reminding myself that it must sound all right to the audience, because they were very appreciative after each song. But I could feel that I had a really sour look on my face the whole time, and there didn't seem to be anything I could do about it. I thought about what it would be like to watch a performance where the singer had such a sour look on his face, and that made me feel worse and look even sourer. I think I even sighed with exhaustion at the end of one song. The set seemed to go on and on... Why did we write such a long set list? Did we have to play every song we know? And why were all the songs so energetic and aggressively catchy, when my mood was more suited to a slow number with minimal chord changes? Who wrote these stupid songs, anyway?

In desperation, a few times I looked back at my bandmates for some camaraderie. Maybe we could all laugh at what a taxing show this was turning out to be. But there seemed to be a huge physical distance between us, so that I couldn't even get their attention. Besides, they had their heads down and wore looks of extreme concentration, obviously having just as hard a time as I was...

I wish I had a hilarious surprise ending to this story, but in fact all that happened was that we continued to work really hard and eventually made it all the way through the set. People said it sounded really good out front and that we shouldn't worry about what the onstage sound was like. Ron said it was our best show ever, but he always says that. Amber turned out to be there with her aunt (they had come in a few songs into the set and slowly made their way past the front of the stage without me even seeing them), and they had both enjoyed it. But I was inconsolable. I didn't even care whether it sounded good or not. What really bothered me was that I got so invested in all the problems that I couldn't manage to have any kind of a good time or at least have an entertainingly authentic bad time. Instead, I just turned inward and "performed," in the worst sense of the word. I know you'll say it doesn't matter, and everyone has good shows and bad shows, and you'll be right. But that night, I had disrespected the spirit of rock with my inauthentic self-preserving attitude, and the whole next day I couldn't listen to any music out of utter shame.

But I feel OK about it now. Just thought you might appreciate some insight into the periodic nightmare that is caring about one's art.