What a magical evening.
I come back from buying a bottle of water and who’s sitting in my seat? VAN DYKE PARKS!
Does Felice know Van Dyke?
No, but he then tells a story of eating dinner with Mo Ostin and her dad at Chasen’s… Van Dyke’s revealing history, his tenure at Carnegie Tech, working for Mo at Warner Brothers making secretarial wages but only having to report to one guy. Van Dyke was doing the score for "Two Jakes" and Mo thought Felice’s dad could provide some insight.
But Van Dyke Parks was only a sideman this evening. Playing piano and accordion.
Actually, he got a solo… He played "Orange Crate Art". Everybody got a solo… Joe Henry and Loudon’s daughter Lucy too. It was that kind of evening… Something from the seventies. THE 1870’s! Like we’d all rallied around the barn on a Saturday night and the local talent was going to give a show. Back before the era of not only iPods, but ELECTRICITY!
But the performers provided their own heat, their own energy, you could have added their power to the grid. It emanated from deep inside, who they were as opposed to what the music industry had tacked on to them.
I’d heard "Dead Skunk". Novelty track.
I’d read about Loudon Wainwright… But how many albums could one person buy?
Then, as a result of the miracle of the Internet, I download his new album, "Recovery" and find out he’s a genius, often working in miniature, nailing the human experience.
The movies are a mother to me
There’s nothing like a good movie
To mother me back to sanity
When I have gone insane
The extravaganzas projected at multiplexes are not movies. They’re business concoctions, carefully cast and scripted to rain coin all over the world. Making a movie isn’t about making a statement, but making money. It’s not how good your film is, but its gross. Whereas films used to be an escape, but not pure fantasy, rather they made you feel part of the human race, experiencing the stories of others. The lights would go down, you might be in the theatre alone, but suddenly you were wrapped in a whole environment, peopled with characters who were now your best friends.
I’ve never heard a song about this experience. The movies may have changed, but life hasn’t. We all feel so alone, we need to connect. That’s why social networking is the rage. But prior to the Internet, we used to feel a member of the group via music, before MTV whored it out and it became just like the movies, vapid.
Loudon played all my favorites, everything I needed to hear. "Be Careful There’s A Baby In The House", "Motel Blues", "Muse Blues" and "Say That You Love Me"… I couldn’t help but stand and applaud when "Say That You Love Me" was done. This is the essence of being a music fan. Music isn’t for winners, it’s not sports. Music is for losers. The socially awkward. The dreamers. The music soothes them, makes them powerful. Makes them take risks, like telling the object of their affection that they love them. But that doesn’t always work. And when you’re rejected, you come home and play your records some more. Getting consoled by your favorite acts, gaining insight from what they’ve got to say. Which is more than slap your booty into mine! We’re going to the club and have a good time! Oftentimes the most dedicated music fan CAN’T EVEN GET INTO THE CLUB!
Not that Loudon is a loser. But his music represents all 360 degrees of life. And if you don’t have losses, you’re delusional, you’re not telling the truth.
There was a raucous version of "Man Who Couldn’t Cry", with all six players raving up. Maybe not quite the Who, then again, Loudon name-checked Townshend in his song about smashing his guitar, buying a replacement and then having this new instrument instantly stolen. Karma, he said.
But the highlight was "In C".
Don’t look for it in iTunes, don’t comb Loudon’s catalog, it’s never been released. But it’s a gem.
So by now it’s clear to hear I know
I don’t play a lot of piano
But sometimes a fella has to sit
Just to sing about the heavy shit
Loudon apologized. Well, not really, he’s always got that mischievous look in his eye and inflection. And said he felt embarrassed sitting at the keys, where living legend Van Dyke Parks had been residing. And you thought this was going to be a humorous number, child’s play, banging on the keys uttering little more than nonsense.
But it was the heaviest song of the night. Loudon started to sing truth. About broken families. Ones he’d been a member of.
Lucy Wainwright Roche might have been on stage with him, but Loudon’s relationship with Rufus has been notoriously strained. You start off fresh-scrubbed, you enter the game and suddenly you’ve been married and divorced multiple times. Even the Republican VP nominee has a pregnant teenage daughter. Life never goes as planned. You just try to cope.
And the great unknown’s a hurricane
With howling winds and floods and driving rain
You might make it through, but you don’t know
If right behind it there’s a tornado
Do you get married? Do you have kids? It’s so scary. And after escaping injury in the gauntlet of life, suddenly you hit a brick wall, you encounter another crisis. It doesn’t end until you do.
Playing music is not something you do on a journey to somewhere else. It’s not a stepping stone to a clothing line, to endorsements. Playing music is something innate, that you must do, as necessary as drinking water, as breathing. Which is why the greats, the true believers, never give up. Forget the Stones, yesteryear’s stars. What about those who never really broke through? Shouldn’t they be giving up and going to law school?
Some do, but most don’t. And some who do come back. Because they’re just not happy. If they must be starving artists, so be it. Actually, if you’re not willing to starve, you’re not an artist. You worship money more than creation, your priorities are not commensurate with the artistic temperament.
Loudon Wainwright III has hung in there. He never broke through. Got lucky a few times, with "Dead Skunk", "MASH" and "Knocked Up", but he’s not a household word.
Which is probably why Largo at the Coronet was not full.
This stunned me. I thought it would be a tight ticket.
To me it was, we got there early, having heard it was open seating.
I needed to be close. I needed to be there. For this one time only show. Just after the new record came out. When he’d play all its new/old tunes, with a full band.
It’s not about hiring a limo to drink wine with your buddies as haggard oldsters play renditions of their decrepit hits. That’s not the live music experience. That’s entertainment at best. Whereas live music, when done right, is life itself.
In the 1970’s, my heart palpitated when I saw my favorite act was coming to town. Sometimes they’d only produced one album. But I was hooked. I needed to go. Often alone. Why try to convince someone who won’t appreciate it?
And I’d sit there, as the music washed over me, telling myself there was no place I’d rather be.
There’s no place that I’d rather be than seeing Loudon Wainwright at Largo last night. I’m hoping this Internet era will allow his magic, his might, to spread far and wide. That people will go to see him for thirty bucks and know that you can avoid that whole TicketMaster game and have even a better time, a life-fulfilling experience.
Now if you go on YouTube, you can find a clip of "In C". That’s what Loudon told me the name of the song was, even though here it’s listed as "Another Song In C".
And if you listen through, and you should, because you’re human and if you can’t identify with this experience already, take notes, because soon you will, you’ll hear the following lines:
And if families didn’t break apart
I suppose there’d be no need for art
Art comes out of pain. Of change. Of the dilemma of having more questions than answers. If you’ve got it all down, you don’t need art. But if you wonder sometimes how you got here, what you’re doing here, if the pain you’re feeling has ever been felt by anyone before, you’re a candidate for art.
We’ve come far from Woodstock. We’ve got to get back to Joni Mitchell’s garden. We now have the power. We’ve wrested it from the old men, who never learned to type, who aren’t computer literate.
The clock has been reset. Don’t learn to dance, don’t hire the ghostwriter, look deep down into your heart and let your truth out. You are not alone. If you speak honestly, others will resonate.
