Time Travelling Killer Grandmother

           

            On the Monday morning of July 18th, during song practice, the leather end of my guitar strap finally wore out after a couple of decades. It was good though that it happened on a rare day when I was twenty minutes ahead of schedule.

            I had to unpack my electric guitar and take the leather strap from that, but the strap for my electric fits onto strap buttons at both ends, so I had to extend it fully and then tie one end of it around the neck with the leather strip I’d been using for the other strap. But the strip broke and so I had to cut another one from the old pair of leather pants. The leather strap was shorter with this arrangement than I’m used to, but not any shorter than a lot of guitarists wear them. I was able to play the rest of my songs without it feeling too weird.

            Later I cut some more leather and started trying to repair the end of my acoustic strap. It wasn’t done in time before I had to go to the Tranzac though.

            I finished watching the Hawaiian Eye episodes that I’d downloaded. Some of the shows were interesting and entertaining but none of them were really outstanding. The fourth season had more complex and better written stories but the addition of Troy Donahue’s character didn’t make much sense because he wasn’t even a detective.

            My upstairs neighbour left two tall cans of Molson Canadian inside my door.

            It as another beautiful Monday night as I rode to the Tranzac.

            After putting my name on the open stage list, I went outside to tune my guitar. Anthony was standing on the sidewalk, just standing there and looking up.

            When I went back inside, Eric Sedore came and sat with me, telling me that he would have biked there if he hadn’t eaten too much candy.

            No MSG sat with us. He mentioned the music of Elliott Smith, which led him to speak of someone whose name he couldn’t remember but who was related to Kate McGarrigle. I suggested that the person he was thinking of was Rufas Wainwright and he said that was it.

            No MSG said that people aren’t creative when they are well fed, and used Henry Miller as an example.

            Dave Lang and John Sladek were still doing their sound check at twenty minutes after the usual start time.

            No MSG talked about unlocking the Motown Mozart matrix interface. He said that Jimmy Carter and Berry Gordy are cousins, and it turns out that was true. They are second half-cousins.

            We finally started at 22:25. Our hosts, Dave’s Bass Lesson, started things off with Leanne Scott’s “LA International Airport” – “ … A stewardess in a mini-skirt, a hippy in a leather shirt, starlet on the way to Naples or Rome … Baggage car goes quickly by, I see my case and I start to cry, stumble to the lounge to be alone …”

            John said that Dave had never heard the song before, but he played it to keep him on his toes.

            Their second song was the traditional folk song, “I Wish I Was A Mole In The Ground” – “ … Kippy wants a 9 dollar shawl, when I come over the hill with a 40 dollar bill, it’s ‘Baby where you been so long?’ … I don’t like a railroad man, cause a railroad man will kill you if he can and drink up your blood like wine …”

            First on the open stage was Isaac, who opened with his post break up love song – “ … I see now the raven’s empty home … Her compass has nothing more to show, I’ve lost where it is I’m supposed to go.

            Everyone in the audience just looks like they are waiting for their turn.

            Isaac’s second song was the one about the girl who was sexually abused by her father and grew up to be a prostitute – “Poor girl, poor girl … her father the beast … the mongrel mutt in heat …”

            Next was Eric Sedore, who said, “All my songs have joke intros, but not these ones.”

            From his first song – “The morning I first set sail, I threw up in a pail, but the rats in the hole all wished me well. It was my job to climb the mast and look for land … I lost my mind. It washed away in the waves and the endless days. I stood on the rail, looking out over the drink. I started to think I could walk on water and wouldn’t sink …”

            Eric’s second song was called “Across The Lake” – “I used to wonder about the girl across the lake. What would it take for the ice to break? Then one night I saw a light … It was a snowmobile … it sank like a stone … I didn’t know if the ice was strong enough … I saw her hands reaching out for me … she pulled me into the water … we sank beneath the ice …”

            I was after Eric, and started with my translation of Jacques Brel’s “Amsterdam” – “In the port of Amsterdam there are sailors who are singing of the dreams that haunt them so far from Amsterdam. In the port of Amsterdam there are sailors who are sleeping, like the oriflammes along the bleak sea …”

            My second song was my own “Love In Remission” – “The pouring rain makes the grey walls glisten, the drops on the barbs of the wire make a bijoux charm. She’s all in black, except for her ammunition that’s wrapped softly round her in a quiet shade of alarm …”

            John called for Anthony, but No MSG said, “He’s in the dressing room!”

            While we were waiting, No MSG told me that for his set he was going to experiment with drama.

            Anthony made it to the stage, and, as usual, introduced a song with a story – “Not very far from here is a well known road and a small little parkette where a woman used to play piano and she loved to dance.” From the song – “She’s dancing … round and round and round in my mind …”

            Before his next song, Anthony told us that he had a friend pass away recently. “I’m thinking of my buddy, Roger. Whoosh! … You won’t bring me down … Respect is brighter and brighter … Soul survivor … He died about 24 hours ago … Nice guy.” Then Anthony sang and played his song “I Had To Walk Away”.

            Then it was time for No MSG. He began playing and then he began talking as he played – “I like the black keys, to my house, to my garage. I sleep in my house, but sometimes I like to sleep in the garage, when it’s humid, and when it’s raining … For some reason there was this gang that showed up at my garage about two weeks ago … That guy knows somebody … They know an in-law, and the in-law has a grandmother and the grandmother has a twin and the twin is a serial killer, but since it’s more than three degrees of separation, I’m innocent … This twin has killed 71 people … She’s got some pets, and they are formerly abducted people from area 51 that are in touch with aliens … Raccoons that glow in the dark hop on the drones and travel through space and time, so she’s killed 71 people, but over 3,000 years … I have an invisible Blue Tooth, it’s in my armpit … So maybe I and maybe you can just disguise what we say, and maybe we’ll just fly away … Chopper on top of the hospital … 10,000 feet above the hospital all of the lights are faded away … Going to a 24 hour restaurant in Buffalo. We’re gonna get Montreal smoked meat, but we’re gonna get it in Buffalo … An now I only have to … I didn’t want to do that … Back home, where I was in my house, it was a little humid outside and I had seven degrees of separation. It’s so nice to be innocent … My hands are full of denial and I’ll be in therapy every day. I can feel that breakdown coming on and I got my seatbelts ready … The garage, the house, the mortgage payments and those 71 homicides … Could someone shut that faucet off?”

            For a short, follow-up piece, No MSG said, “Everyone knows this guy, Scott. He had the movie gig.” Then he began playing a section of Scott Joplin’s “The Entertainer”. “He wrote it in C, but that’s not where I like to be. I’m gonna play it on the black notes.” He continued for a little while and then was done.

            I told No MSG that his story was epic.

            Following No MSG was Pepe, who began with his own song, “Careless With You” – “baby got a little white dress on … her little white shoes … Baby said that she wanted to dance … We had a little wine …” He tried to get the audience to participate by chanting the word “mama”. I called out “mama!” in the voice of a talking doll.

            Pepe told us that his second song, “Ella May”, had a story behind it, but he never told us what that story was. He sang it, as he did last time, in a thick, southern United States accent – “ … Are you disappearing, are you leaving with a ghost … Through the snow and then over the plains, they said she left that morning in the rain …” He kept up the accent, even through his, “Thank you very much!”

            Next was Joe Salvaggio, with an electric guitar and a looping pedal. He said of his first song that it’s a work in progress and that it needs approval from the band with which he plays – “I was over you but now I’m still under this dark cloud … I believe that I found love, but it turned out to be so far above. Come on down to the shadows of your town …” When he stepped on the pedal, his guitar got noisy and fuzzy.

            His second offering was called “Big Star Song” – “ … Won’t you tell your dad to get off my back … Won’t you be an outlaw for my love?”

            After Joe, was Matt, who sang his own love song called “Believe”.  It had a very modern pop style, like something that would be sung by a boy band.

            Matt’s second song was a cover of  “Watch Over You”, which was written by all the members of the band, Alter Bridge” – “ … How can you love someone and not yourself … You long to hear my voice and I’m long gone.”

            Matt has a strong voice with a lot of range. He seems almost too professional for the Tranzac open stage.

            The final open stage performer of the night was Stavros, who brought only his guitar, with no looping pedal this time. He told us that his parents came from a small village in Greece. He said this piece that he’d written was inspired by that place, but it seemed appropriate in light of recent events. He called it “Ethnicity” and sang it in Macedonian, but first he gave us a translation – “This is my language. These are my stories. Who are you to tell us not to speak?” After a long instrumental introduction, Stavros began to sing. He’s a very good guitarist.

            His second choice was another of his own, entitled “Roots and Wings”. He sang this one also in his first language.

            The last songs of the night were from our hosts: Dave’s Bass Lesson.

            John – Dave and I will do a couple of tunes to …

            Dave – Clear the room.

            John – What do you want to do, Dave?

            Dave – I’d like to retire in Hawaii.

            They started with “The Scorpion Departs and Never Returns” by Phil Ochs – “Sounding bell is diving down the water green … Bubble ball is rising from a whisper or a scream … tell me I’m not screaming … Have we left our ladies for the lyrics of a song …”

            I suggested that maybe the problem is that “scorpion” was the wrong animal name for an aquatic vehicle, considering that they are land creatures. John agreed, and added that there have been several submarines since that one that have been named “the scorpion” and they all sank.

             John and Dave finished the night with the traditional, “Good Morning Blues” – “ … I couldn’t sleep last night, I was turning from side to side … I wasn’t sad, I was just dissatisfied … the blues walkin round my bed, I went to eat my breakfast, the blues was in my bread …”

            Then John surprised me by saying, “Christian’s taking notes. He’s gonna put this all up on his blog again.” I didn’t think anybody read this stuff. I’ll bet John did an internet search of himself once and stumbled upon my blog.