The Changelings performed our first show with Trinity at the Robotone last night – the punk club now decked in blue lights giving the grey walls a surreal metallic tinge – along with some bands on tour from the Texan suburbs who played with more of that passionate intensity I'm talking about.
Except all the hardcore kids just hung outside playing foursquare in the parking lot next door, and only Joey Noia and I – and that pouty-smiling punk girl I met on the Riverside – stayed inside the sweaty den to listen, singing along to songs we never had the courage to write, lyrics written against this material world drawn from African folklore and science fictions, one of the bands even sampling a line from Tron that Nim and I always quoted as children: "What we're supposed to do is turn something into nothing and then back again," like those '80s scientists only dreamt of digitizing an orange with lasers but it might as well be our brains, if we only had the internal technologies to transform this empty system back into a life-oriented existence.
Trinity's other group performed first – her and Emma's a cappella hip-hop act – shouting out wordy diatribes against the State between handclaps and silly singsong rapping. Between one song Emma eulogized over another protestor who was shot – and actually killed this time – at the G8 Summit in Italy last week, which I'd planned on mentioning before our anti-war number. So instead I rambled about the pointlessness of working when there's so much else we have to do, but still caught up in the grind though, which I don't know how much longer I can take, while setting up and tuning our equipment, finally getting the volume levels consistent.
And then we rushed into our set list: Automaton to Autonomist, Telaversion, A Cathartic, Mirage, and finally Escape, Phoebe reading some of her Patti Smith-style energy poems between songs to keep the energy flowing.
But when we got to my finale, within the first few chords I broke my low E string, which the whole song's based around, and it came out sounding muddled and inept, though the audience still cheered along. As Flip said, coming up to congratulate us after, "It's pretty amusing watching you jump around with your dreadlocks flailing, bending over nearly backward to sing in the mic like you're gonna have another seizure."
Like I'm possessed by the music and my passion for life, though I felt rather robotic through the whole routine, certain notes at certain tempos, practiced until they reside in calloused fingertips, and still unable to escape the repetitious progressions of sound though it may appear anarchic on the outside.
I was too hyped up and pissed at my broken string to pay attention to the last local band sing about iced tea (of all things), plus Phoebe's now seeing their drummer Z.
I hadn't gotten up the nerve to talk to the pouty punk girl and went outside for a cigarette after we'd packed our equipment in Trinity's rented SUV, still sweaty and shaking and not looking forward to biking home because it looked like it might rain. Emma was going to ride too, and walking down the hill she said, "Thank you for being so earnest and concerned, unlike those hardcore kids for whom a band is only just playing jokes, like music actually means something to you."
"But," she shook her head, unlocking her bike and watching me stare after the punk girl, "you still seem too passive or reserved to make the most out of living. Remember when I told you you'd developed a soul?" And to prove her point, Emma suddenly grabbed me in a fiery embrace, swinging me into a dip to kiss me, which, since I'm a head taller than her, caused us both to topple onto the sidewalk, her lying on top laughing.
But despite my protests she leapt off and onto her bike and peddled off into the blinking stoplight and moon-lit night, while I lay there and watched, utterly flabbergasted and wordless, fairly certain she didn't want me to take it seriously but having my heart wrenched all over the place despite myself.
Phoebe came out from behind the cigarette smoke and dark clouds, wanting to tell me my guitar had still been too loud, the full moon like an indefinite halo behind her ears, but when she saw me on the ground dreaming into the distance she only shook her head and walked away.
(previous: 1.4.2) (next: 1.4.4)
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