Why Support for New Bands Shouldn’t Be Accidental

Giveaway: Jeffrey Foucault’s Salt As ... For Bataclan

Why Support for New Bands Shouldn’t Be Accidental

A few months back my Chicago friend Val Haller, a fellow music lover of a certain age, contacted me about an indie folk band she’d fallen for hard, The Accidentals. “Oh my god,” Val raved, “they’re going to be huge. I can’t say enough good things about them.” Her role as Cheerleader-in-Chief soon extended to helping the band find places to stay while on tour; at the baby band level, your lodgings are more likely to be the back seat of the band van than even a motel, and any money you save helps make it possible to tour another day.

When she called to see if The Accidentals, their manager, and their sound person might possibly roost with us in Oakland the night before their November 11 show at Hotel Utah in San Francisco, we said “Why not?” It’s not like we are drowning in excitement on a random Tuesday evening.

The band pulled up the other night in a giant black van (code name: Black Betty) that failed to clear our garage door by about ¼ of an inch, which meant they had to offload tons and tons of equipment into our garage to be locked up for the night. But before they did that, they tumbled out so they could hug us and thank us for letting them stay.

Katie Larsen and Savannah Buist met at a public high school in Traverse, MI before winning spots in the singer-songwriter major at the renowned Interlochen Center for the Arts High School. They only graduated last year, which is when they added the equally dewy Michael Dause on drums and percussion. Maria their sound engineer was there, as was their manager – Savannah’s mom Amber – who is the person who should appear in the dictionary under Momager instead of that dreadful Kardashian woman. Amber’s got the business savvy/loving mom equation down to perfection. Probably helps that she was an R&B singer on Arista when she wasn’t much older than her daughter.

Introductions made and hugs dispensed, they quickly got to the backbreaking work of lugging all that equipment into the garage. We showed them their beds, which included sleeping bags on an air mattress and a couch, and you would have thought we were checking them into the Ritz Carlton. “This is so great!” they kept saying. “A WASHING MACHINE?” said Amber when I told her they were welcome to do the laundo. “OH my god.” They treated the smallish pizza I served them as manna. I have never heard people praise a pomegranate, offered by my daughter, with such fervor.

Over the course of the next 18 hours or so, it became evident that we were hosting the most adorable, quiet, grateful nerds ever. Michael hooked up my NYTimes/Google virtual reality glasses for me and proceeded to be so stoked about them that I threatened to search his luggage for them before they left. When I told them to help themselves to anything from our bookshelves it was only Maria saying, “No! No! We have too many books in the van already!” that prevented a stampede.

Savannah had calculated that they’ve driven 120 hours out of what will eventually be 200 hours in the van on this tour, so at lunchtime Wednesday I forced everyone out onto the trail I used to hike with Achilles so they’d get some fresh air in their hair. As we walked and talked, it became evident that young as they are, they have a vision of where they want to go, and the inner fire to create, propelling them right through any fears and doubts. And they’re trying very deliberately to maintain an atmosphere of support and openness within the band, critical when you’re smushed up against each other for 200 hours at a time. “Our band motto is ‘Ask for what you need,'” counseled twenty year old Sav to almost-fifty-year-old Nancy who is thinking, wow, maybe THAT’S something I could try.

They headed out after our hike in search of an Apple store to fix road-fried laptops – leaving us a small mountain of band tshirts, CDs, stickers, and kitty cat tights (see Sav in picture below)- so I didn’t see them again until I arrived at Hotel Utah that night to see their show. When I say Hotel Utah’s stage is small, I mean there were more people at the bar than there were watching the musicians. But that means that, as a music fan, you get different opportunities. For instance, while opening band The Amber played, I happened to be sitting near the EPs they were selling for $5. So when people wanted to buy them, I ran their merch table until The Amber finished their set and could take over. (Don’t worry, I didn’t take a cut.)

Then my three nerdy houseguests climbed up on stage and Holy Lord, I understood why Val went bananas over The Accidentals and why Billboard named them a Breakout Band at SXSW 2015 and why Marshall Crenshaw is now working with them. Trading acoustic and electric guitar guitars back and forth to one another, Katie also rocked an electric cello while Sav played some crazy electric fiddle. And there was my Virtual Reality tech support guru scat-singing and whacking the hell out of his drum kit. The audience was still tiny but it was going CRAZY. By the time they did a cover of the Pixies “Where Is My Mind?” I was done for.

You guys. They are all 19 and 20. They are just getting started.

At the end of the evening Sav gave yet another gracious shout out to my family for hosting them, and went on to thank anyone who supports live music. Then they headed out to Black Betty to drive the six hours to LA for Thursday night’s show. By the way, Hotel Utah doesn’t have a green room or backstage, so here’s The Accidentals sitting in what doubled as backstage until it was time to go on: Black Betty, parked on Bryant Street.

I suppose what I want to say is that seeing the heart and sacrifice and actual physical effort that The Accidentals are putting into being successful with their music was a kick-in-the-pants reminder that talent only goes so far for any of us. We need a vision, and a willingness to work our asses off to make it happen. Go see The Accidentals, or any up-and-coming band playing at a small stage near you. Maybe someday you’ll be able to say “I saw them when they still played bars.” Or maybe you’ll just get a booster shot of enthusiasm and cheerful grit that will give you a new headwind in tackling your own challenges.

Either way, it’s better than sitting at home on a random Tuesday night drowning in non-excitement.