MAJICAL CLOUDZ

Attempt at a show journal

I’ve been writing in a journal about my experiences playing music over the last few months, and I’m going to make the (possibly regrettable) decision of transferring that writing into a Tumblr thing instead of just on paper in a notebook. So I want to try to write at least a little bit about every show we do until the end of the year. The tone/substance of these entries is probably going to change over time, but I want to write to help myself remember years down the road, and in the spirit of over-sharing, here it is. My only disclaimer is that at the end of the day these entries are primarily for me 10 years in the future, so the writing will most likely be rough/scattered/fragmented.

June 13^th – Northside Festival

We played a show last night in Brooklyn, NY at Saint Vitus Bar for Northside Festival, presented by Pitchfork.

We waited around and watched Body/Head’s sound check. Their music seems to hover around pitches instead of keeping them. It was beautiful and bizarre and made me realize that we would probably be the most conventional act of the night in some sense.

Before sound-checking we went into the basement of the venue to do an on-camera interview with Lindsay Zoladz for Pitchfork TV. Lindsay asked questions that allowed us to say a lot. It’s amusing and kind of strange to see certain “talking points” develop regarding the band. A few ideas and facts circulate until the form the basis of the public life of the band (and of myself) for anyone who is peripherally interested. I have an awareness in the back of my mind when I’m doing some interviews that I am contributing to and furthering those “talking points”. The way the media works can sometimes resemble a game of broken telephone, where information is passed along and a set of “myths” about an artist is created and reinforced. I thought the interview was a good one because the questions addressed a few of those “talking points” in a way that allowed me to refute some idea and elaborate on others.

From the stage during the performance the lights were very bright, there were lots of cameras aimed in our direction, and the sound was slightly unclear. This was the first show we had played since our record was released about three weeks ago, and when you’re used to playing nearly every day that can feel like a long time. After a few songs my voice started to give out, but then I stopped worrying about sounding good and about the cameras, and it became really fun. If my voice falls apart in the right way, fighting with it can make performing more exciting. My voice hasn’t felt 100% for over a month now, so it is starting to stress me out, but last night it felt good.

After the show it was a blur of friends and strangers at the venue. Someone at the bar casually asked, “is the whole ‘neurotic’ thing an act, or are you really neurotic?” and then my friend whisked me away before I could properly answer. I’ve been asked that question more than a few times. It could come off as a rude question, but I do believe it is fair to ask because anything that happens onstage should be up for questioning. Some performers are very different onstage and offstage. Some people create personas for the performance of their music for one reason or another. I think that is totally valid and can be incredible, but for the record: nothing that I do onstage is a character. It’s not exactly how I usually behave in other situations, but then again performing is a unique situation and I’m just reacting naturally to that. As a side-note, anyone is totally free to consider me to be neurotic, or anything else. This isn’t a put-down of the person who asked me that question; I’m just trying to explain my personal reaction to it.

Playing at Saint Vitus was our first show at a metal bar, and through the promoter Dave, also our first glimpse into the world of black metal and upside-down crosses. Also, Ted Leo is very cool and very nice.