The Next Seattle: Memoir of a Music Scene

by Neal A. Yeager

if he had just been a singer, he would have been a singer to catch my attention. But add that to everything else... I was in awe. And after all these years in the music business, "awe" is not something I tend to feel anymore.

  It was obvious that I was not the only one feeling it. I looked around the room and realized that he was the reason that this place was packed. He had a large contingent of fans in a wide age range, though most of them were college-aged and I assumed were probably his students. And they were fixated. The members of the other bands gave him their absolute full attention. The punk kids seemed fascinated. Everyone’s attention was on this frail little man who was such a powerhouse performer. Everyone’s eyes were glued to that stage. It was beautiful.

  And then the jerkwad showed up.

  Apparently, the annoying councilman and his small band of protesters had decided to be a bit more aggressive. Right in the middle of Phil D.’s set, they came marching through the club.

  And get this: They were carrying torches! Friggin’ torches! I kid you not. Through the middle of a commercial building... Torches! I assume that the effect was meant to be like the angry townsfolk of old, some sort of symbolic gesture there which I’m sure the councilman thought was somehow significant and appropriate, but, Jesus Christ! TORCHES!

  As they marched, they waved their torches and chanted "Not! In! Our! Town! Not! In! Our! Town!" Whatever the hell that was supposed to mean.

  At this disruption, the band stopped playing — obviously, torches inside small confined spaces can certainly have that effect — and the councilman quickly jumped at the opportunity and started in on his speech, which, incidentally, he delivered to the cameraman who had followed them into the club and not to the people actually in the club.

  "This place is a corrupting place. It is full of violence, and drugs, and who knows what else. I have lived in this city my entire life, I am proud to say. And I can tell you that this place is not something that the people of Terre Haute want here. Not! In! Our! Town!"

  The room had a fairly high ceiling, but I, along with several other people in the club, couldn’t help notice how close the councilman’s torch was getting to the ceiling tiles as he waved the torch around.

  And just as the councilman was about to continue his rant, a voice — a big, powerful voice — a voice like the Voice Of God came thundering out of the club’s speakers.

  It was Phil D.

  And Phil D. was pissed!

  "MALCOLM!" shouted Phil D. through the P.A. system.

  The councilman, obviously startled by the Voice Of God turned and saw, apparently for the first time, the artist whose performance he had interrupted.

  "Dad?" he squeaked.

  "What in THE HELL are you doing?" Phil D. demanded.

  "Dad?"

  "Yes. And I asked you a question Malcolm. What the hell are you doing?"

  "Dad... what are you... don’t you know what goes on here? What are you doing here?"

  "Music goes on here. Music is what happens. And Music is what I’m doing here... What are you doing here? Are we perhaps witnessing some ridiculous stunt designed to get you re-elected to the council? Is that what you’ve turned into? Is that what my son has turned into? A cheap, sensationalist, political HACK?"

  The councilman was obviously rattled. With a weak point toward Samantha he squeaked out, "She invited us."

  "What?" shouted Samantha. "I invited you to come in and watch some bands, not to come in and act like...." and here, apparently, Samantha realized that there was a camera pointed at her, "Not to come and disrupt a concert that people have paid to see."

  Phil D. sprang to his feet — and through his furious anger you could see a quick wince at the pain that springing had caused him — and he shouted, "GET! OUT! Right now, OUT!"

  Now, one could suspect that the councilman had probably not been spoken to by his father in that tone for 30 years or so, but it was obvious from his reaction that he most certainly had heard the tone before. He turned, and slinked out of the club, his bewildered fellow protesters following along behind him.

  There was a pin-drop silence in the club as this happened. And when the councilman had made his way out the door, the crowd, in basically one synchronized motion turned their collective heads from the doorway back to Phil D.

  There was an awkward moment.

  Then Phil D. clutched his chest and collapsed to the floor.

  Afterward...

  At three a.m., I found myself once again gazing out of the window of room 613. I was poised at my keyboard, the blue-gray glow of the screen casting a surreal light through the darkened room. I felt like I wanted to write something about Phil D., but the words wouldn’t come.

  The view of Terre Haute seemed to beckon to me. There was something out there in the night of this Indiana city that just pulled my attention away from what it was that I was supposed to be doing.

  Something pulling me.

  So I allowed myself to be pulled. I looked out the window and abandoned pretending that I was about to write something, abandoned my futile task. As I gazed out the window, all was still below me. I suppose that this was the way that things were at three o’clock in the morning in most normal places throughout the world. All quiet. All sedate. All peaceful. It was a state that I was generally unaccustomed to seeing in a city. I had been living in New York for so long that I had forgotten that there were cities which did sleep. I was in one such city right now.

  Then the phone rang. A 3 am call. Always interesting to ponder who that might be.

  It was Samantha.

  "So, Phil D. is okay. Turns out this is like his 5th heart attack. Apparently, they’re getting used to seeing him at the hospital. The nurses talked about giving him a discount card or something."

  "Well that’s good to hear."

  "Yes it is. And I’m gonna let you go because after tonight I am dog tired."

  "All right. Goodnight Samantha."

  "Goodnight David. And David...."

  "Yes?"

  "Nothing. Goodnight."

  "Goodnight."

  I hung up the phone and my gaze was once again drawn to the cityscape out my window.

  The really disturbing part of a sleeping city is that the peacefulness really gives a person a chance to think. To think about all of the things that one really did not want to think about. I always refer to the daytime as “static time” because there is so much human activity going on during the daytime that it keeps a person’s brain occupied, as if filled with static. A big part of me thinks that maybe that’s really what helps most people hold it together. The static keeps them going. I think that most people really don’t want to stop and think about the life that is streaking past them. Stopping and thinking about it can be a downright disturbing thing to do. I know. I do it far too often. But when a person’s mind is occupied, the time can just pass by with little notice. And that is, for most people, a blessing indeed. So most of them live their lives there in the static time, keeping the worst of the thoughts at bay and making it possible to keep going until the end.

  So I looked out at the Terre Haute night. And as I gazed out across the city a chill passed through my body, a chill which signaled that an end was near.

  Club to truck, truck to club...

  Though I parked myself on my usual stool at Seattle, I wasn’t really into the bands this evening. Too much on my mind. Luckily John invited me out to his van and after a little time out in the parking lot and after a while all of those "things on my mind" didn’t seem to matter.

  As John and I sat in the van—excuse me, truck—there was suddenly a knock at the door. We were both silent. I’m not sure why. Maybe we thought that by remaining silent we wouldn’t be caught. But after a moment the knock came again.

  "Um..." began John, "who is it?"

  "You know damned well who it is," came Samantha’s muffled voice from outside the van.

  “My sister-in-law?” John asked.

  “No.”

  “My si
ster-in-law?” I asked, even though I have no sister-in-law.

  “Open the door!” the voice insisted.

  “Wait! Wait!” said John, “is it my mother’s half-sister’s lesbian lover’s ex-fiancee’s sister-in-law?”

  The door was yanked open from the outside, revealing Samantha trying to look stern.

  I said, “I can explain this.”

  “Shut up,” she said as she climbed into the van and closed the door behind her.

  “You see,” I continued, “John here is a collector of beer cans. Right John?”

  “That’s right. Got a big ol’ collection at home. Hell, some of them cans are worth a lot of money.”

  “Shut up,” she said again, “and give me one of those things." To say that this request surprised John would be an understatement, but he happily reached into the refrigerator and pulled out a beer for Samantha. There were plenty more left. There was no danger of a shortage any time soon.

  “A beer can collection,” said Samantha, “yeah, I’ll bet you do.” And she opened up her beer. "Do you guys know what happens to me if having beers in my parking lot turns into a thing? This club is for minors. And I get crucified. I’ve got enough problems at the moment. So, please don’t let that happen."

  “Got it,” we both replied in unison.

  “Good,” she said, then took a big swig of her beer, “Good.” Then she set the beer down and stepped out of the van.

  “What the hell was that?” I asked John.

  “I don’t know,” said John in his Hoosier accent. And the way that ‘I don’t know’ was pronounced in that accent became a favorite of