It’s a hole I fall into every time I go there. I want to know what people think about the music—not just the casual rap from morning deejays whose careers require them to be both controversial and placating. Not from people who called to hear themselves on the radio because they happened to be at the Showbox when we played. I wanted to know what people who cared to hear our work thought about it.
I don’t know why I believed this morning, just because I was agitated, that the blogs would be any different than ever. Four women described at length how I looked in a dinner jacket and how wonderful that I took it off because of the heat. One claimed that I looked at her through all of “Rhianna’s Song.” A fifth caught my pick when I flipped it into the audience at the end of the Jimmie Rodgers yodel. Two guys argued about the set list, one because he intended to keep an accurate archive of the set list from every show I ever played, “for the sake of history,” for crissakes, and now the two gentlemen were quarreling over whether I said the new song was called “Hymn for a Rusty Angel” or “Him and a Rustic Angel.” Another woman complained that I must be lovers with the new singer and that was a bad idea, because the new singer looked like the kind of woman who’d make me fat and lazy, and a second woman said that I already looked less gaunt in the pictures from Saturday than I looked in Glasgow in January.
The pictures? The ones posted on the unofficial fan site, which included great close-ups of Ian with his shaved head and Susi looking like a trance singer from an Eighties band playing electric Kool-Aid house music. One of Susi and me at the market, singing cowboy songs in the early morning. I called Karl’s office and left a message that he needed to negotiate with the unofficial site to get the pictures of Susi and Angelia pulled.
“Tell them I’ll give them a personal message to post—an exclusive that they will very much like—if they’ll pull those pictures.”
As if I could bargain to keep material that popped on the Internet from having unintended consequences. I should know better.
Two women started a debate on the band’s official blog about Ian’s shaved head, one complaining it was a travesty, and the other waxing eloquent about both Ian’s looks and his musical contribution to the band’s new direction. This was the first post that discussed our music.
However, it didn’t count because I knew it was Cynthia. She’d been doing it forever, posting messages about Ian’s looks and his music, and then reading it back to him as if it weren’t her.
Because Ian never reads the posts. Why can’t I make myself do that?
I couldn’t make myself look away as the conversations unfolded on the screen while I watched. One woman felt compelled to note that the new singer should be warned that Jason Taylor is a controlling, abusive person, while another woman (I know it’s Cynthia) asserted that all the rumors were unfounded lies, that the public record shows the complaint was false. Then the discussion drifted off for a moment to an uninformed rant about how the police contribute to the silent persecution of women caught in the net of domestic abuse.
At least three guys replied, “Who cares?” and I have to make myself not answer. When I think about domestic violence, I’m ill at the notion of people seeing me as a perpetrator, as the embodiment of a far greater evil than my negligent father ever committed. The angry woman (and Cynthia) engaged with those guys over the social issues, and Jason Taylor disappeared from the current discussion for a few moments, while I slipped down the blog threads to see how people described Saturday’s music.
What I most wanted to know was what people heard and how they felt about it. Not whether women appreciated how my package looked in silk trousers versus jeans. Not cute-coy discussions of whether the length of my fingers indicated anything about my privates. Not whether Ian sticking his tongue out when he concentrates indicates a penchant for oral sex. (“I’m certain it does,” his most erstwhile fan replied.)
So I couldn’t help myself from asking.
Sebastian: Saturday night, Ian and Toby played as master musicians, and the band was in complete sync, even with so many new members added.
MarkT: We’ll see. You can’t tell from the MP3. It has all the problems of most board tapes—not enough bass being one problem. For me, it’s too psychedelic. My favorite period was about three years ago, when the band was doing true indie country, with all original material. This new stuff is going to take some getting used to.
Everyone jumped on this “true indie country” assertion, squabbling about whether the term held any metaphysically precise meaning. Yes to Wilco, no to Ryan Adams after Whiskeytown. Yes to the Jayhawks, but The Replacements are just Minnesota roots rock. How to categorize Eighties West Coast rockabilly that has too much of Downey, California to be country? Could anything from the Pacific Northwest be country, alt or otherwise? Then, as my impatience grew, the squabble refocused on whether our new music could bear the indie country label, with more than one claim that no one who records for Albion Records could be labeled “indie” anything.
Then a woman posted a screed against labeling that cheered me up.
JTgrrrl: Everyone who posted after the show missed what has happened—since Woman at the Well, Taylor’s music has gone 180 degrees in another direction. I have argued before that CD was only an Albion Records interpretation of what Jason Taylor’s music might sound like in an alternate universe. I don’t think he produced it, in spite of what it says on the liner notes.
MarkT: You’re saying they lie on the liner notes?
JTgrrrl: It says Co-produced, doesn’t it? I was at the Showbox Saturday—I haven’t missed a show he has done within 150 miles of where I am in the last six years, when his first album came out. What he played Saturday was both incredibly surprising—if you believe that the production of Woman at the Well was his sole work—and also completely logical if you’ve listened to his music over time. This is his most exciting work to date. If you don’t love the board tapes from Saturday or the recent boots, you aren’t going to be a Jason Taylor fan for long. I just wish they’d post the tour dates for the summer. Everyone else is posting their summer calendars this week.
So, if Susi won’t marry me, maybe this woman who has seen me play a thousand times will marry me. One of the set-list curators answered back.
MarkT: So you’re arguing that he went mainstream by accident? Now he’s going to stay there because Albion Records will recognize that he is so good, they won’t screw up his recordings anymore?
JTgrrrl: No, any time Jason gets close to the brass ring, he f*cks up his chances by doing something that no record label will gamble with. I’m confident that you aren’t going to hear any more of his music in elevators. Woman at the Well was his only shot at that.
Another new name logged on and sent everyone into a flurry.
LostSon2: If you don’t think Jason still belongs in indie country, you haven’t heard the boots from Saturday afternoon. He did Hank Williams and Ralph Stanley tunes, and SusiQ sang two Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerrard songs. I put the MP3s on the trading list, together with some outtakes from recent rehearsals.
MarkT: You have rehearsal tapes? I thought his sessions were all closed.
LostSon2: We’re like brothers, so I have access. I also posted some MP3s from Saturday’s sound-board tapes. But you can’t hear Susi on those. Her voice is missing.
MarkT: How can her voice be missing from the sound board?
LostSon2: I think it’s like how a vampire’s reflection doesn’t show in a mirror. She is an angel, and you have to do something special to catch her voice on tape.
MarkT: I heard her Saturday night. She’s from out of this world, but I don’t know about angel.
LostSon2: She is going to be the angel of indie country. She is going to be like Emmylou Harris was for Gram Parsons. Except I hope God doesn’t decide to strike Jason down so young.
Frickin’ hell. I yelled for Martha to find the sound-board tapes from Saturday night, and then I was on the phone to Karl, hating that the word ‘estop
pels’ had entered my vocabulary, leaving details with Warren, who answered the phone during lunch hour. While I was shouting a While-You-Were-Out note about the idiot bastard fan freak whose heart I wanted to rip out with my teeth, Martha slipped me a note: Ephraim had a radio station manager holding on another phone line for me.
“I’m grateful that you have time for us, Mr. Taylor.”
“Hi, Ray. Only the IRS calls me Mr. Taylor. Geez, I haven’t talked to you since you were kind enough to let us visit in July.” My throat had rasped raw from the morning’s tantrums.
“It was a good session.”
“How’s your boy? Dylan, isn’t it? He must be five by now.”
“He is doing great. ‘Rhianna’s Song’ is one of his favorites.”
“No kidding? What else do five-year-olds listen to?”
“Los Lobos, Beach Boys, Beatles. Stoneway.”
“You are shining me on, Ray. Tell me more tonight?”
“The show is at ten. If you want, you can come a little earlier.”
“Yes. I’ll bring my partner. We’re happy to play if you’ll have us.”
The guy was effusive in his thanks, and I would make him wait until tonight to let him know that in the world of music, “partner” still meant Ian Griffith, not the mysterious angel who sang with us on Saturday.
80 ~ “Nothing Was Delivered”
JASON
“JASON, IT’S ONE THING at my house. Don’t do it at school. Stop it.”
“Hi, Susi. I’m flattered that you called me. This is a first, talking to you on the phone. What is it I’m doing that I have to stop now?”
“The roses. I thought it was cute when I found them on my doorstep, though I confess I thought you did it to make me feel guilty. Do not put them in my classroom or leave them anywhere at school, however you get them inside. I can’t believe you sent me more of that stupid love poetry after the conversation we had this morning. Jason? Will you please say something instead of just breathing on the phone?”
“Why do you think it’s me?”
“Don’t be coy. The ones on my porch first appeared the day after we started singing together. The students noticed last week when you started leaving them outside my office. I do not need the principal to notice.”
“I’ll make sure it stops, Susi. There’s no rehearsal tonight.”
“Good. I have a late meeting at school.”
“Shall I come by later?”
I hate it when the sound of breathing in a phone means no. I hate it almost as much as stalkers.
~
I ran the mile to Ian’s house to get him out of bed so we could drive over to Arlo’s house to find out whether he’d posted MP3s and photos all over the Internet. That head-shot of Susi in the market had to have been one of his.
At Ian’s house, effing Arlo was sitting at the breakfast table, eating oatmeal with Cynthia while she sat at her laptop playing in email.
“Shalom, bro! Did you see the bitching material I posted on your fan site? Shit, I have been up all night trying to figure out how—”
I had him against the refrigerator to hurt him the way I’ve dreamed of doing, while Cynthia shrieked in my ear that I’m an egg-sucking asshole.
“Hey, what a warm family scene.” Ian stood in the doorway, rubbing sleep from his eyes and scratching. “Do we choose sides in this game, or is it every man for himself?”
“Jason is an asshole!” Cynthia shouted in my ear.
“Yeah, but that’s not news. It’s not worth yelling about,” Ian said. “It’s sure not worth getting out of bed for.”
I couldn’t stop shouting, though I was going hoarse. “Effing Arlo posted Susi’s name and picture and rehearsal tapes all over the universe.”
“I never!” Arlo croaked, since I had my hands around his neck.
“He just put up photos from the Saturday shows,” Cynthia said. “You’re being a jerk, Jason. He couldn’t even post those without my help.” She slapped my hands away from Arlo. “Aren’t you supposed to be harassing Martha and the engineer at the studio? Go away. I have to put up with you pissing and moaning all over the house at night. Can’t we have some peace during the daytime?”
Ian stretched and yawned. “I’ll come along. There’s nothing to do here. Does Martha have any food at the studio?”
~
Ian and I listened together to the sound-board recordings from Saturday. It beats me how my little Internet friend managed to plug into the board. Our sound tech never would have let him patch in.
Susi’s voice couldn’t be heard on the board tapes.
“She wasn’t using a mic,” Ian said.
“Yes, she was. She had it in her hand. Something happened technically.”
“I think she switched it off.”
“No one could project that well without a mic. She had my earphone monitors. She couldn’t have heard herself sing without the mic.”
“You’re always right, Jason. But when we were shopping last night, Susi said she doesn’t use microphones except when recording.”
81 ~ “More Than I Can Do”
JASON
“GEEZ, KARL, I WAS BEGINNING to think you gave up returning my calls.”
“OK, buddy, you got me now. You aren’t being the chicken-shit prima donna I thought you were.”
“Gee, I’m touched.”
“I read every post I could on the Internet. I think your friend is flipping. Listen: ‘If he hurts this angel, God will strike him dead. I will serve as God’s right hand myself if it comes to that.’ There are more like that.”
“Yikes.”
“You need personal security.”
“I won’t go that way. However much Woman at the Well screwed up my life, I intend to still walk down the street by myself when I want to.”
“Call the police.”
“There is nothing they can do if there hasn’t been a physical threat against me. They told me that when I filed the report on Beau’s guitar.”
“Be careful, Jason. I don’t want to spend the next two years settling your estate. I would feel so bad about calling you chicken-shit.”
“I don’t mind that, but the ‘prima donna’ bit is offensive.”
~
I tried to relax in the music, though I ended up following wherever Ian wanted to go for the rest of the morning, which is problematic for us, since he is never comfortable leading. He prefers to react. So it was a betrayal on my part that I had turned into a squib.
We had descended to such a state by the time Sonny came to work with Zak that Ian and the engineer were just like the statues in lower Fremont of people waiting for a bus that will never come, while I sat with my head in my hands, waiting for my brain to unfreeze.
Zak took up his drumsticks and attacked the Ludwig traps to warm up, as blissfully unaware of what was happening around him as ever.
“Can you fucking hold off?” I said, sounding far bitchier than intended.
“What’s up?” Sonny asked, since he is sensitive to variables in human temperature.
Ian said, “Jason is on the rag because he thinks a bogey man is going to get his girlfriend. Is she your girlfriend this week, Jason?”
“Someone is bugging Susi?” Sonny looked startled. Then he grinned. “Besides you, I mean.”
“She says I’ve been sending her flowers everyday—though I’m not even smart enough to think of it. This creep is coming so close that he leaves roses at her house and at school. If I call the police, they’ll want to speak to her, too, and I don’t want her to worry about it.”
“I know where she lives,” Sonny said. “We’ll watch at the school too.”
“OK, but just have your guys call the police if there’s ever a problem. Don’t do anything.”
“Can you get cell phones for them?”
“Martha can. She can do anything. Just make sure no one bugs Susi.”
I stared at my own guitar as if I couldn’t recognize it. I also had to stop bugging her. It
was clear from our Sunday walk in the park, from Monday breakfast, from the brusque phone call. This Little Prince was plumb out of fox bait and damn sick of practicing patience. However, there wasn’t any other alternative.
82 ~ “Ashes by Now”
SUSI
AT SCHOOL, ROSEMARY HANDED me four of those pink While-You-Were-Out notes when I passed her office, and I dropped them in the trash as I entered my own office. Two from Angelia and two from Cynthia. I had returned Angelia’s call once already—she had called in sick every day since Monday. She wanted to bug me about rehearsing with the band. I had about had it with email as a pernicious tool of the devil, since now Cynthia also pestered me via phone at least four times a day about not showing up for rehearsal, as if I owed her anything.
Perhaps worse, Jason’s ex-wife had begun forwarding me all the email he had ever sent her. Some of the same kind of bad poetry I’d been receiving, but as if it were written backwards in a mirror for hexing, all of it mean and cruel. After reading the first couple of messages, I couldn’t quite believe it of him, though I already knew that what his wife had done to him had been the basest sort of betrayal. I printed some of it, swearing that I’d just get brave and ask him, if I ever saw him again.
The principal had been explicit: my job was in jeopardy. Teachers appear at work on time (I’d never been late a day in my life until I met Jason). Teachers charged with the care of the innocent children of Prescott Prep do not sing in rock-and-roll bands that include drug users and wife beaters.
Nine Volt Heart Page 31