Now that I’m leaving Nashville, I think it’s time that I told you what it’s like to be a musician here – fo’ reals. There are a few things that I will not miss – mostly because I’m tired of them but also partially because uh… no I’m just plain tired of them. Strap yourselves in and put yourselves in the shoes of the Nashville musicians who do well for themselves everywhere except their hometown.
Writers’ nights in Nashville are particularly terrible. They’re supposed to be the gateway to something bigger – publishing contracts, stardom – I thought of them as auditions to get into the clubs on regular nights. I’ve played and attended dozens of writers’ nights here in Nashvegas and I’m here to tell you how things usually pan out. It’s pretty great, honestly – that is, if you consider yourself a people-watcher.
You’ve been told to show up at the club promptly at 8pm to sign up to play (if you haven’t already made arrangements with the host). If you actually show up “on time” you get the feeling like you’ve shown up on the first day of school a full hour early – your reward is getting to sit in a desk at the front of the class – er, club, waiting for the host (headmaster) to show up. I’m a little tired of this metaphor, so if you’ll excuse me…
Invariably after you show up first, the host comes walking into the club 45 minutes later with a buddy songwriter. They get on the list first. You get on the list after an awkward introduction and a bit of convincing (yes I have a CD out, yes I’m invited, no I’m not just some guy who showed up) and now… the real fun begins!
Several interesting characters have now shown up. These characters are called “song-wri-ters”. Being one of these songwriters myself, I have even taken a couple classes on the matter. On the first day, my instructor said “make no mistake – the thing that all songwriters have in common is some sort of dysfunction. If we weren’t dysfunctional in some way, we wouldn’t feel the need to write songs about it; we’d express ourselves in some less-dramatic way.” A writer’s night is a beautiful illustration of this fact. Artists are supposed to have the flair for dramatics, but any songwriter is a dizzying combination of ego and theatrics. We think that the fact that we create “art” makes us special, and we demand to be treated as such. I’m no exception, but I love laughing at myself – and others – for this very thing. Usually the first writer to go on is the biggest dead weight (or biggest chance) of the evening. They do songs about their grampa, they play their songwriting exercises (“here’s a descriptive one where I never say what it’s about – guess!”), some of them even do cover songs. The other songwriters slam their beers down in an uncomfortable combination of disgust and empathy – how did such a no-talent ass-clown get on stage, and oh every songwriter needs encouragement; he may write the next big hit song and I can say that I was there when…
But the torture ends all too soon. A guy has to get up and do three songs that total 20 minutes. As he’s playing, the host tells you that you’ll be up after another writer or two. Two more writers get up to strut their stuff – some of it is genuinely brilliant but most of it is laughable. At this point you’re told again that you’ll be up after another writer or two – the host has to sneak another buddy up on stage because they have a big show to promote.
This goes on for hours, as the songwriters play and leave one by one.
Finally at 12:45 am, you play three of your songs for the inebriated host and possibly the club owner. As a songwriter, it’s kind of hard to get it up at this point. The flush of anticipation has come and gone and you have blue balls for the applause of an audience of your peers.
You might think that this would get old after the first time, but I swear that it doesn’t. You go back. Lather, rinse, repeat. Over and over you cleanse yourself of the layers of ego that surround your ability. What’s left is something harder and much more sensible – realistic expectations. You learn the trick of being proud of your songs without thinking that they make you – instead, you make them.
Or, if you like, it’s like getting used to being urinated on during job interviews. “Yes, er, I think I am more than qualified for this job position and… what are you doing?” “You’ll get used to it.”
The press here (a necessity if you’d like to let people know you exist) is a bit irritating. Most of the mags that once glorified the music scene around here have either been bought or simply went under. With them died about half of the enthusiasm for the “music scene” around here. Things are now harder for the artists on a local level. You slave away making a record, then you release it and you have to set about promoting it. You invite record reviews, write-ups of live shows, teasers for the public of what you might sound like. The papers and mags around here are more concerned with putting their staff members on the cover, honestly. Some of the hippest acts around will get press, sure. Some of the less-hip acts will get negative press. The definitively unhip acts (like me) get nothing, even if national and oversea mags have taken notice and given positive reviews. It’s a pretty exlusive little club they’ve got going on here. Tim Carroll once said of Nashville that “it’s a five year town” – you’ve got to pay your dues here for a good five years before anyone accepts you – it weeds out a lot of the riffraff, sort of like how a lot of colleges don’t allow freshmen to park on campus since a lot of those freshmen will probably drop out next year anyway. Unfortunately, that isn’t true. You either nail it here the minute you walk in the door or you probably never will. Which brings me back to the press – if us uncool cats can get it, it always carries grossly inaccurate or outdated information and a backhanded compliment.
Speaking of which, be prepared for a variety of BS with booking shows in this town – as with any other town, really. At first it seems hard, then it gets easy. Then it gets hard again. But we’ll go into all of that next time.
