February 9, 2016.
Lowell, MA
A February cold blankets the night. It’s the kind of cold that penetrates your
bones, your spirt. It’s a cold blue sky with
pops of diamonds and half-moon smiles. Thirteen
degrees outside and it’s a February like I used to remember it, as a kid, when
the weather made sense. I need to shake
the blues, the cold, the mundane and the insane. I want to shake these American blues and venture out for my very first
visit on a Wednesday night to experience Open Mic Night at Lowell’s Back Page.
I find a parking spot close to the pub, passing dirty
snowbanks and a few lingering students and head down the canal alleyway
clicking my black heel shoes over the red brick sidewalk to enter the club. I pass the windows of a restaurant and see a
few happy patrons enjoying each other, their food and drink and the
warmth. I am window spying into a
moment, but it feels right, the spying, the flick of a moment captured in time and
place.
I go through the door and notice
a slight odor of pot and a handful of males clustered around the bar and its
female bartender. Others are plugging in
mic and amps, wires here and there. At
the stage there’s a set of drums to the rear right, a keyboard left front, two electric
guitars and a stool in the middle with a mid-forties looking man playing a folk
guitar. He is playing lovely soothing, classical
sounding notes, warming up and getting his guitar set up.
I ask the bartender what wine they have. I have seventeen dollars in my pocket, with
my license and that is it. She shows me
a wine list that my old eyes can’t read and I ask her what she has for
Cabernet. She reads off a list and then
tells me the house label. I can’t see
the prices or the labels. I say, “Francis. Is that good?” She says, “Yes, very good.” I say, “OK.”
She goes to open a bottle and tells me, “That’s fourteen dollars. Do you
want to start a tab?” No tab, no money,
the one drink will have to do. I leave
fifteen dollars and go find a seat and leave the bar area.
There are blue and clear string lights around the stage and in
the windows. There are two rows of tables
with a wall separating the tables and the bar area and over the tables hang
red-orange globe lamps. The right row of
tables sits along a partial wall of windows and the stage back wall is all
brick. The place is dimly lit, not
sordidly, but warmly. “Check. … Check,
check….” I am wrapped in a brick box in
a blue city, bundled into the gentle sounds of strumming guitar. I sit on the left row, a couple of seats away
from a boy, a college kid.
It is Steve Clements Open Mic Night, and Steve is
strumming. He sings an Elvis Costello
song, Alison. He sounds like Jackson
Browne. I notice his shoes, his lovely
brown shoes. His shoes tell me something
about him. He’s got brown toe-scuffled
shoes with a little buckle. He wears
those big framed black square glasses.
His shoes and glasses tell me he is a cool person, without trying. He is the kind of guy that doesn’t judge
harshly, that lives life fully, that savors life.
The bar is waking up. There are sounds of life, camaraderie,
musician friends forever bound up in guitar strings and love, hard work, little
rewards and creative juices.
I talk to the boy.
“Are
you playing?”
“Yes. I am.
I was going to play at Club Passim in Cambridge but missed it.”
“That’s
cool. I’ve never been here for Open Mic, but the bands that come here are
great. Do you go to the college here?”
“Yes.”
“What
are you taking up?”
“Botany.”
“Botany?
That’s great. Good for you. I am Anne.”
“Nice
to meet you, Anne. I’m Eric.”
We shake hands.
“Nice
to meet you, Eric. You’ll do great up
there. What are you singing?”
“An
original song.”
“Good
for you! That’s fabulous. I can’t wait to hear it.”
We listen. He closes his eyes. He has dark brown hair and the same black
square glasses. He tells me later that
he is from an affluent local suburb and that he is only taking the one class
right now. He had gone to New York to go
to the New School, where he studied politics but unspoken is that this did not
work out.
I can tell and remember the feeling. He doesn’t really know where he is in the
world, how he fits in and what he wants to do with his life. When he closes his eyes, he really listens to
the music and we are both feeling it, now.
Music. The dance of a song -- the
rhythm, the lyrics, and the emotions. I can
see him, rocking it out in the slight movement of his head
Steve sings some originals.
One song is about a young woman celebrating her 29th birthday
and how she feels her life going by and not accomplishing what she’d hoped
for. Another has this great line in it –
“You can’t pull the plug on love.” He ends
the set with another Elvis Costello tune, What’s So Funny ‘bout Peace, Love and
Understanding. It cheers me up. It cheers all of us up.
And as
I walked on
Through
troubled times
My
spirit gets so downhearted sometimes
So
where are the strong?
And
who are the trusted?
And
where is the harmony?
Sweet
harmony.
Steve introduces the keyboard player, Dave, and we are all digging
it. We are moving along the highway, so
life won’t pass us by. He introduces
another regular, Ziggy. Ziggy plays
guitar. He starts out acoustic and it
seems that they all know Ziggy. Ziggy
has cool shoes; no cool glasses but wears a winter hat just so perfectly. He is killing me because he picks a Gilbert O’Sullivan
song, Alone Again. This song has always made
me cry. A bunch of guys on the right
side say, “Ziggy. What are you doing, Ziggy?
You are killing us with that song.
What are you trying to do, make us all cry? I haven’t heard that song since Dale Dorman
played it on WRKO.”
This is the part that always gets to me.
Looking
back over the years
And
whatever else that appears
I
remember I cried when my father died
Never
wishing to hide the tears
And at
sixty-five years old
My
mother, God rest her soul
Couldn't
understand why the only man
She
had ever loved had been taken
Leaving
her to start
With a
heart so badly broken
Despite
encouragement from me
No
words were ever spoken
And
when she passed away
I
cried and cried all day
Alone again, naturally.
I am thinking of Joe and his mother and my mother and
everyone’s mother. Lord, it is sad. And when she passed away, I cried and cried
all day. I’m trying to hide my tears,
but they don’t hide easily. “Kleenex at
table twelve.” The guys have noticed me.
I guess I do stand out in a mostly male place. I say, “Oh my God, that song kills me.”
It is Eric’s turn.
Eric is all alone. No one is there to root for him; it is just me that
even knows his name. Steve says, “We
have a new person who is playing an original. Let’s welcome Eric to the stage.” I shout out, “Go, Eric! Woo!”
This kid gets up there, all alone. He says this is an
original song that he wrote about the 1917 Russian revolution. The guys to the right say, “Oh, that
revolution. That’s one of my favorite
periods in the post- modern era. 1917.”
He picks up his guitar and damn! This kid can play. He made
up a song that is just genius. It is
about hope, fear, conquering demons.
Great guitar licks, this kid has guitar chops. The guys on the right say, silently, “Shit.
Who knew?” We all applaud and cheer when
he is done. Eric jokes that it really
isn’t about the Russian revolution of 1917, but we aren’t sure. I think, hey, he learned something at the New
School in New York. It doesn’t matter,
because it is a great song. He leaves
the stage and we high five. Smack! Man you really can play! He is all smiles. He did it.
More people have come into the club. It is a mixed crowd of young and middle-aged,
hipster and downtrodden. Then Steve
notices a woman my age coming in and goes to greet her. Warmly, he reaches her, hugging and kissing. “Grace!
You playing tonight?”
Grace brought her daughter, about the same as Eric’s
age. She seems to be good friends with Ziggy.
We learn that Ziggy teaches Grace and Steve goes out to his car where
magically, he has a four-string bass and before you know it, we have Ziggy on
electric, Steve on drums, Dave on keys and Grace on bass. A purple, four stringed bass. They play STEVIE RAY VAUGHAN. And THEY ROCK!
Then they play, believe it, JIMI HENDRIX, Red House.
I can’t believe my eyes or ears.
There is another round with keyboard Dave, Steve
on drums. They play Billy Joel. He is
the piano man. He is Moving Out. He plays
New York State of Mind. Eric and I are
delighted. Eric heads to the door after the set and I shout out to him, “Come
back another time!” He says, “I will
when I am twenty-one.”
The guys on the right and I laugh at that. I say, “Oh to be that young again.”
The pot odor comes on stronger now. We all notice it and Steve says it smells
pretty good.
It’s time for the guys on the right to jam. Bill plays guitar and another Bill plays
drums. They form a “super group” with
the piano man Dave playing not keys, but bass.
There are no words and Bill on guitar is the leader and the blues are
coming out, clean and clear. He plays
his own jam and he is amazing! I high
five him, too. He sits with me and we
watch his friend, another different Dave who gets up there with the keyboard Dave
still on bass and the drummer Bill playing drums. Dave plays a white strat and plays Grand Funk
Railroad, I’m Your Captain, then the Beatles, Can’t Buy Me Love closing with a damn Chicago
song, Beginnings. This Dave on guitar is
another magician. I can’t believe the
variety and the showmanship and the way this group, never having practiced these
songs fit together like a puzzle.
I am just smiling.
I can’t believe why I never did this before.
It’s getting late. I’ve already had two calls from my husband. I better get going. It’s 11:11 pm and I know I need to go home. I leave, pat guitar blues Bill on the back and
tell him he is great.
I think, as I linger at the doorway, listening to
another masquerading hero, these people lead ordinary lives. They do their day jobs, go through the same
daily grind of the ordinary, the tedious and then Wednesday night comes and
they put on their cool tees and scuffled shoes and pack up purple basses in
freezing temperatures to become super heroes.
They create.
I take my time even though it’s cold, down the
brick sidewalk, into the frigid blue night, past the dirty old snowbanks. When I
go home and slip into bed, I can’t sleep.
The magic lingers and I am so hopeful for all of us, for humankind.
