A story from my musical past

[maugorn]

I've been starting work on, and pondering what should go on my website.

One of the things I want to put up are memories of gigs and adventures I've had creating and playing. "War Stories" and the like.

So as I've been pondering the kind of thing that I would like to be there, I've been trying to remember stuff, and I recalled a story that I actually *did* tell once upon a time on a couple of the email lists that I was on. Unfortunately, those postings were three computers and several broken hard drives ago and I wasn't able to find a way to archive my email (AOL) in a way that made it very portable that was anything but too much work.

There were two stories that I feared were lost lost lost. While I could retell them, I kinda wanted to have me telling the story in my voice from back then.

I put out a call, and one of the stories actually resurfaced!
So- submitted for your enjoyment(?): a bit of my past. Written in 1999.
(With HUGE thanks to happylion for keeping it all this time)


(There are some very minor edits to my original posting here, to edit out a personal email addy, and to fix a couple of formatting glitches)

From:  Maugorn@aol.com

Subject:  [LUMSFS] I hold my nose and swallow and Hey, it's not so bad!
PostedDate:  09/01/99 03:38:09 PM
SendTo:  fantek@obscure.org,lumsfs@orbits.com

   It just goes to show that attitude can be everything.

   So I've got my third time coming up as the
guitar/accompanist for this singer named John Barron.
It's a challenge to work with John, as he is a very
good singer who knows next to nothing about music.
I find some of his attitudes provincial, a trifle bigoted
and his notions of the mechanics of developing and
working with musical accompaniments "interesting".
But for the most part, the work is easy, pays well,
and should there come enough of it, an easy ticket out
of playing for tourists on street corners.

    Our upcoming gig is a wedding for a friend of a
friend of his.   An easy hour long gig where I dress
up and play some sweet sappy tunes for 100 bucks.

    I'm needing to learn a brand new (to me) song for
this wedding:  "If" by Bread.   If any of you out there
are also survivors of trying to be a rock & roll lover
in the 70's, I'm sure you'd share my shudder when
I got the news that that song would be on the setlist.
That song was everything rock & roll *isn't* and if
I ever go back in time to visit me in my 70's phase,
this is one piece of news I'm not going to tell me
about my future.   I'd want my old self to let me live.

     Nonetheless, the ghost of my 70's self is asking
me why I'm going along with this most heinous sellout.

1) well, I could spend 14 hours on the streets making
the same amount of money.   This part is a no-brainer
for my inner teenager: I never outgrew being lazy.

2)  From the guitar playing perspective:  It's actually
a very subtle and pretty little bit of guitar playing I'm
having to do.  I've actually learned a few things from
this song, especially when the sheet music I needed
to actually buy to show me the parts that I wasn't
figuring out fast enough showed me that I was nonetheless
on the right track.   Cool!

3)  The lyrics wound up having a neat twist to them.
If you take them slightly literally,  the timeless imagery
and the poetic license become something that easily
evokes Lovecraftian Poetry to my warped psyche.
With the right mindset, "If" looks remarkably like it
*could* be a love song that some madman who's
invoked one too many blasphemous unnamable horrors
is writing to a shuggoth instead of some chick with wavy
bangs in a printed polyester disco dress.
See for yourself:

               If
                    words and music by David Gates
    (reprinted and mocked without permission)

If a picture paints a thousand words
Then why can't I paint you?
The words would never show
The you I've come to know

If a face could launch a thousand ships
Then where am I to go?
There's no one home but you
You're all that's left me to

              And when my love for life is running dry
              You come and pour yourself on me

If a man could be two places at one time
I'd be with you
Tomorrow and today
Beside you all the way

If the world should stop revolving
Spinning slowly down to die
I'd spend the end with you
And when the world was through

               Then one by one the stars would all go out
               Then you and I would simply fly away


     So right there in the first verse, we have the image of
an artist, who just like the madmen Lovecraft wrote about
is experiencing kinesthaesia, and having trouble conveying
with his mortal skills, the likeness and essence of something
that is "indescribable".   Dare we add "blasphemous"
"unnamable" and possibly "cyclopean"?     He describes
the launching of ships, space ships?   He describes
being alone with this creature, could it be because
it's eaten or destroyed everyone else close to him
and is only keeping him alive because it needs at least one
human puppet to interface with the rest of our world?  And then,
when his despair starts to set in, the creature "pours" itself
upon him.  ICK!  EWWW!   Images of evil slimy liquid with
mind control ability-  Yep, that's Lovecraft alright  Then he
goes and talks about being in two places or times at once.
"The Shadow Out of Time" never seemed so real as this
song.   
    Finally, in true Lovecraftian fashion, the world ends,
the universe ends, and all life perishes except for this boy and
his Shuggoth who've somehow acquired immortality and the ability
to traverse what's left of the accursed ruin that was once our vain
attempt at life in this dark and silent universe.   Yep, this
song really is pure evil, just as I thought back in the 70's.
But now, instead of resisting it, I'll be on it's side,
bwahahhahahahaa!

    And John's pal is going to get married to someone
to this song?  They're going to probably dance while
we sing of their impending doom.   The ribbons will
not just be decorations, but foreshadowing images
of Cthulhu's tentacles reaching out for them.   The
balloons-foreimages of the bulbous eyes gazing
hungrily down on their helpless human prey.   The food
drink and cake:   Fatten them up, make them complacent,
and soon move in and round them up for the slaughter.

    I can definitely do this, I just hope I can keep from
laughing maniacally until I get paid.

And now, back to the present:
Just a side note. I describe John, unflatteringly as somewhat bigoted. What I mean when I say that is that he and his family would sometimes let slip some racist *comments*. I kind of suspect that these comments were more evidence of legacy than predictors of behaviour.
For instance, we wouldn't have been playing for this wedding if John truly had a beef with people of colour. It was the weirdest thing. They seemed fine people who very consistently ACTED very different from how they talked. I remember a lot of this in the 70's and it just sort of faded after awhile. So, it's not that John (&family) were bad people, it's that they were perhaps a decade or two behind the wave of our "more enlightened" times, language wise.
That would make sense. Hanging out with John was sometimes very like being back in the 70's (but without all the drugs).
So John, wherever you are now, I wish you the best, and I *really* hope you and yours are getting away from the occasional casually racist comments. I suspect in time you will. You really seem like fine people otherwise. And I did have fun working with ya!

Comments

[maugorn.livejournal.com]

Strike that. I just found it!
Thankyou
so so so so much!