This is going to be a shorter essay than usual, because I gotta go practice. You’ll see why in a minute.
I have a gig on Friday. It feels a bit sudden, since my wife, She Who Must Be Taunted, and I just returned from a week’s vacation. And even under normal circumstances, after being away, I’d feel a bit pressed for time to prepare. But that gig on Friday is a particularly focusing sort of thing, because Rob Mattson and I are going to swap songs at the Harvest – and I’ve never really done that before.
See, under normal circumstances – there I go again, about the circumstances – my gig preparation is pretty meticulous. I choose and order my songs with a great deal of care, and I think awfully hard about the stories I’m going to tell you lovely people. And I’m pretty happy with the outcome, carefully constructed as it is. But this Friday, I have no idea what’s going to happen – no order, no plan. So not only do I have to dust myself off and get a show together – I have to prepare for just about anything.
And as you know, my preparing for just about anything is a fairly extensive process. I’ve written a lot – a lot – of songs. I know Rob’s repertoire pretty well, and I imagine I could go through every song he knows and figure out what I’d play in response, but that feels a bit like cheating; it seems to me that the spontaneity of the moment is part of the charm of this. So I need to brush up on a ton of material, in a week.
And oh, so many logistics. There’s Dave, my percussionist, for one. It’s not just going to be me on stage trading songs with Rob; it’ll be me and Dave, trading songs with Rob. I have no doubt that Rob will invite him to join him on a song or two, and if there’s anyone who can roll with the musical punches, it’s Dave. But it’s just another bit of the dynamic that I’ll have to figure out at the time. I won’t really be able to segue, gracefully, into whatever I’m going to play – I’m going to have to tell Dave what it is. And there’s no time to develop an elaborate system of hand signals.
Not to mention the standing-up thing. You may have noticed that song swappers typically do it sitting down (there’s a T-shirt for you – “song swappers do it sitting down”), and, of course, I can’t play while seated – it’s a genetic defect, or some sort of allergy, not sure which. So there will be a lot of standing up and sitting down, which won’t help the flow of the show, at all.
And finally, there’s remembering all the songs I have. The problem is that I can’t. Some guitarists keep their repertoire taped to their instruments, which I can’t imagine doing, since I don’t really want to tape anything to my guitar. Maybe I’ll tape it to Dave instead – or maybe I’ll make up a T-shirt with all my songs on it, and Dave can wear it, and I’ll cross them off as I go along.
No matter what, it’s going to be complicated, and challenging. There be dragons, as they say. So if you want to witness an experiment, stop by the Harvest on Friday – you’re bound to see me do something I’ve never done before.