Those of you who have subscribed to these scribblings over lo, these many years will recall that I used to be in a ska band, called Agent 13, named after the guy in the sofa in the Get Smart television series. I loved that band. There were eight of us – full rhythm section, full horn section, lead singer – and I have never, ever had so much fun with my clothes on, as musicians I know have said. At least five or six of us were hilarious on a regular basis, and it was magic when the act was working.
But it was an awful lot of work. We were (mostly) pretty young, and we rehearsed three nights a week, plus gigs, and songwriting, and it was expensive – we kept careful books, and once we figured in rental for the rehearsal space and recording expenses, I think we lost, on average, about $3000 a year. And it fell apart, eventually, as these things do, and I moved on to my illustrious solo career.
But while I was fed up with the amount of effort and coordination, I never really lost the delight of being in a band. I remember when my pal Susan Levine and her then-hubby Steve Barkheimer had their dual CD release show at Passim, lo, these many, many years ago, and I conned them into letting me play keyboards, and boy, that was a boatload of fun. A few of us were used to being in bands back then, and a few of us weren’t, and while it took several rehearsals, the show was magic, as these things so often are. I remember the last rehearsal, when Susan brought in a song she’d just finished, and we loved it so much we learned it then and there, and it was one of the best songs of the concert.
And I also remember the night I saw Paul Horton in Roslindale, and I’d been playing solo for a while, and he was performing with a percussionist who had a tiny kit along with him, and thought, hey, I can do that, and I called up my drummer from Agent 13, David Troen-Krasnow, and asked him to join me, and next year will be our 30th anniversary of playing together, dating back to the beginning of the band.
And playing with Dave is great! But it still doesn’t really compare to playing with a full band. And when it was time to finally record my new album, I decided that this time, yes, I was going to have other musicians on it. And the album is great! And you should buy it, if you don’t have it already, now that it’s about to go on sale. But recording an album is kind of a slog, too, and unless you’re recording it live, you never actually play together, with everybody recording their own parts separately and all.
Which brings me to my CD release show, which, as of this writing, happened just last night, at my pal Rob Mattson’s house in Upton. And I thought, what the hell, as long as I’m going to do the show, let’s have the band, and the folks who played on the album – Jeff Root, my multitalented producer, and Walter Crockett, central Massachusetts music legend – jumped at the chance (well, it was over email, so I didn’t actually see them jump, but I like to think so). And we had one rehearsal, and that’s all we needed.
What all of us forget, sometimes, is how much we’ve learned – how much we’ve internalized over the years about how to do our jobs, or pursue our hobbies, or make our relationships work. It’s second nature, and we don’t notice, until those moments when we have the opportunity to see it. Jeff and Walter and Dave and I, well, we’ve all been playing with other folks our entire adult lives, and my heavens, how it shows in moments like last night. It was loose, it was precise, it was entertaining and funny and oh, so solidly professional, and it was effortless. All that effort that weighed on me in Agent 13? Gone. It’s part of all our DNA, the intuitions about when how to support a soloist, or what to do when somebody (not sayin’ who) forgets his lyrics, or how to make the audience laugh in those small moments when something is going terribly wrong, or perfectly. Last night, there were four really experienced musicians on stage, and it showed.
Does this mean I’m going to get a band? Nope. Band gigs are complicated, and rehearsals are still complicated, and it’s much simpler for me and Dave to keep doing this on our own. But once in a while? Hell yeah. It’s too much fun, and too easy now, to pass up.