Musician's Widow

My Crown ornament in 2009.

There are days in the year that you wait all year long to arrive. Birthdays. Christmas. Maybe a certain sporting event. Prom for those in high school. Your wedding anniversary.

Well, crazy as it might sound to most people, I look forward to the tree decorating party I’m attending tonight. I wait all year long for this night, because its crazy-good fun.

The bar in downtown Nashville that I sometimes work at, other times just go to so much that it is my second home here, has a tree decorating party every year. Only the closest regulars are invited to attend. (Similarly, we have a Christmas party, which I also look forward to every year… but the decorating party is simply “off the hook.”) You come, preferably, with the little bottles of liquor you get at the register at a liquor store. Then, when you arrive at the party, you drink your ornament.

Drink your little bottle of liquor. Or perhaps a can of beer. Then, with the decorating items (often provided by fellow-regulars,) you decorate your bottles and cans. Glitter flies. Stockings are hung. Lights are strung up around the stage. The bar turns into a Christmas wonderland fit for Santa after a hard day of work with the elves.

One year, we hung a Bud Light sign over the top of the tree as its “star.” We have ‘Reinbeer” and Patron bottles decorated as angels. It’s all in good fun, and you’re guaranteed to go home with glue and glitter in your hair. If you leave NOT in the Christmas spirit, its your own darn fault. You can’t spend an evening surrounded by friends, hanging Christmas decorations, and not feel that spirit start to grow deep down inside.

I can’t wait. Is it time to go, yet? Bring on the glue gun!

Last night, I worked in a bar downtown. Our entertainment for the night brought a lot of promise, and we were anticipating a good night. What we got, however, was someone who really didn’t seem to know how gigs in bars in Nashville work. This artist was green. And I venture a guess that they got the gig through a friend of a friend.

Still today, I am stewing over how the night went, and its in hindsight that I wish I could have pulled the person aside to give them a little advice for future gigs in Nashville. I speak from the perspective of a musician’s wife as well as a bar employee.

My advice would have been:

First and foremost, the bar relies on you just as much as you rely on the bar. It is a symbiotic relationship. Realize this fact alone, and you’ll already be on your way.

– Even when the bar is empty, play like its full. This is HARD to do, I know. My utmost respect especially goes to those musicians who do an acoustic set — just them and their guitar — to an empty bar… and they sing every song like its to a crowd of 1,000. Why do you do that? Because when customers come in the door, they are going to size you up in about 15 seconds right along with the vibe of the bar. “Do I want to listen to this? Am I interested?” If you are just goofing off or treating it like a glorified rehearsal, your potential crowd will never happen. You’ll run them off before they come in the door.

– Remind the crowd to take care of their bartenders. If the bar serves food, mention that as well. A lot of times, a person is new and might not know what all is offered at the bar. As for “take care of your bartenders” — well, take care of them, and they take care of you. You’ll get your beer a little faster, etc. Again, you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.

– Come prepared to do a four hour set, but also know how to fly by the seat of your pants.

– Encourage people to buy a drink. Even if its just one. The register ringing means the bar stays open and you keep a place to play. Ignore that fact, and you’ll find yourself scrambling to find a bar willing to bring you on to play. If you aren’t an asset to them, they won’t want you.

The other symbiotic relationship is that of the lead singer and the band. You rely on them just as much as they rely on you.

– Introduce them. Acknowledge them. Let them stand out on their own… they are trying to make it in this business, too. Give them a chance.

– Tips are split among everyone on stage. Do NOT pocket all the tips yourself. They worked just as hard (if not harder in some cases) than you did for those tips.

– Treat them with respect in general. Word gets around who the “problem artists” are, and you may find yourself hard pressed to find really good musicians willing to work with you.

Come hang out and watch other acts prior to your show. You can learn a lot by just watching and keeping your eyes and ears open. Also, go visit The Nashville Musician’s Survival Guide. He can tell you even more tips that are far more technical that what I can share. I’m simply sharing what I’ve witnessed and experienced. When I go to work downtown, I look forward to hearing good music as I work. When the music is sub-par, the night is long and I get cranky. I’m STILL cranky from last night, in fact. Truly, that is because what went wrong last should not have happened. It’s fundamentals of Nashville musicianship. If you don’t have those… you don’t have a chance.

Away from my computer all day… so I’m on my phone to update. My husband caught this photo while we were downtown today. We agreed it was too cute!

But I thought I would see if anyone has a clever caption for this little delivery vehicle.

I promise a better blog tomorrow!

Opryland Hotel at Christmas in 2008

This weekend has been a time of rebirth in Nashville. At least to a degree.

In case you missed it, last night, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (link takes you to the episode on Hulu) was the episode about rebuilding the Lighthouse Christian Pre-School. The same one that floated down I-24 on national television. The same one that told everyone that May’s flooding was a lot worse than any of us could have ever fathomed.

I did not have a dry eye the entire episode. They portrayed the very best of Nashville. They portrayed the way the community came together to help one another. WE ARE NASHVILLE they proclaimed at one point… the phrase that became every Nashvillian’s battle cry in the days and weeks following the flood.

Today, Opryland Hotel reopens. Just in time for Christmas. I could NOT be happier to see those lights lit. It’s become a tradition to go see the lights the last five years, and I have no doubt we’ll make our way over there again this year. Especially given the flood and its reopening.

It’s been so strange to go over to that area and see all the parking lots empty. Opry Mills Mall, quite frankly, probably won’t reopen. Oh there’s no official word on that. That’s just me speculating, and I do hope I am wrong. Or I at least hope SOMETHING comes in over there soon. It’s like that last piece of town that so clearly shows the devastation of May. It’s the last little “black eye” left from that fight. It’s the last thing holding the city back any at all. Hopefully something will happen there soon.

In my gut, I feel a renewal coming my way as well, though. I’ve had a lot of my stuff lately being respected and acknowledged. Photos, writing and design stuff. Oh, none of it has made me any money (LOL!), but its still satisfying to receive the recognition. And it feeds into my feeling that there’s change in the air.

I told my husband today that I have the urge to rearrange the office. Just, move the desks around. Maybe hang a couple of the posters I’ve designed in place of photographs in there. Something.

We’re entering the holiday season, and there’s good things in the air. Watching this little rebirth within Nashville has given me hope. It’s like a light is starting to shine, even if only a little bit, at the end of a long tunnel.

My husband and I attended an “Adult Play Date” at Adventure Science Center this week with a group of friends. The center was for 21 and over only, as you got two drink tickets with your ticket to enter. The description of the night said all the exhibits were made to hold adults, so it was an adults chance to come play without kids around.

We’d never been to the science center before. I had wanted to take my niece and nephew when they’d visited last summer, but it just never worked out with our schedule. I was incredibly curious about what we’d find in that big building with the multi-colored pyramid roof.

What we found was our chance to all become 8-year-olds again. I looked around and constantly saw 30-somethings gleefully going down slides and playing with countless science experiments. I sat with our beers and my purse at one point while my husband climbed a jungle-gym to the top of the building and then slid down a twisty slide. I had to laugh as adult after adult literally ran to get in line to ride the slide. When my husband got back, it was my turn. There was something extremely freeing to jump in a tube slide and whoosh (kind of… I kept getting stuck… too tall!) down to the bottom.

Me and my husband on a heat-signature wall

We laughed, we learned, and we all agreed that we couldn’t wait to go back some day.

Perhaps the coolest part of the whole night was the planetarium show. We only had a short 10-minute presentation, but that huge rounded screen over our heads was incredible.

They gave us a taste of a laser light show that they are putting on this Saturday for Halloween. As the stars spun behind the lasers, I found myself dizzy but unable to look away. Metallica (“Enter Sandman”) thumped in my ears, and the lasers created image after image. It was incredible! I think if anyone would have been watching me, they’d have seen my eyes glowing like a five-year-old’s at Christmas.

We had such an incredible night! Next time my brother and his family visit, we will definitely make the science center a place to visit. My nephew would absolutely flip over everything!

This all came on the heels of going to a corn maze a few days before. This has become something of a fall tradition for us, going to a different maze every year the last three years. This year we went with a big group of friends, which just made it even better.

We also have our costumes picked out for Halloween. We will go out Saturday night for awhile, and then we can’t wait to hand out candy Sunday.

So I guess, at heart, we are forever kids. We never lose our want to “go play” — we are just trained that as we grow up, other things take over in importance. We learn how to squash that want because its “inappropriate,” opting instead to sit on the sidelines making sure others are having fun.

That’s what makes this time of year so special. There are so many options that encourage adults to go be a kid again. It’s really okay. Have some fun and don’t apologize for it.

Friends at the corn maze!

I’ve lived in Nashville for 4 years now… and still I have moments when I go, “I can’t believe I LIVE here!”

Sure, there are a lot of ways that you can tell I live here. Tour buses no longer make me blink an eye. I’m ridiculously cynical about the music industry. And there is that whole night owl thing that I think this city amplifies.

However, there are definitely moments in time that make me sit back in wonder. The way everyone pulled together after the flood is one prime example that makes me look around in wonder. The way the leaves turn in the Fall simply amazes me by natures beauty. The friendships I’ve made here give me pause in their variety, strength and constant comfort.

Last night, though, I had one of those moments on the music side.

Living here, you might find it strange that I rarely go to any of the “big events” that occur here. Fan Fair, for example, I only go to the free stuff after giving myself a pep-talk to do so. You can watch GAC or CMT and hear about these big shows that happen in town, and a majority of the time they fly under my radar.

But its the nights like last night, when I am hanging out with friends and an artist comes in just to hang out. Then the band happens to get that artist up to play. It’s those nights that I pinch myself, because you’re seeing this artist who you’d pay big bucks anywhere else to see in their true element. No lights. No smoke. No video boards. Often just them and a guitar for a few songs. Something their fans would pay mega bucks to see. Instead, I find myself sitting there, taking it all in, for the cost of a night out with friends. Just because I live HERE in Music City.

I have to admit. Even being as close to the music industry as I am, I still get a thrill from it. I still feel those music-fan goosebumps, and my internal voice is squealing, “Oh my gosh! How did I get this lucky!?”

I love it. I love this city. And I get to LIVE here.

Wow.