Television Blizzard Lights, Making Up Bullsh!t and Nothing About This Makes A Damn Lick Of Sense
1994 was a pivotal year for me as a musician. It was the first year I played a songwriter’s night performing my own made-up songs in front of a live audience. It was late spring at the classic 90’s Knoxville club Manhattan’s in the Old City district (now Boyd’s Jig & Reel). Surprisingly, quite a few people were there. Some hippies I knew and a bundle of my fraternity brothers. As for the latter segment, I was unsure if they were there to cheer me on or see me crash-and-burn…as is the passive-aggressive, schizophrenic competitive-congenial nature of Southern Frat culture. As I recall, I played - or rather attempted to play - Telegraph and Fools Get Smart. I’m not sure I got all the way through Fools Get Smart. I believe I just stopped towards the end and said something to the effect of “I can’t remember the rest right now.” And then walked off the riser. The moment was both exhilarating and terrifying. I had to do it again, and I would. Many times.
That summer, I remembered getting a Guitar Player magazine that had snippets of the “new up-and-coming and unique guitarists to watch” or something or other. One was about Charlie Hunter. A Bay Area wiz who played a hybrid, fanned fretboard, 8-string Guitar/Bass instrument made by luthier Ralph Novak. Charlie had just released an album by his trio. I sus’ed out the CD. I was blown away. It was funky jazz, with great grooves. Hunter played guitar and bass lines on that thing simultaneously. I was stunned. How? Gimme more! The other artist highlighted in that issue who captivated my attention was Mali blues guitarist Ali Farka Toure. Farka Toure had just released a duet album with maverick guitarist Ry Cooder called Talking Timbuktu. This style of West African blues was mesmerizing. Hypnotic even. It was new to my world music aligned ears. While not always evident in the music I play and write to this day, this album had a palpable impact on my formative years as a guitarist (as an aside, Texas-based trio Khruangbin just released an album with Farka Toure’s son Vieux simply called Ali. It’s glorious. Check it out!). All of these guitarists are masters at what they do. And here’s the thing, even then I knew, I probably would never reach a level of guitar playing that commanded any serious attention. But with this songwriting thing on the other hand, maybe I could have a shot. Melodies? I think I can do that. Words matter too, right?
That fall, I got wind from Nashville that this slightly grungy, slightly pretty guy named Todd Snider was being positioned as a modern-day folk-rock sage for my generation. His record Songs for the Daily Planet cached a ton of clever and humorous lyrics. A lot of them hit home. Hard. The album opens with the song Todd made-up called My Generation (Part 2). The wordplay has an intentional nod to the Boomer generation and The Who’s classic hit from 60’s, but the song is really about Gen X’ers like myself and Todd. With a birthdate in 1966, Todd’s a Gen X elder sibling, but a Gen X’er nonetheless. One segment from a verse really hit nailed the uneasy dichotomy of my collegiate experience at the time.
“Here's to drum machines, Stone-washed jeans, Credit cards, fax machines. Big bow-headed chicks and frat guys, Wearin' forty dollar tie-dyed t-shirts. And big, bold paisley ties. Here's to livin' off dad as long as you can and blendin' in with the crowd”
Yeah. That was the University of Tennessee in Knoxville in 1994 in a nutshell. I mentioned I was in a fraternity, but what folks need to understand is that a third of the chapter were acid-munchin, pot-smoking “groovies” as we were called. As exhibit A, I present my photo thumbnail from the ’93-’94 composite.
And while I may be wearing a paisley tie in the pic, I easily had the longest hair among the 80+ brothers (it’s pulled back in a pony-tail). See, I was a long-hair Widespread-diggin hippie much more at home in a home-made tie-dye and bell-bottoms than a Frat housin’, keg tappin’ Shirt tuckin’, back slappin’ hater of them. Doing the Greek thing decades ago was just kinda something a lot of us fellas did as an extension of the social component of the collegiate experience. It’s different now. I’m not sure the me of then would make the same choice today. I wasn’t then and am still not interested in “blendin’ in with the crowd.” Further, through work, grants and loans, I self-financed my college experience and education. I couldn’t “live off dad as long as I could.” Hell, I never even knew my dad, much less ever got a cent from him.
After graduating, I came back home to Nashville with starry-eyed dreams of becoming a professional musician and songwriter. I gave it a decent whirl for a few years making up a lot of my own songs, but quickly fell in love with one of those “Big bow-headed chicks” I had a crush on back in college (it’s true, the sorority my wife was in was actually referred to as the “bow-heads.” I shit you not). So, to assist in keeping her favor, I cut my hair and took a straight gig, hawking ads for the Nashville Newspaper The Tennessean. We got hitched in 2000 and decided that starting a family was gonna usurp my rock-star fantasies. I was good with it though. After all, I never knew my own father and frankly, the prospect and chance to be a good one to the children I may have one day superseded my full-time musician ambitions. But also, I did keep writing. and making up songs.
A couple of months before my first child was born, in the Spring of 2002, I recorded what was to be my first commercial release of music that I made up. I really liked the collection of songs and some great musicians contributed wonderful sounds found on these recordings. Listening back, vocally, I sound like my testicles are being squashed in a mole wrench, but I’m still generally pleased with the songs from that lost EP. One in particular – It’s a Staple (Every Singer Write A Train Song) – was actually my attempt at a witty, even Todd Snider-esque, ditty about how singer-songwriters all seem to have to write a train song. I set it to a train beat and some very predictable, country train song chords. The opening lines are:
“I signed my name on the docket, the challenge I’d step up to meet. To try my hand at a new occupation. Most akin to the bittersweet. If I knew where to begin, it would help my cause. I’d move them, shake them, stir them for sure. So maybe I’ll start with a proven cliché, an illusionary stalwart so pure.
It’s a staple every singer write a train song. For his peers to praise and revere, It’s a must that they write about America. And its ills that persevere, and the truths that burn and sear.”
Above is the song. I never formally released it. Nor have I ever formally released any other songs I made up under my own name (Natchez Tracers is not my name). Well, at least not yet I haven’t. But stayed tuned on that. :)
In 2004, Todd released his album East Nashville Skyline. The title is a nod to the classic 1969 Dylan album Nashville Skyline. A skyline that was discernably smaller a half-century ago. I was floored and enthused that the third track on East Nashville Skyline was a song called Play a Train Song. See, what Todd made up here was more about the side of washed-up music biz men or characters promising the moon to young wanna-be starlets that move to Music City to be famous. Or more specifically, it’s about Skip Litz who used to run sound at the original Radio Café on Woodland Street in East Nashville. Well, that combined with the looming existential dread that all singer-songwriters share…that we’ll die completely irrelevant. It’s a different song of course, but Todd too observed that whole Train Song thing, or more accurately, observed that someone else observed it. The long-haired, biker veteran Litz was known for yelling out “Play a Train Song” at shows. While 24-hour programming and streaming make the first line of this song now anachronistic, the imagery and poignancy of the words that follow, haunt guys like us. Or at least they do me…
“In the television blizzard lights, I looked around this place. I found a cold beer on the sofa,
A little smile across his face. And though I tried with all of my sadness, Somehow I just could not weep
For a man who looked to me, Like he died laughin' in his sleep.”
For a decade, other interests and responsibilities – along with raising young children – kept music and writing mostly on the shelf. From 2022-2012, I played and wrote very little music outside of writing a few old time and folk influenced pieces and jamming alt-country cover songs with dads across the street at the neighborhood BBQs. After a business calamity and subsequent epiphany, I come back to music and song-writing around 2012-2013. During this time, Todd released his Agnostic Hymns & Stoner Fables and was fastly becoming the bohemian sage godfather of East Nashville. Over the past decade, while I was getting my sea legs as a middle-aged songwriter, Todd put out multiple releases under his name and with side projects like jamband-oriented Hard Working Americans (co-founded with Widespread Panic’s bassist Dave Schools) and the garage-rock tinged Elmo Buzz and the Eastside Bulldogs. The East Nashville Toddfather even purchased an old cinder-block shack in the heart of East Nashville’s 5 Points neighborhood. Named “The Purple Building” for its Barney-hued façade, the quaint facility has become somewhat of a stoner Shangri-La where Todd and his friends hang out, record, steam performances and rehearse. Some of his friends are my friends. One of his close, non-musical friends teaches at a local-area high school with my wife. Until recently, I’d never met Todd before. I’m still not sure I really have. But I’m good with that.
For the past almost 10 years, The 5 Points Neighborhood in East Nashville hosts a quirky festival in August called simply Tomato Fest. I suppose it’s meant to celebrate tomato-harvesting season, but really to me, it just seems like a great time for people to dress up in tomato-themed attire, listen to music, eat food, socialize and catch a (elmo) buzz. On the main day of the event this year, I heard that Todd would have The Purple Building open and hosting an open mic that afternoon. Todd and my mutual friend Allen Thompson (of LadyCouch) was gonna play some. My buddy, singer-songwriter Rachel Cole was too. Also, I knew my long-time bud Michael Wilker – Todd’s superpal and renown Taper – was gonna be around as well. I brought my guitar and signed my name on the docket. Allen played some. Rachel played some. And then I played some. Then. Todd played some for us. Todd rounded out his set with Play a Train Song. Excitedly, after no one else got up to play, I got back up and played It’s A Staple (Every Singer Write A Train Song). It likely could have been the stupidest, least cool and probably most off-putting thing I’ve ever done performance-wise. I sure hope it wasn’t. Eeek. But damn, it was a moment. A moment I could live in the here and now. I hope I’m forgiven. Forgive me Toddfather, I know not what I do. After everyone was done playing and before I left, I walked out to the courtyard. I said goodbye to Wilker and Rachel who were back there. Todd and Rachel were looking over Rachel’s lyric book as I said goodbye and thank you to Todd for hosting. He looked up with those piercing big crystal blue buggish eyes as if to acknowledge a stranger’s gratitude. I think. I don’t know. Maybe I made that up. I’d never met Todd before. I’m still not sure I really have. But I’m good with that.
Photos by: Michael Wilker
Todd doing “I’m An Alright Guy” It’s a pretty cool song he made up.
A couple of weeks ago, two dear friends gifted my wife and me two tickets to see Todd at the Ryman (Thanks Jimmy and Louise Scott!) as he stopped through during his current American Troubadour tour. 91 year-old folk pioneer and Woody Guthrie acolyte Ramblin Jack Elliott awed the 1,000+ person crowd as the opener. Todd is supporting his latest release, Live: Return of the Storyteller. It’s a collection of songs and the stories about them recorded right as the pandemic was leveling off and venues were re-opening. Todd was in classic form. The stories in-between the songs were as good as the songs that Todd made up. He was lucid, engaging and for lack of a better description, charismatic. One man and his art holding his court of 1,000 souls strong completely captive and engaged in the hallowed halls of country music’s Mother Church. Last year I read Todd’s hilariously noided, semi-autobiography I Never Met A Story I Didn’t Like. It chronicles his obsession with Jerry Jeff Walker, his times at Jimmy Buffett’s label and the relationship he fostered with John Prine. Todd’s show at the Ryman last month had me thinking of the incredible path he’s forged, and the equally incredible pain, trials and hardships he’s suffered along the way. You feel the words of his songs and the songs of his heroes that he often sings in a larger and profound way. There’s an urgency to them now. Not just humor. Another thing I’ve noticed with Todd as of late is the heft and raspyness of his voice. It lends a further authenticity to the delivery. It shouldn’t be that way, but it just is. He’s really becoming a stateman and elder of the craft. A few years ago, Todd told Caitlin Rockett of Boulder Weekly from his East Nashville home:
“Alan Watts talks about defining the artist inside of yourself once you realize the art you’re doing is bullshit. And not, like, that means my songs are fake. No, it means no matter how real the songs I’ve been singing my whole life are, songs are bullshit — now go make one up.
We believe these stories Todd, especially when you tell them. Imagination and the fruit it bears through rhythm, word and melody is not bullshit. Conversely, to me, it may be the most vital and transformative thing we have to defend us from this wonky-ass mortal coil. It’s true, nothing about this makes a damn lick of sense. It always feels like a fool’s endeavor, right? A crusade of absurdity begotten from mis-guided dunces and self-conscious jesters. Over the past week, artists from across the creative spectrum showed up at the Ryman and elsewhere to give their reverence to John Prine and his legacy. You’ve been out there near your West Coast OG home turf doing the thing, but rest-assured, your spirit was back here at home with us in Nashville. We need you to keep making up those songs Todd. Please do that. I promise I will too. Wilker and I are talking about making a road trip next month. Maybe we can get Allen to come along. I bet Rachel would jump in the van too. Happy Birthday Todd! See ya at the Bijou Theater in Knoxville on November 16th.! Let’s go make up some more bullshit.