I got a pleasant surprise the other day and a lesson to make as few assumptions as possible when meeting others. I bought a copy of Prog magazine (guess what it's about?) and took it up to the counter for purchase. The woman behind the counter, a nice woman about my age named Bobbi, looked at the cover (Prog magazine comes in a cardboard sleeve to hold both the magazine and accompanying CD) which had the terrified face from King Crimson's first album. I thought she would say "Ack! What the hell is that!?" Instead, she said "Oh, look at that. I have that album!"
That comment caught me a bit by surprise. "Do you really?"
"Mm hmm! I still have it on vinyl! An original copy. Mm hmm...'Said the straight man to the late man...'"
Yup, she had the album - proof right there. (For you non-proggers, Bobbi quoted the first line from "I Talk to the Wind," the second song on that album.)
So there we were - a middle-aged white guy and a middle-aged black woman discussing King Crimson's classic first album. I didn't think to ask if she remembered when or where she bought that album, but perhaps that's for next time. In the meantime, it was a reminder to me that the person on the other side of the counter, on the seat next to me on the train, taking my order, or in front of me at the sandwich shop, may have more in common with me than I think. And maybe that's the lesson I take away from this: look for the similarities.
Last night I had a gig with Congress of Starlings, headed up by Andrea Bunch and Aerin Tedesco. We were the openers of a three-act card, all part of a small one-night Gay Music Festival. (The second act was named Les Beau. And that's "Les" as in WKRP's Nessman, not as in Miserables. You can figure it out from there.) I was a bit nervous about the gig since we had one practice with the four of us (Andrea, Aerin, bassist Greg Nergaard, and myself), so I wanted to play well for them - the other three are great musicians, and I wanted to hold up my end of the deal. Happily, it went well with no real catastrophes. And, on Andrea's "Killing Wage," a song that flits between 4/4 and 7/4, I had a great time playing. (As I would hope - I listened to that song about 18 times over three days. Time signature aside, it's just a great song with some incredible production.) And folks were calling for "Artemis," a rocker of a song of Aerin's that sounds a bit like Patti Smith (especially in the vocals). We obliged, and I even timed my stops at the right moments. (That's the thing with Andrea and Aerin - the music demands a lot of attention. You can't just sit back and say "yeah, I got the groove.") But gay or straight, people were there to hear some good music. I hope that folks liked my playing and forgave the occasional "deer in the headlights" moment when my pause in playing was sold as "letting the music breathe" rather than "oh, crud - where's the one??" But in the end folks want to hear good music. I'll do my best to provide that in my own little way. And so we look for - and find - the common ground.
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