Adventure #80: Berea, Ohio

One of the few pieces of wisdom imparted from my dad was this: “Getting old is mandatory, growing up is not.” It's bizarre that as a young(ish) guy in my late 20s, I often feel like an “elder” in the scene. Our life expectancy as humans keeps getting longer, but our life expectancy as musicians is the same as it was in the 10^th century. So sayeth the bard (by which I mean Bowie) “we live for just these 20 years / do we have to die for 50 more?”

On my way out of Buffalo, Reactivi said we should stop and visit this jazz pianist named Boyd Lee in his nursing home if I wanted to meet a true Buffalo legend. Despite having been around some of the greats (and apocryphally having studied piano under Count Basie), Boyd never recorded until his 80's. Now 87, he's warm, but stubborn. Wry, impish, and brilliant, he actively refuses to play something the same way twice. He plays for us for half an hour, before asking me to play for him. I tell him I'm not much of a pianist, and I only know a few songs from memory. He tells me he doesn't want to hear me play songs, he wants to hear me play the piano. It takes a little while for the distinction to set in. I promise that next time I'm in Buffalo, I'll come back and actually play the piano for him. Now I have a new goal. Men like Boyd Lee, and also Charles Bradley, and hell even Danny Brown (who at 31 is nearly 10 years older than any of hip-hop's other current rising stars...) are proof that you can get older without losing the spark that inspired you in the first place. Our culture of youth fetishization isn't actually real, and creativity doesn't die on your 30^th birthday. Even though sometimes it can feel that way. This is Pen Pen wondering how long before Jimmy Iovine starts hunting for the stars of tomorrow here.

I made it to the show in Berea that Wes from All Over the Place had set up. He had been supposed to play the Acoustic Fest with me at the Vatican't, but when that fell through, they cut their tour short and headed back to Berea. Too bad, could have had another 48 hour micro-tour! Most of the folks at the show were still in high school or college freshmen or sophomores. I briefly felt suddenly very old. “Are you done with school yet?” I'm asked. Yeah. I've been done with school for a while. But after the obligatory 15 minutes of feeling awkward and out of place I began to feel very much at home. The real fact is that the community of DIY artists is about ideas not age even if my youthful obsession with Minor Threat had made it feel that way. This is Pen Pen staring down his sworn enemy: the Lawn Gnome... “oh you take pictures of your penguin in new places? Like a travel gnome?” “NO! It's nothing like a travel gnome, it's a travel Penguin! David the Gnome was boring and lame. But Chilly Willy the Penguin was dope. End of debate.”

At the end of my set I do my usual spiel “I have CDs and T-shirts for sale. I also have a box of anti-capitalist zines for free, if anyone's interested in smashing the system!” I head over to the picnic table set up for merch, and the dudes from one of the bands walk over. “I'm very interested in the anti-capitalist zines! How much are they?” “Free!” I say, “they wouldn't be very anti-capitalist if I were selling them, would they?” These are the moments when I'm OK with being old. In a weird way, I am an “elder” in the scene. And I wouldn't be who I am now, had other scene “elders” (now in their mid-30s...) not turned me on to ideas about self-reliance and sustainable art when I was younger. Being an elder might actually be a good thing, I think. This is Pen Pen settling down for a feast of crackers, peanut butter, and Negro Modello, two Lawn Gnomes watching warily in the background; that's right Lawn Gnomes: be afraid, be very afraid.

This is a song I wrote one time. You should download it and share it with your friends.

Adventure #79: Buffalo, New York

“I've always depended on the kindness of strangers.” I think a lot about that line from Streetcar. Tenessee Williams may have been making a point about Blanche DuBois' naivete and absolute self-involvement, but me? I really could not live this preposterous little life of mine without the kindness of strangers. I call a stranger in a strange town to which I've never been and ask them to put me on a bill, then perform a bunch of songs to strangers who have never heard them, convince enough of them to buy my CDs so I can afford gas, and then convince yet another total stranger to let me sleep on their couch. And that's the best case scenario. That's when everything goes according to plan. When something goes wrong? This is Pen Pen and some ominous looking clouds.

So around 8pm on Saturday I got word that the Acoustic Festival at the Vatican't was off. Dylan had been having some trouble with the cops, and it sort of seemed inevitable. But 24 hours wasn't much time to put something together. Wes from All Over the Place said there was some open mic in Pittsburgh, but a friend I knew only through the Occupy twitterverse had been telling me about some festival in Buffalo. So I reached out to Reactivi and she said she'd be able to put something together at the last minute. Three cheers for the kindness of strangers! This is Pen Pen standing on a naked lightbulb, because that's the other famous line, right?

So I made it to the Infringement Festival and was thrown into the fire pretty quickly. Curt, who organized the music, had me do a few songs at the block party stage, while Marty, who was booking a bunch of the venues, got me a show at a radical book store at 4. Curt told me after my Burning Books set they'd give me a spot to play on the street. Venue sanctioned busking essentially. I met up with Reactivi and headed off to Burning Books. It was quiet, but Fat Nate showed up from my PPAS days and they shot some video, so all said and done it was pretty rad. Radical. Whatever. This is Pen Pen declaring Drone Warfare on Noam Chomsky.

We headed back to the block party, and I set up with my suitcases of doom and started playing everything I could think of that was high and fast and might attract attention. It didn't work. So I started playing covers. Well. 3. “Billie Jean” was followed by the longest rendition ever of “Jerusalem” due to a long conversation with a guy in a Professor Thom's shirt (for those of you who aren't Boston ex-pats living in New York, that's NYC's Red Sox bar. I once saw the cast of 30 Rock there at trivia night!). I joked afterward that I should just play “Alice's Restaurant.” One of the people who had gathered around said “yeah, you should!” So I did. All of it. Actually slightly more because I forgot the order of a few things and did the arresting bit twice. We went back to Reactivi's house, had another Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat, and didn't get up until the next morning when I had to drive to Cleveland. This is Pen Pen singing you this song now because you may know somebody in a similar Situation, or you may be in a similar situation, and if you're in a Situation like that there's only one thing you can do and that's walk into the shrink wherever you are ,just walk in say "Shrink, You can get Anything you want, at Alice's restaurant," and walk out.

This is a song I wrote one time. You should download it and share with your friends.

Adventures 76 - 78: Pittsfield, Agawam, and Binghamton

When I first started touring as a solo act 3 years ago it was as much out of defiance as anything else. The life I'd made for myself looked nothing at all like the life I'd always thought I'd lead. I hadn't intended to become a sound designer. I'd intended to be a writer, a composer, and a performer. But sound design was fun and close enough to the thing I really wanted to do, so it was OK for a while. But as theatre companies came to know me only as a sound designer, and people I considered friends were dismissive of my ambitions as a writer (“aw that's cute! The designer thinks he can write plays! No, Nathan, we write the plays. You make them sound good. OK?” or my personal favorite “we've hired this amazing composer for this project! You're really going to like working with him.” “But I'm a composer...” “I know! That's why you'll work so well together!”) I came to be irrationally resentful of my successes as a designer, and the only thing I could think to do was to make a clean break for a little while and head off on the road.

It's been three years, and certainly the trajectory has not been what I'd expected. It's been harder, more exhausting, and more thankless than I'd ever thought possible. It's also been better, more fulfilling, and more incredible than I could have ever imagined. And though I'm still quite far from where I want to be, every once in a while, it's good to take a second and appreciate where you are. So that was the story when after a fairly lackluster afternoon show in a coffee shop in Pittsfield, MA, I got ambushed by a million messages of congratulations. “I assume you've seen this...” they all said. “Seen what?”I thought to myself. And then I did. A stellar review for Icarus, the latest play to nearly kill me, in the New York Times. Having my songs compared to Kurt Weill in the New York Times? I'll take it. (I'm trying to take the comparison to Mumford and Sons as the compliment I think it was intended as...) I'm still not totally sure how to process it. Right now: gratitude. More rational thoughts can come later. This is Pen Pen doing his best not to totally embarrass himself by doing cartwheels in a coffee shop.

So I headed to Agawam for the real show. 30 or 40 kids piled into a kitchen in a punk house next to a church. Kowabunga! Kid opened and were awesome as always. I snagged one of their 7”s and am a little sad to hear they wont be touring much in the future. Thus ends the triumphant and unintentional 48 hour Kowabunga! Kid / Nathan Leigh Northeast Tour of 2013. I also got a cassette. They have cassettes. Word. CJB are this rad ska band from Detroit. I confess to making fun of their “PNKROCK” vanity plate as they pulled it, but they were really sweet guys and a killer band. So I'm OK with them having a goofy license plate. There are worse things in the world. Like Mumford and Sons. Dérive finished off the electric part of the evening with some mind-bending prog indie rock. It was a little weird closing out the night as an acoustic act. I was by a wide margin the quietest act of the night, but the crowd seemed determined to fix that by shouting along as loudly as possible. It was awesome. Truly truly awesome. This is Pen Pen pimping it in the grimiest lounge chair in Agawam, MA.

I made it back to Brooklyn, determined to sleep in my own bed one last time before 4 weeks of uncertainty. The next morning I'd frantically get up. Finish the last minute cleaning and packing I'd intended to do before I left, and then try to see Icarus one last time and give my cast my love before skipping town again. This is Pen Pen enjoying the glory that is one's own bed.

As usual, I was late for coffee with the prodigal Carson before we headed to the show. (I'm nothing if not a sucker for awkward situations.) But it was really wonderful seeing the show, this time with the certainty that other people seemed to like this bizarre little Folk Opera we'd created. For once I wasn't second guessing every decision. Every note a resounding question. “Should this have been an A? It would be better if it were an A.” The notes are what they were, and it seems like people were enjoying the order I put them in. That's cool. And it was really wonderful seeing Carson again after 4 months. If all of my friendships are going to persist in being truly strange, I'm at least glad to have strange friendships with good people. This is Pen Pen battling New York like an American Godzilla who is also a penguin and winning.

On my way out of town (again) I swung by Ma's House to pick up a bag of zines to distro on my travels. No luck in finding a copy of yesterday's New York Times. The folks at the bodegas I asked thought I was crazy “No. We only have today's. Why do you want yesterday's?” Because I want documented proof that The Man thinks I'm cool, OK? (Does this mean I have to stop bucking The Man and trashing the general inadequacy of the Mainstream Media at every opportunity? I hope not. I really don't have a whole lot of other topics of conversation at my disposal...) This is Pen Pen preparing to spread Anarcho zines through the country like an anti-Capitalist Johnny Appleseed!

Saturday's show in Binghamton was small, but still fun. We'll go with intimate? Yeah, intimate sounds good. But people who were there were the right people, and it made it into a really enjoyable night. Also there was this couple who kept asking for preposterous covers (“Laughing Gnome!” “Me and My Arrow!” “Coldplay!”) Part of me feels like this is the real first night of the tour. The other part of me is having trouble telling where one adventure ends and another begins. We like to compartmentalize our stories. We like them to have a beginning, middle, and end. And then another one begins. Chapters. Sequels. In the biopic, my story would end with a glowing review in the Times of my new musical. A triumphant button on 3 years of struggle and sickness. In reality, the story is just beginning. This is Pen Pen telling you about the town of Stockbridge, Massachusetts, where this happened here, they got three stop signs, two police officers and one police car, but when we got to the scene of the crime there was five police officers and three police cars, being the biggest crime of the last fifty years and everybody wanted to get in the newspaper story about it.

This is a song I wrote one time. You should download it and share with your friends.

Adventure #75: Falmouth, Maine

It was probably a bad idea to start a tour of this length and ambition on such a huge deficit of sleep, but here we are. With one leg out the door and the other firmly implanted in bed. Just 5 more minutes. Just 5 more minutes. And I thought about how nice it would be for once to be the kind of person who has friends instead of collaborators and comrades. To be the kind of person who does things that are fun and not exciting. To be the kind of person who stays put in one place long enough to get to know their neighbors. And I thought is this really necessary? Is it really necessary to pack up everything after 3 months without so much as a day off and drive to Maine to play a show? And a little voice said “yes.” It was a penguin. This penguin. This is Pen Pen, voice of wisdom and irresponsibility, forcing me out the door.

So the plan was to get to Maine by 5 to get a little Greg McKillop time before the show. The plan was also to swing by Mas House and pick up some zines to distribute for free. The plan was also to swing by Jesse and Liz's to drop off the Queerspawn Tshirts. Around noon, I realized that I'd have to abandon the zines for the time being if I wanted to be on time. That's OK. I'll still drop off the shirts and get some Greg time. So I disassembled T-shirt mountain. Sorted and inventoried the mess and packed up the Hatchback of Notre Dame. This is Pen Pen, King of T-shirt Mountain.

Then the traffic. Oh the traffic. What should have been a 5 hour drive turned into 6. Then 7. Then 8. The show had already started. I missed Greg's set. I missed at least one other act. But as I crossed over the Maine border, I looked to my left and saw one of the most beautiful blood red sunsets I've ever seen, and it occurred to me that if I hadn't hit so much traffic I would have been in a basement and not seen that sunset. And I'm not sure I would make that trade. But I made it to the house. A small army of kids sprawled out in the back yard of someone's house. A slapdash PA barely assembled in a wood paneled basement covered in show posters and instruments. Kat Goldberg. This is Pen Pen surprised to discover Sean Connery was in 90s ska/punk band Goldfinger..

The other acts (the ones I saw at least) were amazing. Greg Strong (Holy Shadow) is probably going to rule the world someday. And it turns out I'm playing with Kowabunga! Kid again tonight. So that's really awesome. It's like a mini-tour. Also they're playing across the street from my house at Goodbye Blue Monday on Sunday though I wont be there. But you should be. They're awesome surf-punk-noise-rock. We all headed back (me, the penguin, Kowabunga! Kid, and this guy Sam who knew Kowabunga! Kid and was on some sort of cross-country quest for enlightenment) to Kat's house and ate pickled beets and carrots. Kat and I stayed up all night gossiping and catching up, and I don't remember falling asleep. But as far as first days of a 30 day tour go, it's hard to beat. This is Pen Pen making some sort of Speaker for the Dead reference, probably involving Jane or something, I dunno...read the books.

This is a song I wrote one time. You should download it and share with your friends.