Monday, July 15
Los Angeles, CA
Tonight is the second show at The Bellwether. The buses are parked outside the venue, unoccupied, while we are being shuttled to and from a hotel about ten minutes away. We’re in downtown LA — or “the fashion district” as my phone is calling it — and I don’t think I’ve ever spent any significant part of time here before. Our hotel is on a street called Broadway; you can imagine the designs that the city planners might’ve had for this area of town — a west coast version of that theater hub in Manhattan, it is a street dotted with the marquees of (mostly) defunct theaters. It looks like it must have a fascinating history but I, a lazy transient in this town, couldn’t be bothered to find out. I mostly ogle these early twentieth century storefronts from the window of my Uber like I’m a character in some dystopian video game trying to get to my next checkpoint. There’s a certain dilapidated grandiosity to the buildings, with their baroque decorations and filigrees above plywood-covered storefronts; there’s the gated windows of a pawn shop, there’s the spray painted doors of some weird Christian church. I’m reminded of Blade Runner here, just a bit.
I have lunch with a friend and collaborator at the hotel’s rooftop restaurant; Chris Funk, rash guard-hooded, bobs in the pool only yards away like some aquatic creature rising from a chlorine-tempered swamp. Before I know it, it’s time to high-tail oneself to the venue. I share an Uber with John Moen; we get there just in time for soundcheck.
The VIP experience (which I now know is no longer being called “The Whole Shebang” for reasons I cannot fathom) is much more lightly populated this time around. The upside is that we’re able to hear peoples’ shouted requests easier. We play “Fits and Starts” and “Chimbley Sweep.” The latter goes over better than the former.
I find my way to the backstage and curl up on one of the velvet divans, half expecting Tallulah Bankhead to come along and bat me on the head with an ostrich feather. I read my book. I get about three pages into a bit about a one-eyed Italian poet taking over a place called Fiume before I fall asleep for a good twenty minutes.
The setlist is all over the place tonight — we experiment with a thing where we do a slow transition out of the Gazebo during the beginning of “Burying Davy.” We play that song occasionally and I like it but it is a bit of a head scratcher. Tonight, however, I begin to see the glimmer of an arrangement. More soon! The show feels pretty great, all around, and my voice feels mostly in fine fettle — on this, our fourth show in a row. I can hear my vocal folds, though, as I walk offstage, pleading for a day off. And they shall have it!
Tuesday, July 16
Los Angeles, CA (still)
This is our day off, here in the fashion district. I have woken up with a very hoarse voice. I was going to go for a walk with my sister, but figured it would probably have to be a perfectly silent one. “It’ll be like going for a stroll with someone who’s taken their vows,” I say, really selling it. Of course, she’s game because she’s a good big sister.
We’ve been offered a fitting at the Levi’s house Hollywood. This is something that happens occasionally if you are a performing artist of some notoriety — I will admit that it was the the sort of thing that happened more frequently when we were fifteen years younger and being gushed about by Pitchfork on a regular basis. Now that we’ve settled into our indie rock senescence, we take what we can get. It’s a forty five minute drive to the Levi’s house; our assigned “stylist” meets us at the door. Is it just me or does she seem chagrined to be handing out stacks of jean jackets to a bunch of sallow, middle aged Portlanders?
Los Angeles does this to me, people.
I get some jeans and some shirts and then we all pile back into the waiting SUV to drive forty five minutes back to our hotel. Suddenly the prospect of getting into another car at rush hour and traveling God-knows-how-long to have a monk-like stroll in perfect silence with my sister and her dog does not seem appealing. I text my regrets; she understands because she’s a good big sister.
I have dinner up the street at a bistro and then snuggle into bed with a glass of wine to watch the latest episode of that dragon TV show. This moment is the highlight of my rock tour thus far. Hands down.
Wednesday, July 18
Decatur, IL — j/k still Los Angeles
Here we are, still stewing in the Los Angelino sunshine, walking up the street from our hotel for a taco or a falafel sandwich or a pack of band aids from the CVS. We are still being driven around in black SUVs for interminable amounts of time, yet traveling scant distances. We are still in Los Angeles. Today, we are playing the Jimmy Kimmel show.
Let me tell you about playing on a TV show. Gather ‘round.
The band’s lobby call is 11:15; we arrive at the Kimmel studio at noon. It’s in West Hollywood, right across the street from Mann’s Chinese Theater. We are dropped off in the parking lot behind the building and are each given a purple bracelet. We are escorted inside. There is a big stage in the parking lot behind the building, but we will not be playing outside today. The two other times we played Kimmel, we’ve played outside on that big stage. Today, we will be playing inside the studio. I am not taking this as a personal slight or some kind of indication of the state of my career. Or maybe I am.
Our crew is already here and our stuff is all set up on the stage in a kind of makeshift “bar” that has been assembled in the lobby of the building. Having never played the inside stage, this is new to me. I’m a little relieved, actually. There’s something extra nerve wracking to be on the actual set of the show, just off to the side of the desk, where you get to glance over and see Scarlett Johansson or Ewan MacGregor or whoever watching you play. Nope, we’ll be playing in a make-believe rock club just off Hollywood Boulevard. What’s more, Jimmy is not even here — it’s a guest host. Jimmy takes the summers off, I guess. Good for him.
The band is provided their own green room and we make ourselves at home, quickly shoveling down a quick lunch before being called to the stage for a soundcheck. We run through our song a few times — thankfully, our entire crew is there and the monitor mix we’re given is the one we use for the shows, so there’s not much futzing that needs be done. We run the song a few times and are given the thumbs up from the show’s crew. Then it’s back to the dressing room to wait.
There are TV screens all over the backstage running a feed of the studio cameras and we watch the guest host, Anthony Anderson, run through his opening monologue. He’s in his street clothes and he’s moving through the jokes at a pretty brisk pace, just getting them out. The only laughs are from the writers in the room with him. Then we’re called back to our stage in the “bar” for a camera blocking run of our songs.
We’ll be doing one song for broadcast and one song as a web-exclusive kind of thing. We’re doing “Burial Ground” for broadcast; “Oh No” will be the second song. “Oh No” is the song from the record currently being pushed by the label radio people but because we couldn’t get it down to a clean 3:30 without sucking the life out of it — per the request of the Kimmel people — we will be doing “Burial Ground” instead. Even “Burial Ground” gets on the chopping block; we cut out the opening guitar line and half of the trumpet solo in order to get it down to time. 3:30 is what they want, 3:30 is what they’ll get. We run it a couple times for the camera; we run “Oh No” twice too. We’re given the thumbs up from the studio crew and we head back to the dressing room.
Then we wait.
On these TV things, you’re asked not to leave the studio, so we make ourselves at home for the three hour wait till our showtime. I read my book; I stare at my phone. Through the closed door of our dressing room, I can hear a growing chorus of voices as the minutes tick by. More and more people are descending on the green room that stands between our dressing room and the studio. Who are these people? Staff, I suppose. Writers and their guests. Eventually, you start to hear audio from the studio floor: the warm up comedian is talking to the TV audience after they’ve found their seats. We can’t see him; we can only hear him. Eventually, the monitors switch on and there’s Anthony Anderson in a black suit, doing the same monologue we heard him do earlier.
I tend not to watch the feed from the studio. It gets my nerves up. Even though it’s just video being fed from the room next door, it looks like a real TV show and that can engender a kind of vertigo in a susceptible performer. In what ways could I possibly fuck up this song? Do I really know the words? Or do they disappear from my memory if I think about them too much? Better to ignore the fact that you are about to go on national television. Better to read your book in silence.
Howie Mandel does his bit; then Roy Wood Jr. These are tonight’s guests. Then we are beckoned to our stage in the fake bar in the lobby. They’ve brought in the studio audience, too. They are cordoned against the bar like a people entrapped. I don’t imagine they’re Decemberists fans. They are tourists who are visiting from Ohio and New Mexico, who have nabbed tickets for the Jimmy Kimmel Show as part of their Los Angeles experience. They stare at me blankly; I smile back. Then Anthony Anderson is elbowed up at the bar and he’s speaking into the camera, reading the name of our album (bless his soul, he gets it in one shot) and the name of our band, then a crew guy in a headset points to John who gives us a four-count click into “Burial Ground.” I remember the words.
We manage it in one take and get the thumbs up from the crew. The warm up guy comes on stage and hectors the crowd for not “getting into it” enough. I want to crawl into the pocket of my gratis Levi’s button-up shirt and disappear. We get the go-ahead to play “Oh No” and we do. I remember the words to that one, too. Thumbs up all around as we descend from the stage. We get a photo with Anthony Anderson; we load up our stuff and head to our hotel rooms. Our work here is done. I find questionable dim sum in the mall across the street from the Roosevelt Hotel, where our day rooms are, and then make my way to the bus. Good night, Los Angeles. I’ll always be yours.
Better to be sallow, middle-aged Portlanders than sallow-cheeked with your undies showing.
I do love reading about close-to-home shows (LA). Monday's set list was incredible!