Just before Guided By Voices, we saw Kurt again, and I went up to say hello. I told him we saw him open for Big Star at the Brooklyn Masonic Temple, and how that night we became a fan and found out about the festival because of them. Kurt asked how the show was; I told him they'd done a great job. (They had: "Freak Train" was a festival highlight for me, and I'm glad the organizers let them come back on stage to do it.)

"What's your name?"

"Zan."

"That's my wife's name. She's Suzanne, but I call her Zan."

"No way, I'm a Suzanne/Zan, too."

I told him to enjoy Guided By Voices (he was excited to see them because they were only there for a night, and GBV had been added last minute when Bad Brains had to cancel), and walked back to J. "His wife is a Zan, too," I said. Another good omen.

Somewhere between "I Am A Scientist" and "Game Of Pricks," Kurt Vile walked off into the night. 

* * *

There were sunhats, backpacks, and hula hoops. People applied face paint and sunscreen in equal measure. Children poured out of camper vans, a school bus rigged up with a luggage rack and a retractable shade. There were fires burning across the field, blankets spread out in the shade near the porch stage. Wagons filled with distractions for the littlest festival-goers. A man with a hat in the shape of a hot dog attempted to dunk a man in a tie at the dunking booth. The placement of chairs was decided by the sun's arch; as day turned to night, the chairs fanned out in the field until the sky was completely dark and the chairs stretched to the bleachers on the other side. At noon, the line for ice cream was the longest, followed by the line for beer. A woman in a hippie skirt breastfed her baby in the shade of a sycamore tree. There were herons and sparrows, vultures circled the campsite to see if we were napping or dead.

* * *

Saturday. The vultures must think I'm dead. I was curled up in a ball on a tablecloth between the tent and the car, wishing away my cramps and alternating water and beer: hydration, numbification. A car pulled up in the field next to us; I heard J walk over and start talking to two men who were hoping to set up camp.

Half an hour and one missing pole later, I stood up, and saw them folding the tent back into the car. "No luck?" Colby had a GG Allin tatoo on his right arm and carried a book of Roky Erickson's lyrics in his left. Matt, his salt-and-pepper bearded friend, had just bought a 2012 Subaru and wouldn't let Colby eat or drink anything in it on the whole drive up from West Virginia, so we let them sit in our camp chairs while they drank a few beers. They offered a leaving neighbor $7,000 for their tent, but their offer was rejected. It didn't matter that they might not have anywhere to sleep that night; they were there to see Roky. They threw on flannel shirts and headed to the festival. 

You know Roky Erickson: the singer from the 13th Floor Elevators, wild man of the sixties, influencer of Janis Joplin, Big Star, Patti Smith, Yo La Tengo, Butthole Surfers, and REM. If you don't know what happened to him between then and now (last year he released an album with Okkervil River as his backing band), I won't spoil the story: seek out the 2005 documentary You're Gonna Miss Me. His story is one you should know.

Once you know the story, though, you know how amazing it is to see him up on the stage performing again. Not just the old stuff, but the new: "Goodbye Sweet Dreams" was probably the best song I heard at Nelsonville. Maybe it's something about the time of day, the moment the sun is below the tree line, when the stage is a silhouette and the sky is still blue, but our two favorite performances at this year's festival happened in that magical hour between 8:30 and 9:30: on Friday, Charles Bradley & His Extraordinaires took us to church; on Saturday, Roky Erickson reminded us that it's possible to see the devil and make it out okay.

After those performances, the rest — Guided By Voices with their dangling cigarettes and tequila shots, Andrew Bird with his pedals and violin, Iron & Wine with beards that rivaled J's, even Lee Perry with candle wax dripping down his back — were just icing.

* * *

Sunday. The next morning I lay in my sleeping bag, zipping and unzipping the tent to let in some air, determined to stick it out until Lee Ranaldo's 6:15 performance. Even though some dude in a scissor-eviscerated shirt had kept me awake half the night shout-talking over a campfire next to his Laredo trailer (long after the hootenany had wrapped up on the other side of our tent), I wasn't going to wuss out on the last day.

But to not wuss out would require standing up.

As soon as I tumbled out of the tent and attempted to stand, I found that my feet were clenched like fists. I inched my way to the port-a-johns, ouching each step, and decided that Lee Ranaldo would have to wait for another time. Walking around in the hot sun all day feeling like this was just not going to happen. I stood in line, in my pajamas, waiting for the sea-foam cubicles to empty out. "It's like Whack-A-Mole," said the guy in front of me, crossing his arms while I crossed my legs. 

I could tell you that I found myself inside a port-a-john feeling my age, realizing how dumb I'd been to wear my thin socks with my cowboy boots on the second day instead of my thick ones. I could tell you how clean those port-a-johns were. I could tell you that their cleanliness made me change my my mind. But it didn't. My feet were still fists, we'd seen some amazing music, and it was time to go home. We packed up the tent and headed back to Cincinnati. 

What I will tell you is this: we will go again. That thought came to me on the very first day and stayed with me the entire time, right up to that moment in the port-a-john when my feet were fists, thinking of every great encounter we'd had throughout the weekend: Colby and Matt, Kurt "Good Omen" Vile, R. Ring, our friend Meredith and her friends in Old Hundred, the kind family next to us who had driven up from Indiana without even knowing who was playing, the Jeni's ice cream guy who complimented my choice of flavor combination, and all the smiling volunteers pouring beers, guiding us into the campsite, checking our wristbands and telling us to have a great time.

We did have a great time, Nelsonville. (And the port-a-johns were so clean!) We will go again.

(The rest of my Nelsonville photos are over on Flickr.)

© Zan McQuade. All rights reserved.

A bit of calm before the storm of the weekend...

On Tuesday I went to Shake It to see Sub Pop's Daniel Martin Moore and Joan Shelley perform in-store for the release of their collaborative album, Farthest Field, the fifth album to come out from DMM's own label, Ol Kentuck. I'll let the beauty of their music speak for itself; you can listen to the whole album on the Ol Kentuck site. (Ol Kentuck also released Joan Shelley's solo album, Ginko, earlier this spring.)

When you're done listening to Farthest Field, give a listen to Vashti Bunyan, whom DMM & Joan Shelley credit for inspiring their collaborative album. 

(The DMM/Joan Shelley video was recorded at the beautiful Emery Theatre — not far from where I grabbed this shot — by photographer Michael Wilson.)

Last night, I was especially lucky, and especially weak. Some I didn't buy: an old set of Salinger books (The Catcher In The Rye with its original dustjacket, a first edition of Raise High the Roof Beam) and first edition of Daniel Moore's Dawn Visions, put in pride of place on the "rare" shelf in the warehouse. I did buy a few titles, though at bargain prices: The Next Whole Earth Catalog, with its instructions for what to do with roadkill and how to make musical instruments and the best punk zines. Seymour Krim's The Beats, John Gruen's The New Bohemians, and a 1962 issue of the Evergreen Review with an introduction from and review of Naked Lunch just before it was published in the States for the first time. (Also, in a strange moment of prescience, one of the volunteers nearly recycled Where The Wild Things Are [it was an old, beat-up ex-library copy] before another volunteer removed it from the bin and handed it back to him, saying "THIS is a CLASSIC." Rest in peace, Mr. Sendak. Your books will find their rightful place under our watch.)

But the most precious to me are the bits of ephemera we find in the books. Little slips of paper used as bookmarks: a letter written in French from daughter to father, a negative of a religious ceremony, an old receipt from The Rollman & Sons Co. for two dollars and fifty-three cents (May 16, year unknown, though definitely pre-1960, when the store closed), a photograph of a suburban house. Last night, I even found a handwritten poem. 

The consensus among the volunteers was that it was written by a teenager, taped inside his or her (though the handwriting suggests it was a female) copy of James Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Written in ballpoint pen on a sheet of paper ripped from a stenopad. Maybe by a young girl who'd just read The Colossus and figured herself a Sylvia Plath. Maybe by someone who was trying to talk herself out of something; maybe even by someone who lost someone herself. The poem isn't anything special, the stuff of teenage journals, but it seems to go with the "angry at death" theme I can't seem to escape here, and so I thought I might share it with you. 

Lines For One About To Turn On The Gas

Death is so definite.
What I don't like about Death is
You can't change your mind.
Suppose you drank a great drink
And took so many sleeping pills
And lay down with your head on a pillow
On the kitchen floor;
Having turned on all five jets
Which after all would be an efficient
And comparatively tidy exit.
Then suppose just as you crossed the line between
Here + There
The telephone rang.
Someone caling to say:
"Darling, I am sorry — "
Or: "Your Grandmother's will just probated —
You inherit five hundred thousand."
Or even: "Will you come in for cocktails Sunday?"
Life might then seem lovely.
Might then seem desirable.
Life is like that.
And there you would be — out of reach.
No more moons.
No more late spring. However late it comes.
Spring is still a miracle.
There you would be, quiet + cold + stiff...
Ready for the mortician.
What is there underground so good as what's over it?
Do you like moles + worms + black beetles
Better than apple blossoms + cider?
Do you like a mouth stopped with clay
Better than singing — even if off-key?
Think of all the ways out you haven't yet tried.
Death is so definite.
What I don't like about Death is
You can't change your mind.
Never to have another chance...?
God — not yet!

Anonymous, 4/13/61 

Dark, I know; forgive me. But it was either this, or the mimeographed copy of a science class handout titled "Investigating the Excretory Structures of a Fish." (Would you expect the arrangement of tubules for the removal of nitrogen wastes in humans to be more like that of a fish or of the earthworm? Explain.)

I like to think that someone asked her in for cocktails on Sunday. Or she called her darling to say she was sorry. Or, heck, she started reading Daniel Moore, moved to a commune, and learned how to make musical instruments from a book she ordered out of The Whole Earth Catalog. However her story ended, wouldn't the precious time I spend coming up with endings to other people's stories — apple blossoms? or black beetles? — surely be better spent working on the material for the middle of mine?

Oh poo on this endless navel-directed philosophizing. Should have just posted the durned fish shit handout.

(Previously: Executive's Data Book, 1964)

© Zan McQuade. All rights reserved.

support your local poet.

I came across this bumper sticker again the other day. It's an important sentiment that bears repeating. I've already written about how much I love Cincinnati, and how about I think we shouldn't be shy about proclaiming our love for this city. That includes, 100%, the art that is being produced here. Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky artists such as Bad Veins, Daniel Martin Moore, Pomegranates, Walk The Moon, and Wussy are producing great music, and it makes me happy that the city that produced The Afghan Whigs, Ass Ponys, Adrian Belew, and Bootsy Collins — the city even Peter Frampton chose to make his home — is still supporting artists who love this city, who want to claim it as their home and make their music here.

Saturday was Record Store Day. We arrived at Shake It Records in Northside just before 9 and joined a line already snaking around the block. When the doors were thrown open, the line moved patiently from bin to bin, gasping with joy when they came across the one they wanted. In addition to the national releases, Shake It had special releases from Wussy, Bad Veins, and Walk the Moon in the bins, testament to their local pride.

Later in the day, after spreading some of our pennies to Everybody's Records across town, I came back to Shake It for an acoustic performance by Bad Veins, and the store was still swarming with eager music buyers. As the show got started, shoppers switched their focus from the bins to the microphones set up near the back of the store. Ben and Sebastien invited the crowd to come closer, asked for requests from their devoted fans. The store was hushed with a reverent silence. A group of high school girls swooned near the Rock/M section; a lanky group of skater kids bounced their sneakers, cross-legged on the floor. A whole store listening.

(Later reports indicate that Walk the Moon also packed the house to the rafters; people were turned away at the door.)

Where last year's Record Store Day in New York felt like sponsored chaos, the mad dash of collectors and fans alike, this year's Record Store Day was a comfort: to see so many people there, to watch people in the act of listening, to see so much local music on display. All of it a big 'ol sign saying "Cincinnati: poets live here, too."

Everything is going to be alright. 

* * *

This, obviously, was all happening before I got here. My observations don't cover the full picture: the years these artists spent sweating their balls off just to make it to this point, to get noticed, to get a crowd of kids sitting cross-legged and devoted in front of them at an acoustic show. The record stores busting their humps to stay alive. This city was a city of poets and artists long before I was even born, artists who survived and artists who didn't, artists who moved onto the next thing. I've just happened upon the scene, a straggler kicking a peach pit up a dirt road, stumbling across a band of troubadors in the clearing... This all happened independent of me: I'm just glad I get to be here to see it and throw some coins into the hat.

* * *

The next day I went to the cemetery.

It was a gray day, and the obelisks and mausoleums of Spring Grove — arboretum, historical landmark, and the second largest cemetery in the United States — seemed even grayer for it. I hiked up past "Dracula's Castle" (the Dexter Mausoleum, the neo-gothic monument built by an English immigrant whiskey baron), weaving through 19th century inscriptions, angels, and tree trunks carved from marble. At the top of a hill, I stopped and looked back over my shoulder, the hills of the Queen City blooming behind me in green. 

And I saw every ounce of inspiration there before me. 

How could this not be a city for poets? And it is: a city of inspired texture and beauty, fringed with green and rolling land rising and falling as it approaches the Ohio River, dotted with the brick chimneys of old factories and the white blossoms of dogwoods and honeysuckle. A city of occasional heartache and loss, a city where things happen, and people leave, and buildings get torn down. But the poets of the city write, about the good and the bad. They write until strings break and the ink runs dry. All we have to do is listen for a while and we'll hear that city, too.

The new Bad Veins album, The Mess We've Made, goes on sale to the rest of the world tomorrow. You can listen to it here for a limited time. (After a day's listen, "Doubt" and "I Turn Around" are personal favorites.) Don't forget to support your local record store all year long. And your local poets.