Picking up from where I fell asleep last night…
The room in Klosterneuburg at Richie and Renate’s house is a perfect set up for a house concert - it’s intimate, plenty of space and sounds fantastic with a natural room reverb. Richie and Roman are the guitar players in the Sundown Ramblers and joined by Angelika on bass, Toni on mandolin and new addition, Jörg on fiddle. I dig sitting in on their “sound check” - I put it in quotes because there is no PA tonight, we’re all just strumming and singing in the room.* They run through bits of a couple of songs, sorting out who is taking what solo and what-not.
I really dig their sound as they are all respectful of how they fit in and play with each other. Jörg turned towards the group most of the time he was playing which may have been because he was new and following along but it had the additional sound enhancement of making him blend in, volume wise, with the group in a natural and organic way.
I talk to Angelika’s mother and father for a few minutes before the show. Her mother has been studying her English for a while and practices with her grandson - and her English is fantastic. Her dad was born in 1935 and he got hooked on American blues music that was being broadcast on radio stations over here in the 40s and 50s. When he first started dating (his wife) he made her listen to the albums and won her over from her classical listening youth. They love the blues and say that they think listening to it is what gave Angelika her starting performing music.
Roman and Barbara do their sound check and I can feel Barbara’s excitement/nervousness about her first show. I feel lucky that I get to experience someone’s first performance because how often does that happen? Hardly never.
I soundcheck after and, I know, it’s just singing and playing guitar in a room but I’m glad I do because it just gets my ears ready for how the room sounds. Richie set up a telecaster and a small amp in case I want to play that for some songs and it’s a really nice ‘52 reissue Tele**
After that I talk with Renate for a few minutes and learn a bunch about her and Ritchie and how they came to be in this house and in Vienna and all that. I learn that she was a professor of women’s studies at university and I can’t wait to talk to her about that. There are also snacks and drinks out - bottles of wine and Elderberry syrup.***
Roman and Barbara’s set goes off beautifully and folks are singing along with them when they perform “Bella ciao” and before you know it, she is now a performing musician. Welcome to the club Barbara!
The Sundown Ramblers start off their set with the instrumental “South spring” by Jon Reischman that I was unfamiliar with but really dig and (GGW) Roman’s Iris guitar next to Richie’s Martin guitar - they blend so seamlessly because of the different tones… I know this is super guitar geeky but when you mix music you hear all these little nuance type things. When Roman does his solo part in the song, it has these chord voicing inversions that go up the neck and without being louder or turned up in the mix - you can just hear it because of the guitar’s character. This is why guitar players need different guitars!
Before I play we are all served food. Richie tells me it’s to prevent the audience from getting hangry. Well appreciated and delicious as he has made chicken curry and lentil curry over basmati rice.
It is a great listening audience and as I step on the rug in the performance area I notice something new. Now, I’ve played, shit, I don’t know - thousands of gigs? And yes, all gigs are different but the elements of them are usually very similar. Tonight I look down at my feet and see my socks. This is the first time I’ve ever performed without shoes on. Everyone took their shoes off at the door, I didn’t even think about it until this moment but I have a habit of right before I perform I wiggle my toes - it’s this thing I learned years ago about how to be present and in the moment and if you wiggle your toes, you sort of stop what you’re doing and connect to where you are. Today I wiggled my toes and felt the carpet. This was new.
I’ve sort of written down a handful of songs that feel right for the evening. Mostly I just had the first two so I would get myself in motion and it’s goes great. I have to keep telling myself to slow down in speaking with my stories. It’s very easy to just sayawholebunchofthingsveryquicklywithoutrealizingthatyouretalkingtoofast and I don’t want to do that.
And it’s a great show. I got to play one of my favorite songs, nothing needs to be said, and I look over at Johanna sitting on the couch and she’s crying a little bit. And that moves me. You reach for those moments of connection and I live for them.
I bring Roman up and he joins me on dobro for Queen of the party and swings and then Barbara joins us for Cold War and Glad and Sorry and then everyone joins us for a 2 guitar, mandolin, fiddle, bass and dobro version of You ain’t going nowhere that really feels like we’re The Band.
I think that’s the end but they want more songs and I am more than happy to oblige. I get requests for Hate this town, Angelia and APB. When I sing Angelia I notice Richie is singing along with me and I encourage that and the next time the chorus hits he sings louder.
We all sing along with APB and it’s just a fantastic night.
Talking with Renate after the show and she mentions how, and I’m not going to remember exactly what she said, but something about how vulnerable, real and honest the stories and songs are and thanks me for that. I’m so touched by that. We have a great conversation about having complicated relationships with our hometowns. She left her hometown as a teenager and I ask her what was the motivating factor for wanting to leave her hometown and she tells me about this bar that she had to walk by as a kid and hearing the misogyny and racism coming out of this bar made her want to move away and find something better. I’m kind of amazed by this because it’s something I’ve been delving into on my own and thinking about what made me move away from Billerica. Because as a teenager I thought I would probably live there the rest of my life and you know, why and what was it that made that change and I determined it was the Center Cafe in the middle of town. Going in there to deliver pizza, rescue a relative or co-worker and just being in that place made me decide that I didn’t want that for myself and now decades later realizing how much that shaped me and more than shaped who I would become, it shaped who I didn’t want to become.
It’s 4, 032 miles from Billerica to Vienna and here I found someone that had the same complicated relationship with her hometown as I had with mine. The world is huge, beautiful and small.
Angelika’s mother also had a great time and she asks me if Jim Croce was as popular in the U.S. as he was here. I tell her how much I loved his stuff as a kid and how he was amazing at just tell his stories in his songs and she says “You are just like him.”
I have never been compared to Jim Croce before and I almost start crying.
So yeah, I had a good night.
It’s a long drive home through the dark forest back into the city. Roman hugs the road with his souped up 1997 Volvo station wagon. I’m convinced if left to his own devices Roman would be a rally race car driver winning races across continents.
There’s yesterday’s wine waiting for us and I fall asleep at about 4 am.
Can’t wait for tomorrow.
*Ok, so if we’re being historically accurate - there was a tiny bass amp that the double bass was plugged into just so it wouldn’t get lost behind the rest.
**That I completely forget to play.
***it’s roughly a 7 to 1 ratio of water to the syrup. I use sparkling water and it’s a tasty treat.