I met a musician guy to play music with the other week. A guitarist, turns out he "majored in music/guitar man". He responded to my vocal advert for such when I played open-mic a few weeks back, and we finally had a play to see if it was fun. It was fun - he writes good music, excellent guitarist and good singer and we sounded alright together. But what is most story-worthy is the way he makes it work for him in the big city.
So John is Californian, about 30, muscular, deep tan, thick 5 o clock shadow - especially under the nose which makes him look slightly Spanish or Greek maybe. But generally looks like a regular Californian dude.
I make my way to N14th street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. A confusing angular part of the road grid, I am guided by the streets to my left which end in water then scrapers, and to my right a parched park of baseball players enjoying the hot sun and lazy days. The neighborhood changes flavor very quickly; from pretty treed brownstones with folks tapping on ipads on their staired porches, to flip-flopped dog-walkers walking through chicken-wire fenced nondescript lots and half-finished looking corner shops (hand-written names) with tons of water melons outside. I arrive at N14th, which is a long typically empty street of huge abandoned looking warehouses, graffiti and has-been garages.
But today it is full of roaring Harley-Davidsons, tattooed and leathered folk and a loud live band playing at 1pm it is, with 3 lone sweaty moshers. Quite a sight and sound.
I call John from under a scruffy tree and he agrees to walk out as I cannot see number 180 for guns nor roses on any warehouse anywhere. He emerges from behind a chilli-dog BBQ table, with his slow Californian pace and I follow him into the huge blue concrete building. He says he had no idea at all that this was going on. How? I think.
It is cool and shady - and quiet, apart from a distant crazy drummer practicing. The corridors of identical padlocked doors put me in the mind of the store of all my worldly goods in London, only here the rooms feature concrete rather than corrugated iron - and they are more cramped and a little less loved. No paid cleaner I'd say, scruffy but uniform. And pristine in the sense that the outside world ie. bikers party is completely shut out. Not a sound nor window.
We are standing in John's rehearsal space - which he mentioned when we first spoke. 8 foot square room, musty, industrial carpet, lit only by laptop as apparently the makeshift and very low metal overhead lamp heats the room quickly. As my pupils widen, I begin to see...guitars! Leaning, propped, hanging, dangling. Speakers. Oh a vinyl record collection. And what's this: a commercial food blender on the floor. How interesting.
"Your den of creativity!" I say - referring to the pretty good set of uploads he has on youtube.
"Ya..."
"And so you sleep here too?" I say in gest. And then I wonder - because I now can see carpentry - a permanent step ladder arrangement leading up over his shelved record collection.
His yes response puts me in the sweet spot. Are we joking? There is no window. It is teeny. What?
"No I really live here" he states indicating a bed shelf above our heads. He doesn't look remotely offended and my mind fills with questions. So he washes in the gym. He knows the super (-intendent aka caretaker) who encourages this economical choice. And on our 2nd rehearsal, he is drinking directly from the large blender goblet. He gives me the secret recipe. No trendy kale/spinach green-goddess inner brush here:
1 banana, 6 eggs, 1 T Hershey's chocolate powder (which he brandishes) and peanut butter.
Now if I ingested that, my digestion would cross its arms and say "and what do you suppose I can do with this?" But the whole arrangement comes to settle in my mind and on the side of charm rather than horror. I am reminded of the year in my early early teaching career where I slept in a tiny room in a sleeping bag, rolling it up in the day. I got off on the monkishness of it and enjoyed the low cost. But sleeping through guys rehearsing rock and roll down the corridor - one of the bands has a cracking drummer who can play double pedal bass like Napalm Death! Later we feel it pump in our ribcages. He says he sleeps through it all and does odd jobs. Rent is $300 pcm. Makes sense.
The fact that he has the sweetest song/video called The girl with the long pretty hair (very Californian sounding) adds to the contrasts around perfectly. ...which we harmonize and play with a huge whirring floor fan making us feel cool.
