David Wilcox Music

For the first time in twelve years, it’s a snow day in Chicago.  And I flew through there just before it hit on my way back from British Columbia.  I would have been camping out in the airport with all the other stranded travelers.  It is bliss to be home where it is sunny and warm.  Nate is working on the home test for Cooper Union, the art school he so wants to get into.  Google it if you are curious.  I’m gonna have some fun today. I just got my studio gear back from Greg at Pendulum Audio that I had sent in for repair.  So now my studio is up and running again and better than ever.  So why am I writing a blog entry?  I could be working on one of the new songs I’ve written and surprising myself with how it could be orchestrated and arranged.  There are so many great players in town who could come put parts on.  OK, I’ll get to it, but I wanted to write about the challenging and satisfying gigs I just came from.

You know you are having a great gig when you have to concentrate just to stay standing.  I wasn’t even on a ship in a hurricane this time.  I was just sick with a fever and some sort of stomach virus that took what little energy I had left.  It had already been an adventure of no sleep and long travel all day.  So the element of musicianship came into play.  Not just with fingers on the fretboard, but with doing the best I could with everything I had.  It was the most difficult gig I have ever played in terms of the physical level.  I was shivering and freezing, and I had barely enough brain function to find the words to songs I knew really well.  If I had not been performing, I would have been lying down.   And, since it was streaming live on the web, I’m sure there will be video that I can watch to see if I am totally incoherent or not.

I began with a song I knew well and then started talking, and I know I went on way too long.  I didn’t have much sense of what I was saying; I was just trying to stand up and not fall over.  Oh, and not hurl.  It will be fun for me to watch the video and see how much it shows.  I wanted to play for an hour and a half, that was my goal.   I didn’t make it.  I started feeling faint, and I knew I would pass out, and that wouldn’t look so good on camera.  So I pretended to look at my set list as I crouched down, but I was really just crouching down to get some blood to my brain.  And the whole time I was really enjoying the challenge.

Whenever I am sick and I have a gig to play, I know that I’m going to get a miraculous window of time where all the symptoms go away.  It happens every time.  I could be sneezing or coughing ten times a minute for two days, but when it’s time to play, that all goes away and I can sing just fine for long enough to get through the gig.  I used to think it was a miracle cure, but it is only a quick little miracle remission.  All that sneezing and coughing starts again as soon as I get off stage.

It was the same with this last gig.  As soon as I set the guitar down, I was lying down on the floor of the camper van in the parking lot that was used as the control room for the uplink.  I even let them strike my mics and sound gear, which I never do.  But I had no energy.  And I couldn’t stop smiling.  All I could think was:  Well done!  Didn’t fall over!  Gave it everything!  This was a good day.  I did my absolute best.  I felt the power come through, doing something that I believe in.  And that let me know that I’m in the right line of work.  Musicianship became more than something that happens on the instrument.  It was letting myself rely on the ideas that happen when I’m not thinking.  And letting myself rely on the voice I have when my brain can’t think about the way I’m singing.  And most of all, relying on what the music will give, even when I know I don’t have what it takes.