I hadn’t posted in a while and I forgot how much I love the attention. It is straight up why I do what I do. For the attention, I’m a greedy whore for it. It definitely isn’t for the money, you get me. This Substack is free and I’ve got no interest in monetizing it. Know that, it’s the core of my life and what this post is about.
How much does Carrie Bradshaw make? For the life of me I can’t remember her ever mentioning it. She just opportunes her way into situations and dinners and apartments and clothing and shoes and shoes and shoes. Just like me. And it’s like a mystery. How does she even do it? In the end she had Big so that’s how she afforded that big old Gramercy Park place in AJLT but before that… all of the shoes? How did she pull that off? Her column made her that much?
I just got back from a CRICKETS week. CRICKETS is honestly New York City’s best kept secret. It’s a band that comes from my personal history of who I’ve been and how I’ve lived. I knew JD, of more than anything, and met her full on when Shannon, my best friend last decade who took his life, and I DJ’d a party of hers together. I remember Shannon being so drunk and being bit by the bartender and things getting so messy and we ended up riding bikes away from the party to a second something and I made him stop and eat a bag of nuts, thinking that would soak up his drunk. He remembered that part of it forever and would bring it up, ‘Roddy, Roddy, remember that time you made me eat a bag of nuts to make me less drunk?’ There’s a photo I have of that afternoon on the West Side Highway of me and JD and Shannon, it marks when we first really met full on, me and JD.
Michael who plays guitar for CRICKETS was in Los Angeles when we met. We were both going on a walking tour of a record that Colin Self had put out. We met in a neighborhood and put the record on our phones and listened through headphones walking a pre-determined map that Colin had made through Silverlake and Echo Park and meeting at the end of it. Michael was in MEN with JD and I still have him in my phone as Michael MEN. He and I walked with an older woman, it was a special journey.
The CRICKETS musical connection is based on restraint. It’s a whole concept. We strip away the excess. For me it comes from the resistance to add overdubs to a sound. All my life I’ve been in bands where things are added. That tambourine sounds good, let’s add a keyboard part, how about a harmony on that vocal? Know what, double that vocal, and then the oft repeated, ‘it’s not something you necessarily hear but you feel it.’ More and more and more. It’s what the opportunity of the studio provides. Adding to, supplementing, building, piling on additions, more and more and more. In defense of what I’ve done and created and added to… it does always sounds good, the overdub, there’s nothing that doesn’t sound good. I amn’t capable of creating something that sounds bad, I say that cheekily but honestly. That is the point right there: just because it sounds good doesn’t mean you got to do it. In CRICKETS it’s our credo and our exercise to not only not add things, but to take things away.
Our sound is special and unique and if you haven’t gone there, I encourage you to have a listen. We are synth and guitar and drum machine and JD singing. It’s a dark and empty sound that kicks in its simplicity. As we leaned into this past week… we embraced the haunt. The EP we made on the brink of epidemic came and went but wow, it is a special endeavor. Mark Cross put the record out on his very unique Muddgutts label and the vinyl only release came in a white paper bag that was craftily silk screened with an artwork by Bay Area artist Alicia McCarthy. It is truly a work of art and I am so proud of what we achieved. ELASTIC on this record and shared below is honestly THE anthem of a generation. It was the power wallop song that we imagined in that massive crowd moment in the quintessential EU festival. I could honestly write an entire essay on that one song and what it means to me, JD, Michael, our generation and the world. It truly is the best song that dropped and was never heard. Not to be redundant but we blame it on the pandemic.
(ELASTIC- THE ANTHEM)
We stopped playing together after the record came out.
We recently reconvened.
There was no drama or reason for the break, we just all had other projects. Michael had a baby and plays with his Grateful Dead cover band, High Time. JD is a teacher and did a bunch of Le Tigre shows, I had my band with Joey and was writing my memoir, we all were doing things. Then a window opened for all of us and we jumped through it.
(INTENTIONALLY PASSIVE- the song CRICKETS love to play best)
We had a retreat up in Provincetown this winter and started to write again, molding songs for a new record. We don’t play often but we did a show at Union Pool with IUD and SUO. Last month we did a staycation retreat week together in New York City with a show at the end of it at the old Pyramid on Avenue A. The days together and the time we put in were a collective high five, a trophy of champions, an exhale of purity and that thing they say at the end of a meditation. It couldn’t have gone better. It starts from a place of loving each other and goes from there. Could you imagine being a studio musician? No shade but can you even imagine? Not having a connection to the people you’re making noise with?
The show was a banger. Bottoms played their final performance and they were rad. Hairbone brought it. Jessie is a miracle. I don’t understand Raul but I applaud him a million claps. CRICKETS knocked it out of the arena. There was a tightness to the totality of the show that was unprecedented. Those there know. Those who weren’t will never and the night remains in selected hearts.
If I tallied up the hours, and this is the point, if I tallied up the hours we spent together and then added on top of that the travel times and the planning and the preparation for the rehearsals that we did on our own, it would total an unfathomable amount of 40 hour work weeks, multiple less than minimum wage chapters of life work. If we took a calculator, which is how it’s done, right? Can you even imagine what the amount would be? Straight up we made $300 for the show. I’m not gonna feel weird for promoting a project that gets paid this much. It’s not vanity, it’s vanity, it’s self worth and confidence and a trailblaze of fury and prowess and work and content that is invaluable. To me, to you, to us. This is the reality of the arts in today’s world. We make absolutely nothing while providing everything.
We all do what we do and we make a world for ourselves. We provide examples, we provide fodder for thought, we provide inspiration, we make a world for ourselves and others. We don’t get paid for it. We expect support. Not from the government or from even purse strings that could subsidize us. That happens but I don’t see it ever. We expect support from you. Let’s just start there. Don’t sequester and don’t stay home and quit blaming the world. Shut up. Not really but shut up. Let’s applaud ourselves, let’s support our scene, let’s encourage each other to make a better world. Let’s appreciate things in the flesh, let’s see each other in the pit, let’s be here for each other and hold each other up. Go Zohran because that is an extension of what I see happening with people who show up.
What will come is a new CRICKETS record. We’ll continue to write it and record it this summer. I personally can’t wait.
Show up.
Do you but do me too.
Do us.
Love you all,
RB
🤩
So grateful to learn of the new work and thinking of Shannon.