Let Me NTurntain U

The first time I ever played a solo show, it was for all of about 10 people, most of whom I was dying to impress in some way for some reason. Friends whose opinions I valued, musicians whose work I admired, girls who I wanted to smooch. I'd been playing and writing songs on electric guitar every day since I was 12 years old, and all through high school my friends and I would play shows, but at this point it had been years since I had played guitar or sang in front of people, let alone all by my lonesome.

I don't care what anybody says, acoustic guitar is not the same as electric guitar. I'm an electric guitarist. I don't know how to play acoustic guitar and make it sound good. Naturally, on this evening, I had decided to play all my songs on an acoustic guitar. To top it all off, some of those few in attendance were (unbeknownst to them, even to this day) the subjects of a handful of those songs.

Needless to say, I was stressed as fuck. Not just beforehand, but all the way through my set. I was literally shaking. My nerves were so bad I was in physical pain. At some point, it started to set in that my nightmare was coming true: as a result of anxiousness, I was making an ass out of myself in front of all these people. It was like a horrible cycle of fear. After 10 or so lousy songs, I thanked everyone for letting me waste their time and went outside to sit in my car for half an hour. I felt like I'd just taken a swift kick in the goddamn balls. It was awful.

My friend Sandy came up to me afterwards. I had known Sandy for a long time, and she had been a part of some really great conversations and momentous occasions in my life. She was older than me by a few years, so as it happens, she was one of those people in high school I would look to as an example of "true punk." As a result, she was one of those people who helped shape me into the grimy pile of awesome that I am today. In spite of this, I wouldn't say Sandy and I were "close" friends. I knew Sandy was capable of being rather blunt with her opinions. She was into loud, fast, pissed-off punk rock, and I had just played a bunch of slow, whiny, acousticky bullshit (poorly... I can not over-stress this point, it sounded bad), so I was also pretty sure from the get-go that she wasn't going to be into my songs. I honestly wasn't all that stoked on hearing what she had to say about whatever atrocity against music I had just committed.

Sandy then went on to tell me that she's always liked my bands, she thought I was extremely talented, and it was about time someone started playing that type of music around town. When I told her how horrible I felt about it, she didn't even show concern. She was acting like I was fishing for complements or something. She assured me that it was good and that I should keep going. To this day, I don't really know if she was being sincere or if she was just trying to cheer me up. It almost doesn't matter. I just knew I wanted to live up to her encouraging words.

I've done almost 40 solo shows since then, in front of various audiences, in various cities and states, and I've honestly had a blast every time. None of those solo-jitters, even when the show was a train wreck. At most shows I would play in Bloomington since that first one, I would see Sandy in attendance, and just seeing her there would give me a big boost of confidence. That spirit would often carry over to the times when she wasn't even there.

In fact, the only time I've experienced anything close to that feeling I had at that first show was on Saturday night when Wringer played in Ft. Wayne. The thing about Wringer is that we're always thinking a few steps ahead of the present. We're an ambitious group of dudes and we tend to set lots of goals for ourselves. In Ft. Wayne, I was off thinking about all kinds of other shit. I just wasn't focused on playing well and having a good time, and once I realized we were bombing, I couldn't recover, because I didn't know how. I should have been thinking about Sandy. Right now I am.

I think tonight will be fun.

RIP

-Anthony