Tennessee Bass Bumping

Home from tour, warming some cats

I was pretty sure the subwoofers were causing permanent damage to my eardrums, bowels, and brain, likely to affect my personal and professional life for years to come.

And yet I couldn’t bring myself to say the words, “Kevin, could you turn it down?”

We were speeding down streets in Germantown, Tennessee, taking corners like an F1 driver, sampling nu-metal “party mixes” at 110dB.

Kevin was a Lyft driver and I was a newly anointed customer-sidekick. Paying prey, prey who paid.

Actually, I was proud to be deemed cool enough to hear The Sound System. After the usual driver-rider formalities, Kevin turned around and said—already turning the volume knob—“I’m glad I feel like I don’t have to turn my music down around you.” It’s the hair. It’s always the hair. My hair gave consent. Forgive me if I’ve said this before. Strangers can spot a musician from across the street if the volume of their hair exceeds 0.75 cubic feet. In my case, they not only know I’m a musician; they know I’m a drummer. It happened the other day in Dallas, too. A man who’s been hanging around Dealey Plaza since probably the day after Kennedy was killed, with no teeth, asked what kind of bands I like, and where we were playing that night. I offered him tickets and he walked away. His place is in the plaza.

Kevin in Germantown saw my mop and knew he could rock.

If I hear a little less well in forty years (god willing), it’s because I listened a little more the other day. There was just no way I was going to stop that joy.

Later that night we played “Kangaroo” and “Thank You Friends,” the latter with Jody Stephens on drums. Dreams forming and precipitating in the course of one day, like dew.

I don’t have the mental power to summarize the last seven weeks of touring with my family today, but all I really want to say is I’m so grateful people come to see us play, and have been receiving Twilight Override with such open ears and excitement.

I’ll share one bit. In the first week of tour somebody gave my dad a tiny flower—one tiny flower—with a note attached. It said:

Thanks for getting me back into a seat at a live concert. It’s been over 20 years. That’s a song in itself.

To feel like we’re a part of anyone getting out of the house, making a connection, not only with us but with other people… What’s better than that?

Jeffy, Macie, Sima, Spencer, Sammy, and Liam. Photos by Instagram @shotsbycell

Re-entry from tour for me today looked like: I went to Home Depot to get things to build a stray cat shelter. There are four or more who live on our block. Casey and I built a box for them last winter and I want to make it better. I found, that November, after Trump had just won again, when I felt totally powerless, at least I could make a cat warm.

XO,
Spencer