Eve of The Pop Underground
It is not lost on me that tonight is exceptional. Exceptional for many reasons. Exceptional because I am at peace. Exceptional because on evenings such as this, in other lives, I was a mess. I have spent many nights in terminals like this one; waiting on a trains or planes, dreaming of final destinations. Tonight is different though. A broad leather chair with wooden arms, one of many in LA's union station, holds me close as I type these words. I am eager for the tracks and my wife on the other side, but I am glad to be here for now, if only for a moment.
Blonde headed girls and latin queens mingle amongst business men and transients heading to and from. Los Angeles was a home for me briefly but our relationship was sordid at best. I was not ready for this town. I came here to hide and oh the blame I placed on her, this fair, unsuspecting city. Still, I have come back to reclaim her. Tonight, I quietly prepare to release 4 simple songs, and I do so from this station in the center of her veiny heart. The same heart I claimed once did not exist.
The truth is, we are all on some crazy journey. We may not recognize ourselves in photographs from our past, but it does not mean we were different people. Sometimes it feels like that, but tonight I recognize myself. I recognize why I left my little corner of southern sand to hide in the sparkle of a million earthbound stars. It was all hills and pain and "maybe this didn't happen" when I knew it did. I know it did now. So now it's me and the train and the car parked underground, and "I'll be home at nine for dinner" and I'll be back here in the morning to tell some newsman the story, or what I remember of it. I'm okay with that.
Tonight is the evening of The Pop Underground. A night where I let what was be and let what is be discovered. I didn't build an army to tell this story. I didn't need to. I'm not trying to prove anything to anyone. Tomorrow I will wake up and follow these tracks the other direction. I will answer some questions and then disappear into the same studio where I wrote this little record of songs. I will meet two people for the first time and we will talk about life and art and try and write a new song. The next day I will do the same, because that's what this is all about when it comes down to it. Not the song, or the train, or the studio, but the story, the craft and the risk of showing up. To all of you who listen, thank you. Thank you, because I love making things. Thank you, because this is what I'm meant to do and I'd be lost without it.