I am trying to imagine what life has been like for musicians lately. Even before COVID, I’d guess working musicians already had their work cut out for them* – of keeping unpredictable schedules and performing for unpredictable crowds in unpredictable locations. Not to mention, the hard work of keeping up with a demanding craft – the many hours of solitary practicing to keep sharp with an instrument and the creative humility of songwriting.
But from all accounts, the shows and performing and love of the craft made it all worthwhile. That is, until the pandemic upended everything. While COVID can’t change something as ingrained as being a musician, the pandemic did snuff out the shows, performing the music they love and engaging with the crowds.
It’s an extraordinary thing. Even now, it’s hard for me to grasp. To really gauge the weird tragedy of it all, it helps to imagine what happened to musicians in the context of another profession. Like if an IT worker just lost their job, normally, they’d go out and look for another job. But imagine hitting the job market to discover there are zero jobs in IT because IT just doesn’t exist anymore. IT went poof.
The shows, the performing, was a musician’s livelihood. But also, there’s that old cliche that creating and performing art is like breathing for musicians, which is a cliche for a reason. Turning it all off, and so suddenly at that, must be suffocating and claustrophobic.
And what’s worse, when musicians suffer, we all suffer. We don’t tend to consider these things until somebody just stops picking up the garbage, or the power goes out, or the car suddenly wont start.
I’ve heard reports that larger, more famous musicians were doing big creative things to keep an audience and live performances going through the shutdown. It heartens me to hear those stories - when musicians are pushed to the brink they can find new and adaptive ways to keep their art alive.
That’s all well and good for those musicians with a fan base that seeks them out. But I am more interested in the experience of working musicians – the performers working to get their music out there, musicians like Trevor McSpadden.
I met Trevor through my friend, Dan Lowinger. Dan and Trevor are both working musicians who trade in classic Honky-Tonk and Country & Western swing.
Trevor got creative during COVID as well. Since regular gigs were shut down, he and his band (with Dan occasionally filling in on lead guitar) played shows from the front lawn of his home in St. Paul. His music attracted crowds of families, neighbors, passersby, and the rare people like me who’d heard of the show and biked across town to see them play.
Of course I brought my camera. And, of course, I couldn’t help get all up in their business for a bunch of pictures. I was lucky for the loose format of the show. I was able to get up close and get angles I would never be allowed if they were up on a stage. Or the audience for that matter who, had they paid to see a regular gig, would’ve rightly taken exception to the hindquarters of an overeager photographer interrupting their view of the show.
Maybe what struck me the most about Trevor’s shows from his lawn, it wasn’t about work, or making money. It was more about chasing down that thing that makes work tolerable, enjoyable even – and not just for the musicians. It was about making all our lives a little more tolerable.
There had been a lot of bad news those days. Of course, there was the everpresent pandemic. Everybody was losing their jobs. Everyone else was losing their minds. Many others, too many, had lost loved ones. And on top of everything, as if to make a cruel mockery of it all, the vaudvillian shitshow that was the 2020 presidential campaign was only just beginning to ramp up.
I don’t think it’s putting too-fine a point to suggest that – even in those ethereal late summer days, and soon-autumn evenings – a rotten fog seemed to hang heavy over everything – a kind of gloom hanging around, ever-present in the background. And often, right up front and in our face.
So, it was not an insignificant thing to witness – Trevor and his band playing the music they love for the people of St. Paul. For the rest of us, we got to hang out in the neighborhood with friends and family (even if from a distance) day-drinking and kicking back in the late summer heat to listen to some of the finest, country & western could be found in the upper midwest. So it was, I don’t mind saying, an emotional moment to encounter real win/win, in spite of it all.
I asked Trevor to summarize the format, and the opportunity to play to his neighbors in such a gloomy time—
First of all, I must credit the amazing group of people that live on my block. The reception and response has been fantastic and I feel very lucky to have stumbled into such a neighborhood. We had no idea what we were getting into when we bought that house and we've been so happy with the relationships we've developed with our neighbors.
Second, I am so grateful to have the opportunity to work with other local players.
Before we arrived in St Paul, Dan was my only connection in town and we certainly made fast friends. I was hoping he'd be able to make a few introductions, but once live music shut down, I wasn't sure how I'd make my presence known.
I can remember the first few texts with Dan about playing in the front yard, we were uncertain that it would be appropriate. That was early on in the pandemic and I felt like we might be acting a bit reckless by performing publicly.
But as time passed and we've settled in the COVID routine, getting out and playing feels like a way for all of us musician types to reconnect with the joy of making music. The financial aspect of this time has been extremely difficult, but in some ways, taking money out of the equation has been refreshing. It's been a long time since that hasn't been in the back of my mind at the very least!
Eventually however, the changing seasons gave way to another long, dreary winter – which I love. But what the pandemic hadn’t managed to spoil was eventually urged indoors for the next however many months.
Trevor got a job at the post office. He started delivering mail on neighborhood routes through St. Paul. And yes, he delivered mail right through the winter which, in spite of what some native Minnesotans might say, was cold as hell.
After a little while, Trevor came back with a rough cut of a new song: The Pride of Saint Paul. It’s a fun and campy little number, that grinning tip-o-the-hat Country & Western Swing that takes me right back to Bob Wills or Sons of the Pioneers. Perhaps it’s even more of a special tune for me as it’s an homage to our beautiful St. Paul, Minnesota, penned by another recent transplant like myself (in Trevor’s case - San Diego).
Trevor found this old gold satin boxing robe with blue fringe at the Bearded Mermaid Bazaar. On the back was written “St. Paul Champ.” The owner of the Bearded Mermaid was kind enough to lend us the robe for a spell while we zipped around town to snap pictures of Trevor wearing the robe, serenading the city, and waiving his hat to traffic and passersby.
One of the spots we visited was a dock that juts right out on the Mississippi. Just like Portland’s Swim Dock, it is low to the water and beset by the city skyline. There was a crowd of visitors - and I realized the dock was maybe not such a great choice for capturing portraits.
I asked Trevor if he’d be comfortable playing a couple songs to people standing around. He smiled wide and quickly gathered himself up - transforming into a natural crowd-pleasing showman. And for this small crowd and for our city he tucked into Pride of Saint Paul with the comfort and joy of finding his stage again.
From his site: Trevor McSpadden worked Central Texas dance halls before perfecting his hard honky-tonk sound in the nightclubs of Chicago. Moving to California in early 2014, Trevor made short work of ingratiating himself to the Golden State. He'll start 2020 based out of Saint Paul, Minnesota. McSpadden’s carefully crafted twang is at home in both beer joints and listening rooms, inspiring audiences to dance and carry on in the time-honored way.
And a special thanks to The Bearded Mermaid Bazaar, part vintage clothing boutique and part curiosities gallery on seventh, next to the old Schmidt brewery. I gather the owners of the Mermaid are not in the habit of lending their clothes for tours around the city. So they were very generous to lend us the robe for the day. Shop for all your vintage stuff at the Bearded Mermaid.
*I used to play music. Maybe not professionally, but I was wild about it. Just before and after my divorce in 2006, I poured myself into playing music with the goal of “making it.” I even made an “album.” It got one good review, in Bellingham’s What’s Up magazine (I’ll take it). And I even got a couple shows.
To remember it now makes me cringe. The whole episode seems both terribly reckless, self-destructive and, just plain awful. In total, it doesn’t compare to a working musician’s life. Not even close. But I’d like to think I did catch a glimpse of what it takes to be a professional musician. And what I did catch was horrifying.
One show in particular, I’d been scheduled to open for two bands at a local bar. On a Monday night. Members from both bands found me at the bar with some friends and somehow convinced me to swap places with them. “We’ll open for you.” I remember them saying. And I was flattered, truly. And foolishly, since this was apparently an old trick regular musicians pulled on idiots who didn’t know better.
Of course, playing last meant having to sit through the obnoxiously indulgent sets of two bands who played 45 minutes over their allotted time. I remember listening to hot-lick guitar solos just going on and on. And at one point, the bassist from one of the bands climbed up on my keyboard amplifier. He broke off one of the knobs as he launched himself into an air-kick thing during a breakdown.
My performance was way off. I screwed up a huge, critical bridge thanks to a mis-click on a loop pedal. The song would have totally fallen apart if it wasn’t for the steady hand from the rest of the band who, in spite of whatever bullshit I was wrestling with, plodded forward with consistency and grace, god bless them. I think we finished our set at two in the morning. There were maybe eight people in the crowd. Husbands and girlfriends of my bandmates mostly who, I imagine, were all furious with me for keeping them up so late on a school night and for screwing the pooch on that one song there.
At the end of our set, the applause, if you could call it that, was obligatory and consoling – one of the worst sounds I’ve ever heard.
I returned to the bar the next day to pick up our earnings for the show, which came in around $19 per person. Or was it $19 total? I can’t remember. I just remember the number $19 and the look on the bartender’s face as he was handing it over. And this is why, to this day, I laud the work ethic, and hope to support working musicians any way I can. (And you should too.)