T-Chicks Flood Indian Barry’s – No Survivors

Posted on September 27, 2008 by marcbeaudin

Technically, it was a scene often repeated: a local band releases a CD with a show at a local bar. Friends, family and fans flock in to show their support. I buy a disc (or score a freebie or trade a book for one), and proceed to drink too much for my own good.

But when the Thunderchickens took the stage at Indian Barry’s in Bay City to celebrate the release of Straight from the Coop, it was immediately apparent that this night was going to be far from a typical show. Very, very far.

From the moment the music started, it occurred to me that one doesn’t merely listen to or watch the Thunderchickens, one travels with them. They take you and you go – no questions. No hesitation. No doubts. You know that even though you have no idea where you’re headed, it’s exactly where you need to go.

It’s a rare band that can achieve such textures, such depth and richness, with only a four-piece. If you close your eyes, you will swear that there must be 7 top-notch musicians, 3 stellar vocalists, the ghosts of Gang of Four, Velvet Underground, Nicolo Paganini, and X, as well as 96 whirling dervishes and a bottle of the finest scotch ever spilled – all up there in epic synchronicity.

And this was only the beginning.

The songs continue; pounding into you and changing not merely your opinions about music, but the way you hear music – the way you hear everything. That’s the journey you are now on. They conjure up a sonic tidal wave. A surf breaking rocks (what surf-rock should have been). Jekel ravishes his guitar (think the grittier portrayals of “Leda and the Swan”), and Matt Kramer on drums and Justin McKinnon on bass carve cliffs and reefs riddled with the perches of screaming seabirds. Melissa May, in the center of it all, makes love to that ocean of sound. Offers herself to the sea with no fear of drowning. But it would be a mistake to write her off as merely a sexual force of energy – it is her words, her voice, her violin that make her a gifted artist who makes you willing to kill or die to have her there on that stage.

And now, a week or so after that night, I haven’t taken the disc out of my CD player. Every track grows richer and fuller with each listen. These songs have something to say, and what they say will haunt you.

Originally published in The Review Magazine
[Visit The Thunderchickens Here]

Posted in music review, Three-Mile Spiral, Writing | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Back in the Scrabble Again

Posted on September 14, 2008 by marcbeaudin

Three chapters into the new novel, and it finally feels like it’s coming back to me. The flow. The focus. The feeling of the right word at the right time. (“The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between the lightning and the lightning bug” –Mark Twain).

When I was writing A Handful of Dust, I got to the point where I was in that space all the time. I would do things like forget to eat and sneak away from parties to go back to my typewriter. Granted, it took me eight years to get to that point. Eight years of living with that story in my head and gut. While I was in Dublin, I finally figured out how the story could be told. I came back to Michigan as quickly as possible, found a free place to live, stocked up on coffee, pasta, and red wine, and wrote.

I stuck an index card on the wall above my typewriter that said, “Writer’s write; everyone else makes excuses.” Another wall was covered with hundreds of small scraps of paper with the details of the book scrawled on them. I had my journals, a few stacks of books, and a small radio tuned to the public radio station — I organized notes during classical music and wrote during jazz.

This time around I have a studio/cabin full of books and CD’s, a good supply of Rainier beer, a talkative cat, and the mountains. All of them help.

Tomorrow morning, we start chapter four. Wish me luck.

Posted in Writing | 2 Comments

Today’s Writing . . .

Posted on September 13, 2008 by marcbeaudin

. . . Not a word, really.

I looked at chapter 3 of the new novel I’m working on. I changed one or two words. I remembered the the type of boat motor I wanted to have one of the characters use was an Evinrude 7.5 horsepower. But other than that? . . . Crickets.

Well, in all fairness, I did write most of a blog about 9/11 and having dinner with three amazing and pretty well-known writers, but it began to feel like a facade for name-dropping, so I scrapped it. There was a point to it, though. Maybe I’ll rewrite it and just use their initials.

But the point is; I’m trying to get into the habit of writing everyday. At least a page. Or a poem. Something to justify this life of complete leisure I’ve managed to devise. Maybe I can decide that today was the last day of a little vacation and tomorrow it back to the grindstone. Yes, tomorrow there will be two pages to make up for today.

I did write something the day before, though. A short poem that I composed while still half asleep. It made much more sense at the time, but here it is:

Smoke rings silent
around the bell of his head
Bell rings once: deafening

Posted in poetry, Writing | 2 Comments