Lambrusco Nights, Singing Circle Seeds

C is for Commissary & Collaboration

Collaboration – a care circle of friends working across silos — is central to my work at hand for the next year.  Though there are many stories folded into how I got here, I trace a significant beginning back to a collaborative I built with friends at the North Carolina Museum of Art, when my dear friend George Holt asked me to curate a night to mark the 20th anniversary of the music series he began there.  

I wanted to gather my favorite people together for a family picnic, a one time noise and pocket full of treasures to say thank you to my hometown.  

In the months leading up to the event, Lambrusco Nights were born.  A close knit group of friends and makers began gathering at my house to DREAM.  We dreamt of community, oysters at farmer’s markets in France, a long table.  An outdoor living room commissary filled with treasures, vintage clothing, handmade jeans, bohemian beauty products. Jars of flowers and a sunset concert. We dreamt of Butch Anthony installing his traveling Museum of Wonder on stage, the stage open as an exhibit for exploring before the show, somehow raising up our pedals, chords and instruments from oversize luggage to immersive sculpture.  On Ebay, I bought a vintage putty-colored army parachute, large enough that it covered nearly the whole of the corner playground where we spread it out, Baby Jean rolling in the middle.  We cheered, laughed, lambruscoed. C is for Commissary.  Maybe it might work.

This poster is inspired by an 18th century textile;  I like it because it roots down and flowers at the same time. 

Touring makes creating a singular event difficult; tour is built from a load-in, load-out nature.  The audience sits where they are told, the singer stands behind the mic, the beer is expensive, the model scales best when large (with a large carbon footprint) and the transaction is repeated.  While the first month of touring with new material is exuberant, I have often scratched my head wondering how to turn a show on its head to imbue some new energy in it once the thrill of the fresh is gone.  But the central turn-it-on-your-head of touring is to transcend in mind the traveling circumstances.  It is a practice; it is a rhythm on repeat away from home.  

BUtCH ANTHONY’S MUSEUM OF WONDER for curious children of all ages. Butch is driving up from Seale, Alabama in Leon Russell’s Cadillac filled with his incredible work to install his traveling Museum of Wonder onstage, and we will open the stage before the show for the audience to enjoy.

But not this night. This was a one-time production.  I have no idea how we pulled so much off — but for the love and friendship that hoisted the parachute store (thank you amazing NCMA production team), the stage installation and that good noise —  that family of people continue to fill my heart, and nourish my days and projects.

I have no memory of being on stage. I can’t for the life of me find the set list for the show.  I have a day sheet for the show before the show, and an arrival time for Butch Anthony, who drove from Alabama in Leon Russell’s Cadillac filled with his creations. I have lists of things to do.  Power to the store.  Source wildflowers, table cloths, jars. Twelve pallets for Butch.  Assistants, load out plans, places to stay.  Get the champagne near the oysters, sofa, birdcage - what do these things even mean? I can’t remember and I’m tired just flipping through them. 

What I do remember is that my phone began ringing off the hook as soon as Butch got to town.  He’s here, friends rang.  I just passed the Cadillac.  My mom saw the Cadillac.  I heard Butch made it. I remember the intense heat of the August day, the friend volunteers filling jars of flowers other friends brought from gardens and roadsides.  I remember a stack of vintage tablecloths, a giant mess in my car.  I remember a family band; we sang each other’s songs rather than our own. I remember the extraordinary Alexandra Sauser-Monnig, kind and golden-voiced with her red hair overflowing while lucky baby Jean slept in her arms at rehearsal.  I remember the good earth sound of MC Taylor, whose sharp-toothed writing is simultaneously full of warmth, and Matt Lorenz, Suitcase Junket, with his found instruments – bones, feathers, a banjo missing a string –  the hilarious Eric Slick from Dr Dog, sweet Phil Cook on guitar and my always trusted musical companions, Jay Brown, Matt McCaughan and Eric Heywood.  I remember everyone’s willingness to go down the musical and creative path with me even though it all sounds like a ridiculous amount of work.  I am shaking my head at myself in the present.

COMMISSARY  C is for Commissary.  We are raising a handmade store to host curated textiles and botanicals by OakMoss Attic, locally handmade Raleigh Denim, and one of a kind pieces from Raleigh Vintage, as well as band vinyl and handmade guitar straps.

Funny how we forget things we swore were emblazoned on us forever.  I don’t even remember what I sang.  But that isn’t important.  What is indelible are the people who dreamt that show with me, who did crazy and kind things to pull it into the real.  I return to them often.  I return often to the feeling that real success is some smaller version of what’s advertised, requiring more rooting down than flowering.  I return often to the feeling of making good things with people I love, a lambrusco night which continues to reimagine what is possible.