Handshake Media

I spent the majority of 2013 between jobs, working a couple nights a week and going to a LOT of shows. I went to almost a hundred shows, which means that basically every three or four nights I was out gallivanting around town, taking in the arts. In retrospect, it was probably a bit irresponsible of me to be out almost every night giving money to strangers when I didn't know how I was going to make rent or buy food most of the time. But, well, I don't have anything to say about that. Here, in chronological order, are my favorite shows of 2013.

Ty Segall and Ex-Cult @ The Empty Bottle, Chicago, IL (2.9.13)

Chelsea Light Moving, Cave, Jeremy Lemos @ The Empty Bottle, Chicago, IL (3.29.13)

Besnard Lakes and Suuns @ Schubas Tavern, Chicago, IL (4.20.13)

Deerhunter, The Black Angels, Black Mountain, Boris, Goat, Suuns, Clinic, Warpaint, Tjutjuna, Tinariwen, White Fence, Besnard Lakes, King Khan and BBQ Show, Silver Apples, Cosmonauts, and MORE @ Austin Psych Fest, Carson Creek Ranch, Austin, TX (4.26-28.13)

Boris, Young Widows, Pallbearer @ Lincoln Hall, Chicago, IL (5.10-11.13)

Kurt Vile and Steve Gunn @ Lincoln Hall, Chicago, IL (5.14.13)

Vietnam @ Schubas Tavern, Chicago, IL (5.15.13)

Bloodiest @ The Owl, Chicago, IL (5.16.13)

Ariel Pink, Purple Pilgrims, ET Habit @ The Empty Bottle, Chicago, IL (6.1.13)

Bombino @ Martyr's, Chicago, IL (6.9.13)

Silver Apples @ The Owl, Chicago, IL (6.12.13)

Tobacco, Cave, Oscillator Bug, Jamaican Queens @ Logan Square Auditorium, Chicago, IL (6.28.13)

Mac Demarco, Ex-Cult, OBN IIIs @ The Empty Bottle, Chicago, IL (7.20.13)

Angel Olsen and Implodes @ Lincoln Hall, Chicago, IL (8.16.13)

Richard Buckner @ Schubas Tavern, Chicago, IL (8.19.13)

Deerhunter and Marnie Stern @ The Metro, Chicago, IL (9.10.13)

Disappears, Weekend, Outside World @ The Empty Bottle, Chicago, IL (9.20.13)

Meat Puppets and Enemy Planes @ The Empty Bottle, Chicago, IL (9.27.13)

Verma, Basic Cable, Rectal Hygienics, The Funs @ The Empty Bottle, Chicago, IL (10.7.13)

Unknown Mortal Orchestra and Wolf People @ Lincoln Hall, Chicago, IL (10.21.13)

Thee Oh Sees, OBN IIIs, The Blind Shake @ The Empty Bottle and Permanent Records, Chicago, IL (10.22-23.13)

Besnard Lakes, Elephant Stone, Secret Colours @ The Empty Bottle, Chicago, IL (11.6.13)

A bunch of friends and acquaintances of mine are making their year end lists, and I'm really enjoying all of them. I'm not usually one to do this sort of thing, but what the hell, right? I have to use this blog for something. So here's my list. In no particular order. Anyone who says there's no good music anymore is a moron. Go to more shows. Buy more records.

Unknown Mortal Orchestra, "II" (Jagjaguwar)

Way more mellow and soulful than their debut album, and layered with just as many dreamy melodies and hooks. "So Good at Being in Trouble" is one of my favorite tracks of the year.

Suuns, "Images du Futur" (Secretly Canadian)

Some of the most creative and original musicianship out there, in my opinion. These young dudes are really doing something special, and are only going to continue to improve unless they have some sort of a Foxygen-esque meltdown. They seem too cool for that, though. That Foxygen guy is a goddamned moron. Total douche bag. Screaming at his band members in the green room, and encouraging his crowd to clap and dance and act like idiots while everyone is just staring at him in silence, thinking about how he is destined for an unfortunate future. Fuck that guy. But wait. This is about Suuns, not Foxygen. Suuns. The night they opened for Besnard Lakes at Schubas was magical, if you don't mind me using that terrible word.

Thee Oh Sees, "Floating Coffin" (Castle Face Records)

Speaking of magical shows, how cool was it for those of us Chicago folks who got to see Thee Oh Sees three times in two days, thanks to the stellar partnership between Permanent Records and the Empty Bottle (that I hope lasts forever)? Fuck. That was great. This album rules. This band rules. And I'm just going to pretend that I didn't just hear that they are on an indefinite hiatus. Because they should definitely release several more albums and play several more shows before anything ridiculous like that happens.

Deerhunter, "Monomania" (4AD)

I had nothing to listen to in my car except this cassette tape and a Johnny Cash tape for a good six months, and I didn't get sick of either of them. Then the parking tickets started to pile up and I found out that I needed to get a new timing belt, so I sold my car. Driving in Chicago is for the birds. But that's beside the point. This album is less psychedelic and more poppy than previous Deerhunter releases, but there's nothing wrong with that. Cryptograms is still probably my favorite, but I'll listen to this album without complaint for years to come.

Tyler, the Creator, "Wolf" (Odd Future Records)

Before you nail me to the wall for supporting a violent homophobe with a creepy voice, just listen to the goddamned record. This kid is smart. Super smart. He's hilarious. And he's not homophobic. He probably has more gay friends than you do, up there on your magical rainbow pedestal. He just has the unfortunate habit of saying the word faggot. A lot. But he'll learn. He was the first kid to come out in support of Frank Ocean when little Frankie O. came out of the closet, and at Pitchfork he was hanging out with some serious flamers, you guys. Taking pictures and hamming it up and shit. I sat there and watched 'em for a good twenty minutes. Like a creeper. You heard it here, first. All that aside, though, these beats? These lyrics? Gold. This kid is talented.

Bombino, "Nomad" (Nonesuch)

Anyone who knows me knows I'm a sucker for Ethiopian jazz and traditional West African music (these guys are actually from Niger, which is more north central, but there are similarities), and even though Dan Auerbach (the Black Keys guitarist and producer of this album) tried to ruin this whole effort by rather arrogantly making Bombino's guitar sound more like his at points and making music videos prominently featuring HIMSELF (I really don't like that guy), Bombino's Tuareg spirit still shines through. This band puts on a great show, too, even though they usually end up playing at weird hippie clubs (like Martyr's) that book jam bands and shit, because people don't know what they're getting into booking a bunch of dudes in robes, and just assume that there will be people banging bongos and dancing in circles. People are morons.

Bill Callahan, "Dream River" (Drag City)

You won't catch me playing these songs in the bar (a little too mellow), but ever since it got cold and cloudy this album has pretty much lived on the turntable in my dark little basement apartment. My dog seems to like it, too. I love Bill Callahan, and I love that he has evolved from being a lo-fi cult weirdo, to Cat Power's depressed boyfriend (with that one song on that one movie), to Joanna Newsome's less-depressed boyfriend (with increasingly good guitar skills and a KILLER backing band of guys who look like they make their own soap), to that single weirdo who lives in a cabin in the woods behind your uncle's country acreage in some Southern state and maybe pees on his feet sometimes and is now one of the best goddamned songwriters out there.

Steve Gunn, "Time Off" (Paradise of Bachelors)

I just got this album, and it helped bring me out of a somewhat troubling (albeit brief) return to all the old Grateful Dead albums I used to listen to back when a relaxing evening consisted of taking a bunch of bong rips and maybe eating some acid. So if you feel like listening to some old Neil Young or Grateful Dead or whatever, but you don't REALLY feel like listening to those guys for the thousandth time (nothing against those guys, it just gets old listening to the same shit all the time), maybe give this one a ride. Steve Gunn! Good stuff.

Cave, "Threace" (Drag City)

If you like repetitive ZZ Top-esque guitar riffs and unbelievable drummers and just really great, locked in, bass-led grooves, then you need to own this record. The jazz flute is a little weird and off-putting (especially when amped-up bros in flat-brimmed caps and sweats cheer for more flute at shows), but everything else makes up for that and then some. Maybe my most-played album of the year.

Disappears, "Era" (Kranky)

When this album dropped this summer, I remember some Pitchfork reviewer saying something about it being a Ciroc martini with a black beetle running around the rim. What the fuck was that guy on? I have no idea. I mean, that's a memorable sentence, I guess. So I'll give him that. But really, guy? Jesus. All that aside, Disappears will forever be one of my favorite Chicago bands. Great bassist, amazing, drool-inducing guitar work, a talented and breathy and just-weird-enough vocalist with a kind of less-alien-and-not-as-squeaky Thom Yorke vibe going on (nothing against Thom, but you know what I mean), a rotating bevy of killer drummers (note: Noah Leger taking over for Steve Shelley is not that big of a deal). No bullshit with this band. They get up there, they shred your face, and they leave the stage clean. And this album doesn't have a "Replicate" or a "Joa" (my two favorite tracks off of 2012's Pre Language), but what it does have is more than passable. Really good stuff here all around.

Chelsea Light Moving, "Chelsea Light Moving" (Matador)

Medlar Lucan's Recipe from the Decadent Kitchen of Life

Stolen from The Chap Magazine. Issue 26. Summer 2005: 25-27. Print.

The bohemian ideal of living—free, spontaneous, irresponsible—is enjoying a new and exciting vogue among people of taste. To salute this glittering social development, I should like to provide you with the Twelve Commandments of the Bohemian Life.

1. BE POOR—GLAMOROUSLY

This does not mean "have no money." It means "have money, but spend it irresponsibly," so that you never have enough for necessities, only for luxuries. Your rent money, set carefully aside in a cocoa tin, should be spent on beer or champagne. Avoid such things as pension schemes, mortgages, insurance policies, savings, cash ISAs, etc., like the plague. Live simply but extravagantly. Get hold of a private income if you can.

2. BE ARTISTIC

This you can do in several ways. Here they are in ascending order of difficulty.

The easiest way is to look like an artist. Dress the part: have messy hair, paint-splattered shoes, use no knickers, wear a jacket next to your bare skin. If you wear a shirt, hang it out of your trousers. If you have a vest, wear it instead of a shirt. Your home should be a ruined palace. If you can't manage that, a squat or a farmhouse will do. Be stylish with the poorest of materials.

A slightly harder option is to be an artist. This used to involve renting a studio, buying a smock and beret, paints, canvases, bottles of turpentine, an easel, etc. Today it's much cheaper, you just need a "concept," the more nebulous the better.

Hardest of all is to be a work of art yourself: a dandy, a fop, a living sculpture. This requires extraordinary self-discipline. It is not for the faint-hearted. Every volt of your spiritual energy must be projected onto the surface of things, not a glimpse of the soul must appear—except in the very fact of its invisibility. This process of distillation is not unlike that which goes into the production of the finest vodka.

3. BE DRUNK

Be drunk on booze, ideas, hashish (highly recommended by Charles Baudelaire, the Prince of Bohemians), no matter what. Drunkenness should be regarded as the default state of consciousness. If you can't be drunk, be hungover. This will help you with all the other commandments. It is an essential part of being artistic.

4. BE DISORDERLY

This is fundamental. Be hugely disorganized. In all things. Your appearance, personal habits, the storage of your possessions. Cultivate mess. Mess is creative. It must have no limits. Keep your food, papers, music, books, clothes, drink, face creams, etc. in the same undifferentiated heap, so that you find bits of last week's curry in your copy of Crime and Punishment, and all your CDs are smeared with marmalade, pate, or caviar. Never wash up, never tidy up, never do any cleaning. You must constantly lose things. You must never repair anything. If it's broke, don't fix it.

5. BE YOUNG

This has nothing to do with physical age. It is quite possible to be 20 and have the mental habits of a 60 year-old. Or vice versa. It is all a question of mentality. Free your mind. Experiment. Improvise. Take chances. Trust to luck, charm, and glamour to get you through. You must also prepare to die young rather than succumb to a tedious decline into age and responsibility.

6. BE SOCIABLE

Spend your days in cafés, laughing at people who go to work. Be surrounded by brilliant friends. Treat life as a party.

7. BE AN ANARCHIST

For the bohemian, authority exists for just one purpose—to be mocked, subverted, and despised. The State is merely ridiculous. So are all lawyers, bankers, financiers, and politicians. Rules are for the unimaginative, the dull, the mediocre. Mistrust all forms of organization. Organization is death.

8. BE SPONTANEOUS

Make no plans except wild ones. Do everything on the spur of the moment. Damn the consequences. Be unpredictable and unreliable. Break promises. If necessary, make a few promises solely in order to break them. It will cure you of the belief—forged in childhood—that promises are things to be kept.

9. BE PROMISCUOUS

Rove and forage like a mountain goat—not just in your sexual behavior (which is part of spontaneity), but also in food, friends, philosophy, all areas. Dabble in Zen Buddhism and Garbage Theory. Eat unusual foods and combinations of food; follow Joe Orton's example—have sardines with rice pudding and jam. For bohemian sex, mix up romance and cynicism, beauty and squalor. The 19th Century novelist Gustave Flaubert, as a law student in Paris, enjoyed having sex in brothels "with a cigar in his teeth." Always bring a touch of vaudeville to it.

10. BE UNIQUE

Avoid fashion! Either be behind the times or ahead of them; even better, miles out to the side. Do what others only dream of doing, or would dream of if they had the courage. Remember that glamour comes not from what famous people do, but from your own mysterious inner light.

11. STUDY THE LIVES OF THE GREAT BOHEMIANS

Arthur Rimbaud, Charles Baudelaire, D.H. Lawrence, Augustus John, Joe Orton, Otto Gross, St. Simeon Stylites (who lived on top of a pillar in Syria). These are the pioneers. Pick up tips from them. Be eclectic, inconsistent, experimental—but there's no need to reinvent the wheel.

12. DISREGARD ALL RULES AND COMMANDMENTS, INCLUDING THE ABOVE

You cannot be unique if you pay attention to rules, or care too much about what other people think. So do it your own way. There is no "should and shouldn't," only what is.

This letter ended up being responsible for the garbage can (and lack of litter) just south of Illinois National Guard building in Humboldt Park, where the path to the park meets with the eastern sidewalk of Kedzie Ave. Thanks to Alderman Maldonado for listening and taking quick action.

Alderman Maldonado:

I recently moved to Humboldt Park after four years in Logan Square and two in Roscoe Village, and I have to say that I am in love. After moving in to my building on the corner of Kedzie and North, I was immediately shocked not only by the beauty of the park—the way the sun casts long, westerly shadows over the dewy grass in the early morning hours; the way the downtown skyline is painted crisply across the eastern horizon on clear days; the purplish color that envelopes the lagoon in the evening hours, when the geese step gingerly into the water as joggers patter by and fishermen pack up their tackle boxes for the night—but also by the unmistakable sense of community found on all sides of the park.

I came to this neighborhood fully aware that I was inserting myself into a very tight-knit community with an unbreakable bond to a proud past, and I had every intention to act appropriately, and afford everyone I met only the utmost respect and civility. To be quite honest, I planned on becoming invisible. But the thing is, I have not once felt unwelcomed or out of place here. Literally everyone I pass on my daily walks now knows the name of my dog, though Willie and I have only been in the neighborhood for little more than a few weeks. We cross Kedzie every morning past the Illinois National Guard building, across Luis Munoz Marin Drive, past the northernmost baseball diamonds, across the Humboldt Boulevard bridge and past the boathouse, through the wide open southeastern fields, past the seasonal food trucks, the Home monument, and out onto California. We walk down past the Citgo, the Dunkin’ Donuts, Bullhead Cantina, The Flying Saucer, Adams & Sons Gardens, the Monarch Community Gardens, The Yellow Book, The California Clipper, Knockbox Café, and everything in between. We receive no less than two dozen friendly waves and hellos along the way. And that’s the honest truth.

Humboldt Park, as you more than likely realize, often gets a bad rap among other north side communities. That bad rap may be based on hard crime statistics and a noticeable police presence, sure, but I think it stems more so from a thinly-veiled racism and fear of the unknown (as most things do). But that is not for me to discuss here. The only remotely shady thing I have seen take place in the park so far was some crude behavior by a gaggle of teenage boys, and we all know that teenage boys—when gathered in herds devoid of any sort of authority figure—can be assholes no matter where you are or who you are dealing with. But I am simply saying that I am shocked at just how kind and communal everyone in your ward has been to my dog and I thus far, from the Puerto Rican families picnicking on the park slopes, to the white 20-somethings riding their bikes home from work with groceries tucked under their arms, to the proud parents watching their kids play in their first little league games, to the old man in my building who sits in his apartment and drinks tall boys all afternoon, then dons his crisp-billed Kangol hat and walks out into the park with a garbage bag to pick up litter.

Which finally brings me to the point of this letter. Compared to the first time I walked through Humboldt Park some eight years ago, the litter problem has improved by leaps and bounds. There are far more garbage cans and recycling bins, and far less Styrofoam cups and McDonalds bags floating in the lagoon. This is an amazing, amazing accomplishment for which you and your community most definitely deserve to be applauded. However, due possibly to westerly winds and the fact that the massive concrete Illinois National Guard building serves as a sort of barrier that keeps that wind from sweeping across North Avenue towards Albany and beyond, the most litter I see in the park on a daily basis can be found swirling around in little garbage cyclones right there on the tiny plot of land just south of Illinois National Guard building, where the path to the park meets with the eastern sidewalk of Kedzie Ave.

If it would be possible to get one more garbage can right there at that very spot, the collection of litter done by myself and my fellow Kedzie and North residents on a daily basis would be a far easier task. I am aware that there is a garbage can just east of that spot, where the path to the park meets Luis Munoz Marin Drive, but you and I know that there are a lot of people in this world who won’t walk two steps out of their way to throw something in the trash, let alone a hundred yards.

Anyway, thanks for listening. You do good things, sir, and I’m sure you will continue to do so on into the future.

Have a good summer.

Sincerely,

Dan Duffy

Anyone who has driven through Illinois can tell you that there isn’t much there. Corn, wheat, and soybeans dominate the state, along with a smattering of cattle and hog farms and hundreds of small, sleepy towns whose local economies have collapsed because the residents all flee to the nearest Wal-Mart whenever they need to buy anything. In that way, Illinois isn’t much different from every other state in the Middle West.

The central part of Southern Illinois that stretches from Alton in the West to the Kaskaskia River in the East is 175 square-mile flood plain known as the American Bottom. On our way down to Memphis, we stopped in the American Bottom in a small town called Mount Olive to pay our respects to the legendary Mary “Mother” Jones—the “grandmother of all agitators.” Mother Jones is buried in Mount Olive’s Union Miners Cemetery alongside miners who died in the Virden Riot of 1898. She called those miners “her boys.”

  Jones claimed she was born on May 1, 1830, possibly to coincide with the anniversary of the Haymarket Affair. Her actual birthday was later found to be August 1, 1837.

A bulletin board next to her grave is decorated with labor pins dating back decades.

I lived in St. Louis for two years and never went to artist Bob Cassilly’s City Museum. It is one weird place—a multi-floored surrealistic playground. Totally worth a visit. 

The early-nineteenth-century log cabin hidden below this enormous sculpture outside the City Museum (known as MonstroCity) was originally the home of the son of Daniel Boone.

City Museum was once a shoe factory and warehouse, but was completely vacant when Cassilly bought the building in 1993.

MonstroCity has a ball pit for adults.

And the restrooms are impeccably clean.

After ten hours of driving through central Illinois, blasting through St. Louis, and then following the Mississippi River down through Kentucky and Tennessee, we arrived in Memphis just in time to drink a couple of beers and fall asleep. The following morning we awoke at dawn and made our way to the oldest restaurant in Memphis: The Arcade. The restaurant was founded in 1919, transformed into a hip diner in the ‘50s, and almost forgotten when downtown Memphis became a ghost town with the decline of the railroad, the exodus of downtown businesses, and the riots following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968. It was revived again in the ‘80s, however, and has been popular ever since. Scenes from Mystery Train, Great Balls of Fire, The Client, The Firm, 21 Grams, Elizabethtown, Walk the Line, and My Blueberry Nights, just to name a few, have all been filmed in The Arcade.

When all businesses in Memphis were ordered to close during the riots of 1968, the owner of The Arcade, which had been open non-stop for fifty years, had to go out and buy a lock.

The faded booths, worn tables, and trolleys rolling by outside conjur up the days of Old Memphis.

Knowing that we had a good six hour drive ahead of us, we were itching to jump on out of Memphis and head down Highway 51 to New Orleans, but we knew we couldn’t leave without touring Sam Phillips’ legendary Sun Studio first. “The birthplace of rock and roll” didn’t disappoint, even though we ended up touring the joint with a busload of bloated Elvis fans.

The best part of the thing—other than seeing Sam Phillips’ old recording equipment— was when the tour guide—a rockabilly-lookin’ dude with Buddy Holly glasses and mutton chops who kept pitching his own damned rock band the whole time—gave a lecture on the early days on Sun Records, and played clips of each artist as they came up in the conversation. We heard several clips, of course, but the ones that stick with me the most are Howlin’ Wolf, The Prisonaires singing “Just Walkin’ in the Rain” (which they were let out of prison to record in June 1953), and, of course, a frightened and almost pre-pubescent-sounding Elvis singing “My Happiness,” which he would later claim he only wanted to record in order to give it to his mother as a gift.

The record store at Sun Studio has 45s from Howlin’ Wolf, Johnny Cash, Little Milton, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, Charlie Feathers, Jerry Lee Lewis, and dozens of other artists.

The tour ends with the opportunity for fans to pose with Elvis’s microphone. Of course.

William Faulkner once wrote that “Mississippi starts in the lobby of a Memphis, Tennessee, hotel and extends south to the Gulf of Mexico.” We covered the Faulkner’s home state in about six hours after leaving Sun Studio, and pulled into New Orleans after sundown. It’s a crying shame that I didn’t get any good photographs while crossing the bridge over the bayou just west of Lake Pontchartrain. That is some of the most bizarre terrain in the United States, and people actually live there—spending their lives tooling around in their little boats and hoping the stilts on their houses don’t give.

We awoke in the Chateau Dupre the following morning and embarked on a walking tour through the French Quarter and the Marigny and Bywater neighborhoods.

This is Chris Rose, writing about New Orleans in his critically-acclaimed collection 1 Dead in Attic, which documents four months in the city following Hurricane Katrina:         

“I’m not going to lay down in words the lure of this place. Every great writer in the land, from Faulkner to Twain to Rice to Ford, has tried to do it and fallen short. It is impossible to capture the essence, tolerance, and spirit of south Louisiana in words and to try is to roll down a road of clichés, bouncing over beignets and beads and brass bands and it just is what it is. It is home.”

Unlike other cities whose locals shun tourists for the most part, almost everyone we talked to in New Orleans ended up mentioning something about us moving there and starting a business.

New Orleans has an average yearly high of around 80, and a low around 60.

Marigny and Bywater are pretty amazing neighborhoods.

They are residential for the most part, but there are hidden gems all over the place.

All throughout the city there are remnants of a past existence that the city's residents have somehow managed to bring foreword with them into the present day.

Things that don't seem to belong, but strangely do.

Saturn Bar is one of the coolest bars on the planet, and it's just a house on a corner.

And places like this are everywhere, with people outside having beers and talkin' shit.

The greatest thing about the city's aesthetic, though (in my humble opinion), is the fact that its residents aren't afraid to let things get a little worn-looking.

Very worn-looking, at times.

Most shutters in the city look like these.

And furthermore, when it does finally come time to paint something, people aren't afraid of color.

We never found the Banksy we were looking for, but we found this gem.

The Before I Die wall was created by artist Candy Chang.

According to Chang's website, "over 425 Before I Die walls have been created in over 25 languages and over 60 countries, including Kazakhstan, Portugal, Japan, Denmark, Iraq, Argentina, and South Africa."

This is the St. Vincent De Paul Cemetery—one of 42 above-ground cemeteries in the city.

The man loved his shoes.

These plants are growing out of dead people.

The house where Faulkner wrote his first novel was built in 1840 at the site of a former French Colonial Prison. Today it's a killer bookstore.

Every city has its neighborhood that should be avoided. The French Quarter is great for the most part, but Bourbon Street is a goddamned circus year round. Drunk amateurs.

We saw the Black Angels at One Eyed Jacks. There were burlesque dancers.

The side streets are scattered with loiterers and lit with the open flames of gas lamps.

These three were hanging out where a killer street band was working a crowd into a frenzy. They clapped. 

If they would have let me take photos inside this place, you'd see what voodoo is really all about. Instead, you just get some cheesy trinkets from their display case outside.

This is the Eureka Masonic College in Richland, Mississippi. We were driving by it on our way home and thought, "Oh, that place looks bizarre. Let's go check it out." Then we read a little pamphlet full of phrases like "Eastern Star Members" and "Architect and Master Builder of the Highest Order," and we felt all weird and dirty inside. Now I feel like I'm going to be murdered just for writing about the place.

Cults are something else.

  Just across the Mississippi from St. Louis is Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site.

Around 1,400 years ago, thousands of workers moved more than 55 million cubic feet of earth in woven baskets to create a network of mounds and community plazas. They built cities where there were nothing but flat lands.

To be completely honest, though, the Cahokia Mounds are boring unless you know that. So keep it in mind if you decide to drop by.

It’s eight o’clock in the morning on a sunny and cold Monday in April, and I’m standing in a relatively short line at a Jewel Osco with a bouquet of lilies, an orange, an apple, a banana, and a white linen napkin that I stole from work stuffed in my pants pocket. My instructions are to take these various items to the Chicago Meditation Center, where—after an exchange of a large sum of money—a trained Vedic Meditation instructor named Light will place them on an altar in front of a multi-colored picture of a bearded man in a saffron robe, sitting in the lotus position with a wise and peaceful look on his round face. There will be a ceremony of sorts, and I will be given my top secret mantra, which Light will have selected specifically for me. I’ll chant the mantra with Light until it has secured a firm foundation in my memory, and then I’ll repeat it silently to myself, over and over again. If everything works out as planned, I’ll eventually attain a state of complete relaxation and what is referred to as “cosmic consciousness,” and I’ll then be free to use my mantra whenever I want for the rest of my life.

Most of the other people that will be taking part in their own individual orientation ceremonies today are probably crawling out of their skin with excitement right now. I have spent the past two months researching this particular form of meditation, however, and I feel nothing but a slight tinge of anxiety. I’m nervous that Light will see through my feigned enthusiasm, and will see down to my core, where I am positive that this entire thing is nothing but an elaborate scam. I have come too far to turn back now, though. I’m going in.

******

In 1941, after decades of meditation and living alone in the wilderness of India, the 70 year-old Brahmananda Saraswati became the spiritual leader of Jyotir Math, a large Hindu monastery in northeastern India. Saraswati, known to his disciples as Guru Dev (Greatest Teacher), served at the monastery for twelve years, and was regarded as the foremost teacher of what followers referred to as the “ancient Vedic science of consciousness.”

In 1953, Saraswati died of poisoning. Nobody knows who poisoned him, but he definitely dropped dead. Two years later, the spiritual leader’s personal assistant—a 44 year-old Indian man named Mahesh Prasad Varma—emerged from the Himalayan foothills, where he had isolated himself, supposedly in sorrow, following the death of his master. Mahesh awarded himself with the title Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (“Maharishi” means “Great Seer of Truth” and “Yogi” implies an expansive knowledge of yogic disciplines), and he began to teach a simplified form of the “ancient Vedic science” that he had learned from Saraswati, which he claimed had been around for five thousand years.[1]

Mahesh had organized his simplified meditation technique into a complete system based on a literal interpretation of yogic concepts and the repetition of mantras, which could only be learnt from trained teachers for a hefty sum. He dubbed the system Transcendental Meditation, and in 1957 he founded the Spiritual Regeneration Movement, the first of several organizations collectively known as the Transcendental Meditation Movement—a movement that now has millions of members worldwide.

******

My first visit to the Chicago Meditation Center was for an introductory lecture, given by Light, on a Monday evening approximately one month before I would return for my orientation ceremony. The CMC is located in a second floor studio and art gallery on Milwaukee Avenue in Wicker Park. It sits above a recently closed furniture store, next to U.S. #1 Denim and Boots, where you can ask the denim-obsessed store owner for a pair of jeans from a certain year and he’ll find them for you. Across the street from the CMC are a trendy bar, a dark and sexy Italian restaurant called Café Bionda (where Johnny Depp once dined), another trendy clothing boutique, and the Brown Elephant Thrift Store.

I arrived at the CMC around seven o’clock to find a green paper sign taped to the inside of a glass door that read “Meditation on 2nd Floor,” written in black pen with a crudely drawn arrow pointing up. I walked up dozens of dusty stairs, noting the footprints in the dust when I got to the landing at the top of the flight. I pushed through the door of the studio.

The room that I entered was huge, with bare white walls illuminated by track lighting hanging off the high, intricately-patterned tin ceiling. To my left, three large, curtainless windows faced out on Milwaukee Avenue, and in front of those windows, in the center of the otherwise empty room, two beige couches and a few chairs were arranged around a blue velvet armchair. The armchair was positioned next to a small white end table on which sat a framed picture of a man with flowing grey and white hair and a long beard.

A middle-aged couple was seated on one of the couches. They smiled and said hello to me as I slipped off my shoes.

“You can put your coat and backpack on that bench there by the door,” the woman said. She stood from her spot on the couch and walked over to shake my hand. “Light told us to greet people as they came in, and said he’d be out in a minute. My name is Maria, and this is Carlos.” I shook their hands and introduced myself. Maria asked if it was my “first time,” to which I smiled and said “Yes,” and then added, somewhat awkwardly, “and I’m excited!”

Carlos nodded. “Us, too.” He smelled strongly of Old Spice.

I slipped off my jacket, sweatshirt, and backpack, placed them on the blue, retro bench next to the doorway, and then walked over to sit on the unoccupied couch. To my right, on the small wall next to the hallway that lead to the kitchen, a chalkboard had what appeared to be a mantra written on it four and a half times. It seemed almost staged, as the writer of the mantra, which I assume was Light, was interrupted halfway through the fifth writing of the mantra. I seriously doubted that he had actually been interrupted while writing a mantra over and over for some reason—thinking instead that he probably scrawled it up there right before we all arrived just because it looked cool, and made him seem more legit.

******

A telling description of Mahesh’s rise from obscurity to worldwide fame is offered by former TM teacher Joe Kellett. Kellett has founded a website, Falling Down the TM Rabbit Hole, which pretty much outs Mahesh Prasad Varma as a sociopathic fraud. Kellett, though quite serious in his scathing critique of the spiritual leader, is also a wellspring of humorous analogies:

“Imagine that the Pope dies,” the former TM teacher explains. “Then a couple of years later this Catholic monk who was personal assistant to the Pope canonizes himself a Saint and begins to teach ‘the revived lost secrets of Catholicism.’ This assistant declares that ‘sainthood is easy,’ and can be attained with five to eight years of daily ‘twenty minutes twice a day’ practice of a technique involving daily eyes-closed mental repetition of the words ‘Ave Maria.’ He claims that he is acting under the inspiration and instructions of the late Pope, who is still actively guiding him. Then, after a few years, he realizes that people are ‘put off’ by the spiritual angle, so he begins to market the practice as a ‘simple natural relaxation technique,’ and membership soars.”

This was exactly what Mahesh did, though it was more than “a few years” before he began marketing TM as a relaxation technique with no religious affiliations. Taking advantage of the rising popularity of meditation in the West, Mahesh introduced TM to Europe and North America in 1958 as a “Spiritual Regeneration Movement,” marketing it with posters that read “Begin to experience God.” This approach worked well, and throughout the 1960s, Mahesh became one of the first Eastern gurus to gather a massive Western following after his movement took on celebrities such as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Beach Boys, Donovan, Mia Farrow, Shirley MacLaine, Clint Eastwood, Kurt Vonnegut, David Lynch, and Joe Namath.

It wasn’t long before controversy surrounding Mahesh and his TM Movement became public, however. The Great Seer of Truth, it turns out, was attempting to use his influence as a spiritual leader to get himself into bed with the ladies.

Though several practitioners of TM were so indoctrinated into the movement by that point that they didn’t let Mahesh’s antics bother them, several others dropped out and encouraged their friends to do the same. John Lennon, who had at one point been one of the biggest promoters of TM, spoke out against Mahesh in an interview with Rolling Stone: “There was a big hullabaloo about him trying to rape Mia Farrow and trying to get off with Mia Farrow and a few other women,” Lennon revealed.

Angered by the allegations and by all the innocent young people he had turned on to the movement, Lennon wrote the song “Sexy Sadie” about Mahesh, which included the lyrics “Sexy Sadie, what have you done? / You made a fool of everyone,” and “Sexy Sadie, you’ll get yours yet / however big you think you are.”

“That’s about Maharishi,” Lennon later admitted. “I copped out and wouldn’t write ‘Maharishi, what have you done?’”

Despite the loss of the majority of its celebrity promotion, the TM Movement still found ways to keep people signing up for training—some of which included promising to teach people how to fly and walk through walls. Mahesh also switched to a more scientific approach, totally quashing any presentation of TM as a spiritual technique to the public. It was medically proven that meditation reduced metabolic activity (thereby producing relaxation), and all teachers of TM were instructed to emphasize that point repeatedly to their students. Again, this approach worked, and has continued to work to the present day. Today, the TM Movement has training centers all over the world, manned by meditation instructors who teach four-day-long introductory classes for $1,500 per person. It also has an accredited university in Fairfield, Iowa—the Maharishi University of Management—and in 1992 it formed its own political party—the Natural Law Party—which supported political candidates dedicated to promoting the Transcendental Meditation Movement.[2]

******

Light stepped out of the dark hallway that led to the kitchen as more people begin filing into the room, introducing himself to them and telling them to slip off their shoes and take a seat. He was barefoot, and wearing black pants and a black, buttoned-up shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the middle of his forearms.

Light is a handsome man. His head is shaved bald, and he has dark skin, huge blue eyes, gleaming white teeth, and a neatly trimmed goatee. His voice is low and pleasing to the ear, and he is extremely charismatic, and obviously thinks before he speaks, as his cadence is slow and purposeful. He also gestures with his hand to emphasize his points, his pointer and middle fingers pressed to his thumb as if he were preparing to hurl darts to their targets, not unlike the gestures that President Barack Obama makes when he speaks.

Light was born and raised in Alabama, and has spent much of his adult life travelling between New York, Chicago, Vancouver, Canada, and Venice, California, where he is currently based. He was one of Los Angeles’s most popular Hatha Yoga instructors before becoming a Vedic Meditation instructor in 2007, and in the five years that have passed since then, he has apparently taught thousands of people to meditate.

I had meditated before, several times, in several different locations with several different teachers, but never with a teacher who was so young and fashionable, and never with a teacher who didn’t have a real name, be it his birth name or a name bestowed on him through his religious practice.[3]

“How are you, Dan?” Light asked me, walking over to shake my hand. 

“I’m good!” I replied, a bit too cheerily. Light’s hand was huge, with long, slender fingers—they wrapped all the way around my own hand, which is also rather large—and he had a nice watch on his right wrist. I found it strange that a meditation teacher would be wearing a nice watch.

Settling back into my seat on the couch, I introduced myself to a large bearded man in a flannel shirt and jeans who sat right next to me, along with an impossibly skinny blonde woman. The woman was either his daughter or a young friend or wife half his own age, and looked nice enough, but also looked like she had possibly taken one too many hits of acid in her day. She had really wide eyes and a permanent open-mouthed smile. Their names were Stacy and Jim. Jim, whose meaty thigh was pressed against my own, asked me, “So, this is just a generic form of Transcendental Meditation, right?” Light had taken his seat directly across from us and was getting settled very much within earshot, so I simply said, “I guess we should ask him,” and left it at that.

Light clapped his hands together, bringing us all to attention.

“Welcome to the Introduction to Vedic Meditation!” he said. “Does anyone need something to drink?”

******

In the late 1980s, when Mahesh retired from teaching and the TM Movement became more political, many of the top teachers in the movement began teaching independently of the organization. One of those teachers was Light’s teacher, a man who had been Maharishi’s personal secretary and a TM teacher trainer for a number of years. This man put Light and several others through the same teacher training course that he had conducted under the TM- organization. Today, those teachers all teach independently under the name “Vedic Meditation,” which they claim “accurately describes the meditation as a technique that originated from the Veda.” How accurate that description really is, however, depends on who you ask.

“Most unbiased scholars of Hinduism would not use the term ‘Vedic’ in the way that followers of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi do,” says Dr. David Gitomer, an Associate Professor of Religions and Literatures of Pre-Modern India at DePaul University. I asked Dr. Gitomer why, from the very beginning, Mahesh referred to TM as synonymous with Vedic Meditation, or “the ancient Vedic science of consciousness.”

“The Transcendental Meditation people use the term ‘Vedic’ to assert a connection back to the deepest stratum of Hinduism, and to give it that prestige,” Dr. Gitomer answered. “In the sense that the Vedic texts use ‘mantras’ and TM uses mantras, there is a connection, but the whole context is entirely different.”

And where exactly do these mantras come from? The mantras are a series of syllables that are neither unique to the meditators, nor were they selected by some elaborate secret method. Kellett’s website offers a link to the “TM Mantra Tables” on it, in which the syllables are on graphs that correspond each of them to their appropriate genders and ages. TM instructors simply look at the genders and ages of their students, and then give each of them their corresponding syllables, which have nothing to do with Vedic science at all.

So why is this process referred to as Vedic?

“The use of the term Vedic is sort of like when some evangelical Christians use the word ‘biblical’ to describe things that fit into their worldview,” Dr. Gitomer offered. “I’m not putting it down at all, since this is the way religions grow and change, but what the TM-ers mean by ‘Vedic’ would not be recognizable to anyone in the Vedic era.”

******

Light asked us to silence our cell phones, then asked us how we all found the Chicago Meditation Center and what we hoped to gain from Vedic Meditation. Every single person in the room found the place online by searching for meditation centers on Google. Light seemed surprised that no one was referred by a friend, which I took as a way for him to emphasize the fact that he had taught Vedic Meditation to several people in Chicago already—so many that we might actually know a couple of them. As far as what people hoped to gain from meditation, most of the people in the room remained silent. A young, attractive Asian woman wearing a lot of make-up and large, gold hoop earrings eventually said that she would like to ease her stress, and possibly gain a connection with some higher power. Maria agreed with her.

Other than Maria and Carlos, the Asian woman, and Stacy and Jim, the other people in the room were an elderly black man, a light-skinned Hispanic woman who seemed annoyed to be there, like she was doing it as a punishment for something, and a white couple that looked like extras in an episode of Seinfeld. I didn’t imagine the white couple as being very open or experimental. They looked kind of scared.

Everyone fell silent and stopped shifting in their seats as Light began what turned out to be an hour-long lecture on Vedic Meditation that consisted of his own experience teaching Vedic Meditation, a drastically abridged version of the practice’s history (which I knew from my research was mostly fabricated), what the practice consisted of, its “proven medical benefits” (which I also knew, from my research, weren’t exactly what one could call “proven”[4]), the purpose of the mantras that the practice revolves around, and why one needs a teacher in order to learn Vedic Meditation. The lecture was terribly boring, and I spaced out for most of it, but made sure to keep my eyes focused on Light’s, and my mouth turned upwards into a slight, attentive smile. I didn’t want to come off as disinterested.

I perked up, though, when Light described the man in the framed photo as his “guru’s guru’s guru, Swami Brahmananda Saraswati, known to his disciples simply as Guru Dev.”

“But that’s just for me,” Light said, laughing. “You don’t have to memorize his name or anything, that’s just for me.”

This didn’t seem to mean anything to anyone else in the room, but I instantly recalled Brahmananda Saraswati’s name as the guru of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, poisoned in his monastery at the ripe old age of 83, after only twelve years spent back in civilization.

Then the lecture got interesting.

Light told us that if we chose to return for our own private personal instruction the following day, he would be performing a “simple ceremony of gratitude,” which we would each witness individually but would not be involved in. The ceremony would be a “remembrance of the tradition of teachers from whom we have received knowledge of the ancient Vedic science of consciousness” and a reminder to Light that he must “impart the teaching as his guru taught him to do, so that the purity of the teaching can be maintained.” After that ceremony would come the ceremony referred to as “the puja,” when we would each receive our mantras.

“Now, if you were living in India five thousand years ago,” Light said, “You would bring a laundry list of gifts to your teacher when you climbed the mountain to see him and receive your mantra.” Light listed a bunch of the things: what sounded like various salts, spices, and soaps, and a bunch of words I had never heard before. “We don’t ask that you bring all those things,” he continued, “but, for the sake of tradition, we do ask that you bring three sweet fruits, a bouquet of flowers, and a white handkerchief.”

Light kept talking, explaining that avocadoes and grapefruits were not sweet fruits, and that he preferred the fruits to be organic. By that point, I was about ready to lose it. I leaned forward in my seat, pretending to stretch and looking around at the other faces in the room to see if anyone was cracking a smile. The Seinfeld couple looked as though they were ready to run for the hills, but everyone else seemed totally into it. They were eating this whole thing up, looking at Light like he was about to lead them on to the Promised Land.

“I also need you to bring one week’s pay,” Light added. The elderly black man lowered his gaze to the floor. Maria squeezed Carlos’ arm. “We ask for one week’s pay,” Light continued, “so that those of you who make more money can cover for those who are less fortunate.” Light laughed at this for some reason. “It’s all on the honor system, though,” he continued. “It’s not like we’re going to be checking your bank accounts.”

A couple people chuckled nervously.

After we were excused, Light asked those of us who had taken the forms that he had passed around to stay after for a couple of minutes in order to set up a time for our orientations. I had barely even stood from my seat on the couch before the Seinfeld couple, the Hispanic woman that had looked annoyed earlier, and the elderly black man were all into their shoes and out the door. The Asian woman had filled out her form and was flirting with Light, and good ol’ meaty-thighed Jim and acid-casualty Stacy were discussing very seriously how they were going to work their orientations into their schedules, as they shared a car and had commuted all the way from Indiana. Maria and Carlos started to fill out their forms, but then got up and left, and said they were going to come back next month.

I sat on the bench by the door and slipped on my shoes. The form in my hands asked several rather personal questions: my name, my age, my occupation, my present state of health, my present state of mind, if I had ever been under the care of a psychiatrist, if I had ever taken hallucinogenic drugs, if I had ever taken any other drugs, and if I had ever used any form meditation for self-improvement. It also asked how much money I was planning on paying for my private personal instruction. Against my better judgment, I filled out the whole form, and I wrote that I would pay $400. I had already told Light that I tended bar, and I figured he would expect as much. Then I handed the form to Light, told him yes, I could be there tomorrow morning at ten o’clock, and left.

******

I didn’t go to my orientation the following morning. Instead, I woke up at eight and contacted Light to tell him that something had come up, and that I would more than likely return the following month. Then I fell back asleep and had a dream in which Light was selling me a television.

We were in a crowded storefront thrift shop, with televisions piled all around us, and Light was pointing out all the different models and what they had in common. I eventually chose a flat screen television that wasn’t the most expensive model but was still fairly pricey, and we began discussing how I was going to get it home. Light was putting it on a cart to wheel it outside—really pressuring me to get it out of there—and then he said that he’d come with me to make sure I got it home okay.

Once we were to my apartment, there were a bunch of shady people standing around outside. I felt awkward about bringing the television in because I didn’t currently have a lock on my door and any of them could simply follow me in and take the television away. Light said not to worry about it, and gave me a flimsy little eyehook and lever lock to put on the door behind us.

As he left, I looked out the window and saw him patting the shady looking people on their backs and pointing up at my window. He had set me up.

A few weeks after my dream, I received an e-mail from Light.

“Dear Dan,” it read, “I recently came across a story that I thought you may find interesting: A lecturer discussing stress management raised a glass of water and asked the audience, ‘How heavy is this glass of water?’ Answers ranged from eight to twenty ounces.

The lecturer replied, ‘The absolute weight is not as important as the length of time you hold the glass. If you hold it for a minute, it’s easy. If you hold it for an hour, you’ll most likely have an ache in your arm. But if you hold it for a day, you’ll probably require medical attention. In each case the glass of water is the same weight, but the longer you hold it, the more taxing it is on your body. And that’s the effect stress has on us. If we carry all of our burdens all the time, with no rest, then sooner or later, as the burdens become increasingly heavier, our ability to function normally will get compromised.’

Rest has always been the basis for releasing stress, achieving balance, and accessing our full potential.”

Initially, I wanted to reply to Light with something along the lines of “I think the person holding the glass of water would probably drop it before they required medical attention." But really, I had to admit that the e-mail got me thinking about the whole process of Vedic Meditation again, and how I could never really write about it if I didn’t experience it for myself. Begrudgingly, I signed up for my own private personal instruction, to take place the following Monday.

******

I never thought I would be back in this room. It’s candlelit this time around, and hazy with incense smoke. The mantra has been erased from the chalkboard, and there are only two chairs in the room, facing a table that is set up like an altar. The table is covered with a white cloth, and there’s a brass tray in front of the picture of Brahmananda Saraswati, along with a candle, an incense holder with some burning incense, and a couple of shiny brass cups. It’s really very pretty, but also kind of creepy, in a way. Like a shrine you accidentally stumble upon in somebody’s closet when you’re just looking for the bathroom.       

I got out of paying the $400 I previously told Light that I earn in a week by telling him that most of that money is really financial aid for school, and that I only make about $100 a week at the bar. So I gave him a hundred bucks. And now I’m watching him place my bouquet of lilies, my three sweet fruits, and my white handkerchief on the altar next to the framed picture of Saraswati.

Light asks me to stand and “witness the ceremony,” and then he hands me one of my lilies, takes one for himself, turns to face the altar, and starts chanting quietly. The language is beautiful, whatever it is. I really am quite relaxed already, spinning the flower in my fingers, watching the candlelit flicker on all the shiny things.

Still chanting, Light touches a flower into one of the small brass cups and sprinkles water on the brass tray. He moves the handkerchief that I stole from work over to the tray. Then he takes a few grains of rice out of the other brass cup and places them on the tray.

He’s still chanting. He places a lily on the tray. He moves the burning incense in a cyclical pattern around the picture of Saraswati, and then does the same with the candle. He uses the candle to light a little white ball that looks like wax, and it erupts into a bright, white flame.

Light’s chant changes, and he circles the new flame around Saraswati while simultaneously placing my fruit on the tray. I remember that I forgot to take the stickers off of the fruit, and I wonder if he notices that it isn’t organic. I also wonder if I should be capable of having that thought. Shouldn’t I be in a trance by now?

Suddenly, Light is quiet. He moves the rest of the bouquet of flowers over to the brass tray and he kneels down in front of Saraswati. “I’m not kneeling,” I think. And I don’t.

Standing there in silence for a moment, looking down at Light as he kneels in front of the picture of Saraswati, I wonder how it is that this ceremony is not religious. Everything about it seems religious to me. I also wonder how it is that Light got this far in life without realizing that he shouldn’t charge people an outrageous amount of money for something they can learn just about anywhere for free.

This is pretty entertaining, though.

Light’s voice comes out of nowhere, swelling out of the silence. He’s repeating something over and over, a little louder every time he says it. It sounds like “Eng.”

His voice keeps getting louder, repeating the word over and over. I start in on it, too.

“Engggggg. Engggggg. Engggggg. Engggggg. Engggggg. Engggggg.”

Light waves his hand, slowly, in a cyclical motion. He’s motioning for me to keep saying “Eng.” I do. He stops saying it, and motions for me to sit down and keep repeating.

I sit down. It feels great.

“Engggggg. Engggggg. Engggggg. Engggggg. Engggggg. Engggggg."

My voice is ringing like a gong in my head. Each recitation rings out into the room and extinguishes any thought that may arise. There is nothing but me, and Light, and the shiny altar, and “Engggggg. Engggggg. Engggggg. Engggggg. Engggggg. Engggggg.”

Light sits down in the other chair. He says, “Alright, now close your eyes and continue.” 

I close my eyes, and now there is nothing but the word.

“Engggggg. Engggggg. Engggggg. Engggggg. Engggggg. Engggggg.”

“Quietly,” Light says.

“Engggggg. Engggggg. Engggggg. Engggggg. Engggggg. Engggggg.”

“More quietly.”

“Engggggg. Engggggg. Engggggg. Engggggg. Engggggg. Engggggg.”

“Now, mentally—without moving tongue or lips.”

Suddenly, I’m gone. Light is gone, the word is gone, the altar is gone, the Chicago Meditation Center is gone, Milwaukee Avenue is gone. Everything is gone.

Light has me open my eyes, and he says “Mental repetition is not a clear pronunciation, it’s a faint idea.” But I don’t really even hear him. I’m smiling.

Light can tell that I’m into it, and he smiles, too. But I’m not into it like he wishes that I was into it. I’m into it like I was into drugs for a while. I’m into it like something you try once and never try again.

Eventually, Light leaves the room, and “Eng” and I get to know each other for a good twenty minutes or so. And I can’t really say that I have anything against “Eng.” Or the actual practice of Transcendental Meditation. But I will definitely say that it really isn’t anything worth paying hundreds of dollars for. It isn’t anything different from what Grandma experiences while praying with her rosary, or what Buddhists experience while sitting cross-legged on a pillow, counting their breaths until there’s nothing left to count. And neither Grandma nor the Buddhists pay hundreds of dollars to learn how to do what they do. And I suppose that therein lies the rub.

When it comes to meditation and prayer—in any form, religious or secular—there really isn’t any room to mess around with things like money. I mean, sure, if your religious practice centers around having a building that you can meet in with a bunch of people once a week so you can all worship some guy with a big white beard, then you’re going to need your building to have some heat when it’s ten degrees outside, and maybe some air when it’s one hundred and four degrees outside. But otherwise, really, there shouldn’t be any money involved. You shouldn’t be giving that guy with the big white beard any money, for sure. And that is what Mahesh Prasad Varma decided that he would do, way back in 1955. He decided he would become the guy with the big white beard who people gave money. And now, though they mean well, thousands of people all over the world are carrying on that costly tradition.

Light comes back into the room and offers me a questionnaire to fill out. He asks me if I have any questions about anything. “It’s easy, isn’t it?” he asks.

I am so relaxed that I don’t really have much to say about anything. Before the orientation, I had actually thought that I would tell Light about the dream that I had, or maybe tell him how I thought that it was bullshit that he made so much money off of people just looking to fill some hole in their lives. People were out there looking for some connection to something larger than themselves, and Light was there to sell them a word. But really, looking at how excited the guy is to have just initiated someone new into the practice, I can’t do it. I can’t break his heart.

“It is so easy,” I say.

Light puts his hand on my shoulder. It’s warm.

“Meditate in this same way in the afternoon at home, and then again in the morning and afternoon tomorrow,” he says. “And I’ll see you tomorrow night, at the Day One Follow-Up.”

I stand and look into his eyes.

“Probably not,” I say.

I start to make up an excuse, but don’t end up saying anything.

Light smiles, but also doesn’t say anything. I feel like there is a moment of genuine understanding between us. It’s possible that I’m just high from the meditation.

Light checks his watch. There’s another person coming in here for her orientation immediately following mine. We can hear her now, pacing anxiously just outside the door. It dawns on me that Light probably has at least ten more people coming in today. If all of them make, say, a modest $20,000 a year and thereby give Light four hundred dollars to receive their mantras, he will leave this studio today with $4,000 in his pocket. He does this an average of four times a month—both here in Chicago and at his studio in Venice, California—so in one year he’s pulling in about $192,000. And that is only based on an average yearly income of $20,000 amongst all his students. Throw a few white collar folks into the mix, and possibly a corporate executive or two, and this lanky, well-dressed, barefooted man standing in front of me now is pulling in well over $200,000 a year.

“Well,” Light finally says. He is clearing my fruit, flowers, and handkerchief from the altar in order to set it up for the next customer. “Thanks for coming.”

My temporary high from the meditation has worn off, and I realize that I am staring at the back of Light’s head, wide-eyed, my face twisted into an expression that probably looks something like a strange hybridization of confusion and disgust. “Yep,” I say.

I walk over to the blue, retro bench by the door to slip on my shoes. Light is wiping the water off of the brass tray with a small white towel, and rearranging the small brass cups. I have given him my money and told him that I am not going to return, and in so doing, I seem to have completely vanished from his world. But then he turns to face me again, and I look up at him, expecting some sort of an “Are you sure you don’t want to come back?” kind of a comment.

“Tell Claire that I’ll come out and get her in a few minutes, will you please?” he asks.

As I exit the studio, I see Claire, standing on the dusty landing at the top of the stairs, sheepishly holding a white plastic grocery bag of fruit and a bouquet of yellow flowers wrapped in white paper. Claire looks to be in her fifties, with graying hair and big, sad eyes. I have a thousand things that I want to say to her, but none which actually manage to claw their way out of my mind and into my vocal cords. I nod at her and smile and continue on my way, and I never look back.

Dan Duffy is a Chicago-based bartender and freelance writer. He is currently finishing up work on an experimental novel entitled I Am Not the Dog. He is founding editor and publisher of Handshake Media.

[1] This claim may be based on several seals discovered in the Indus Valley Civilization (c. 3300-1700 BCE) sites in Pakistan, which depict figures in positions resembling common meditation poses. The seals show “a form of ritual discipline, suggesting a precursor of yoga,” according to archaeologist Gregory Possehl. However, there is no real evidence of this, and most scholars agree that techniques for experiencing higher states of consciousness were first developed in the Shramanic and Upanishadic traditions, which are both about 2,500 years old.

[2] The Natural Law Party proposed to ban genetic engineering and encourage organic farming, to teach TM to all school students in the United States, and to introduce a team of yogic flyers into the armed forces, which they claimed would provide an “invincible defense.” Yogic flyers are people who the TM Movement claim can fly, though to the average human eye, the people really appear to be hopping around on their butts and doing significant damage to their tailbones and spinal cords in the process. The party had a United States presidential candidate, John Hagelin, in the 1992, 1996, and 2000 elections, and in 2000 Hagelin received a stunning 84,000 votes.

[3] “Light is not my real name,” Light said in the introductory lecture, laughing, “but maybe someday you’ll move out to Los Angeles and do something crazy, like change your name to Light.”

There are few professions in the diverse world of musical performance that are simultaneously as indispensable and widely unappreciated as that of the recording engineer. Beloved by musicians and craftsmen, virtually ignored by the thankless masses, these men and women slink around behind the scenes, placing microphones, turning pre-amp knobs, and setting levels. They eliminate squeals and hums. They summon sound, as it is meant to be heard, from the bowels of complicated electronic machinery. They appreciate a good performance. And they remember. They remember each show, each venue. Touring engineers become connoisseurs of the road. They know where to eat. They know where to find water. They know where the bridge is out. Where the footing is sketchy. Where the fruit is ripe. Speaking of Chicago, recording legend and Electrical Audio founder Steve Albini once said, “The people here are here for reasons associated with their lives in general rather than for show business, so things like music, art and other creative pursuits tend to be done as passions and for camaraderie rather than as careers.” This, perhaps, is the precise reason why Chicago has given birth to so many excellent recording studios and record labels through the years. “Careerism brings with it an ugly insincerity and conservatism.” But Chicago’s people, for the most part, are passionate about their crafts, whether they execute them for money or not. They are selfless and humble. And—as anyone who has lived through a Chicago winter can attest to—they have good reason to go on tour every once in a while.

In the spring of 2011, Chicago lost one of its great recording engineers when Kris Poulin left the windy city for the golden shores of San Diego. Kris engineered his first record in Chicago in 1996, and had been doing live sound in the city since 1997. He spent almost four years on staff at Chicago's Acme Recording Studio and, in addition to countless miles of touring with several different bands, he also built his own studio with bandmate Matt Seifert, and he was a sound engineer at Lounge Ax, The Empty Bottle, Fireside Bowl, Beat Kitchen, and Logan Square Auditorium. Kris was (and still is) a dedicated engineer, musician, and fan of Chicago music, and whether anyone in the community realizes it or not, he will be sorely missed. In this conversation, Kris speaks with fellow Chicago-based recording engineer and founder of Semaphore Recording Studio, Jeremy Lemos, about food, shows, venues, showmanship, stupid questions, expensive tickets, and the short list. –Dan Duffy

Kris Poulin: Greetings human.

Jeremy Lemos: How are things going?

KP: I’m feeling a little sluggish right now. I just had a big lunch. It’s time for a nap.

JL: What did you have? Anything good?

KP: No. Nothing good. Subway.

JL: Oh, man. After all these years spent on tour being vegetarian, I can’t even look at Subway anymore.

KP: I generally have a rule against going to Subway unless I’m on tour. But I had a gift card for it from my mom.

JL: What?!

KP: I’m chipping away at the gift card she gave me. It’s for thirty bucks. Five dollar footlongs for almost a week.

JL: Ugh.

KP: Yep.

JL: So, what are your first impressions of living in San Diego? Do Chicagoans think their Mexican food is falsely great?

KP: The Mexican food here is consistently great. In Chicago, there is great Mexican food, but you have to look for it. Also, there are different types of Mexican food. Here it's more Baja and/or Mission style: whole beans (not refried), and I don't see much of that sour cream that seems to be on everything in Chicago's Mexican.

JL: Over the years I've learned to ask for no sour cream whenever I order. And there is always guacamole instead of avocados.

KP: Buying an avocado in San Diego is a waste of money. They're everywhere for the picking.

JL: I need to pay you a visit. Have you already found your spots?

KP: I have a few places already. One that I go to because it's close; one for it's amazing breakfast; one for it's huge vegetarian selection; and one for its margaritas. The place with the amazing breakfast has what they call the 2 + 2 Burrito. The first “two” is two eggs, and the second “two” is any other two ingredients you can come up with. It’s $2.99. And it’s big.

JL: Is it any good?

KP: Yeah. Especially if you do it breakfast style. Eggs, potatoes, and cheese, for example.

JL: I would eat that.

KP: Especially for three bucks. And it’s only two blocks away.

On First Shows:

JL: Man, remember when you were a kid and you would just hop in a car for six hours to go hang out with your friends and smoke cigarettes and listen to tapes on the stereo and go see some band play in Minneapolis or wherever?

KP: I would drive to LA a lot when I was in Vegas. That was in my mid-twenties. That was more or less five hours each way.

JL: Where would you go see shows in LA?

KP: Several places. Whiskey, the Roxy...

JL: What bands did you go see at Whiskey a Go Go? That place just makes me think of Guns ‘n Roses.

KP: Questions like that make me wish all my notebooks were in a database. I could just type in “Whiskey.” That’s going to happen when I get an intern. That motherfucker’s going to type. A lot.

JL: (laughs) “Step one: do my patch bay. Step two: data entry.”

KP: “Enter these three notebooks filled with twenty-five years of going to shows into an Excel file. Color-coding and everything. Maybe put a little gray background in the cells of the shows that I worked, and leave the ones that I actually went to as a fan white. Something like that.” (laughs) Anyway. What was the question?

JL: I just want one band that you saw at the Whiskey a Go Go, because I can only think of Guns ‘n Roses playing there.

KP: I saw Jesus Lizard and Six Finger Satellite at Whiskey.

JL: Damn! Same show?

KP: Yeah. It was great, and it was right after Severe Exposure came out, which is my favorite Six Finger Satellite record. It’s basically Big Black meets Devo. There was another band that opened that show that I just don’t remember. I always think that it’s Failure, the San Diego band. But it’s not. I have to look that up. Going back to the first notebook for this one.

JL: You really have all of these notebooks within arm’s reach?

KP: Yeah. I have to put a new band in there once a week. Once a day if I’m on tour. The first notebook doesn’t even have a cover on it anymore. And the front page is loose. It’s off the spiral. But here at the top is the first show: Celtic Frost, Exodus, and Anthrax at the Aragon Ballroom.

JL: Are you serious?!

KP: That was my first gig.

JL: That’s pretty incredible, man.

KP: What was your first show?

JL: My first show was Third Rail Rhyme and Gauge at the Glen Ellen VFW. Third Rail Rhyme only played a few shows. They featured Scott Shellhammer from American Heritage on drums. Ask me what my second show was.

KP: Okay. (ahem) What was your second show?

JL: It was listed in TimeOut Chicago’s Top Ten Greatest Shows in Chicago ever. Mudhoney and Jawbreaker and Nirvana at the Aragon Ballroom.

KP: I saw Mudhoney the next night. That show at Aragon was their last show on the Nirvana tour, and they played the next night at Metro. But I wasn’t there to see Mudhoney. They got added to the bill sort of last minute. They became the headliner over the Boredoms. 

JL: What?!

KP: What I remember specifically about it was that around then I refused to buy band merchandise—I was like “Fuck that, I’m punk! I’m not going to buy a t-shirt.” But then the show was so good that I ended up buying a Boredoms t-shirt. I felt obligated to give more money to the band than I had paid for my ticket.

JL: That was around the time when I would refuse to buy records from the record stores, because I knew that the record stores were taking some of the bands’ money. I would wait to buy albums from the bands on tour. That was the “most punk” way to spend your money.

KP: I wouldn’t buy anything on a major label except PJ Harvey.

JL: We all have the areas of our rules that get stretched.

KP: Around then I also saw Nirvana and Das Damen at the Metro for ten bucks. It was within a couple weeks after Nevermind came out. They were getting big, but they weren’t big yet.

JL: That Nirvana show at the Aragon was such a big deal to me that I wanted to laminate the ticket. The thing is though, those Ticketmaster tickets are heat sensitive. So I put it in a laminating machine, and it turned black. I was pretty mad.

KP: I bet.

JL: What can you do, though? I was there. I remember.

On Favorite Shows:

JL: What is your favorite show you’ve ever seen?

KP: That’s impossible to answer, but a show that changed my musical outlook and direction in a lot of ways was seeing Fugazi at Club Dreamerz (which is now Nick’s Beer Garden) in 1989. It was absolutely packed, whatever that was for Dreamerz. Maybe three hundred people, tops? Fugazi was on tour between their two EPs—the first EP and the Margin Walker EP, which eventually became a thirteen song compilation. It was June, and there were just as many people outside who didn’t get in as there were people inside who did. You could hear the show from the sidewalk, and I remember Fugazi dedicating a song to the dudes who were out there. I was about halfway back on the floor, right in front of the mixing board, and I found the milk crate that the microphone cables were probably kept in (I didn’t know this at the time, but thinking back on it, it was probably where Chucky Cheetah, who did sound at that club, had his cables). I flipped that over and made myself 6’10”, and had what was probably the best view in the house. It was also one of the first shows where I saw people who I considered famous who were also accessible. You could just go talk to ‘em after the show.

JL: Like who?

KP: Ian MacKaye! I was a punk rock kid! He was my hero!

JL: I thought you were talking about people in the audience.

KP: No, I wouldn’t have known anybody then. It would’ve had to have been Robert DeNiro for me to have recognized him at that point in my life. Or Farrah Fawcett.

JL: How many shows did you see at Dreamerz?

KP: Not many. I still lived out in the burbs, and that neighborhood was really scary to me at the time. I remember trying to find parking within a block of Dreamerz or within a block of Czar Bar, and if it was more than a block away I was freaked out. Probably overreacting, but I didn’t know any better.

JL: I never went to Czar Bar or Dreamerz.

KP: Somewhere I have some really great pictures of Trenchmouth that I took at Czar Bar. I also have a VHS tape of Trenchmouth at the Turners Club in Elgin. At the end of it, Fred (Armisen, the Trenchmouth drummer and current Saturday Night Live cast member) does a little bit of standup. Foreshadowing the future.

JL: What?!

KP: This was an old VHS camera that was, you know, like a foot-and-a-half long. I stood in the back and taped the show, and then afterwards I just went up and started talking to ‘em. They were my favorite band back then. I saw ‘em many, many times. And Fred Armisen saw the camera and went off on this improv thing, which at the time I just thought was rocker-dude-being-funny. But now...he obviously has a skill for it.

JL: What do you think were the best bands of that era?

KP: Which era? Late ‘80s? Early ‘90s?

JL: Well, I’m too young for late ‘80s, but I’m thinking of that Trenchmouth era. Early ‘90s.

KP: Trenchmouth, Scissor Girls...

JL: Trenchmouth, Jacks, Scissor Girls...

KP: Jacks. Yes. What’s that band from Baltimore? Candy Machine.

JL: I never saw Candy Machine.

KP: They were one of the best shows I saw, and the ticket price was two dollars. Trenchmouth, Candy Machine, and Scissor Girls at a place called the Hub Theater. It was an old movie theater, and someone broke into the projection room and was showing movie trailers before each band. That inspired the dudes from Trenchmouth to go out and buy all white clothing, and then show movies on top of themselves while they played. They became the screen.

JL: That sounds killer.

KP: Yeah. And it was two bucks. In 1992.

JL: So, who else was there around then? I remember Tortoise being amazing back then. Gastro del Sol was incredible...

KP: Tortoise’s first single came out in 1993.

JL: Remember the 90 Day Men back then? They were fucking good, man.

KP: Yeah, they were good. That was when I split town for a few years, though.

JL: You split right around the time when I started working at Fireside and was really finding myself.

KP: That’s when I was finding myself.

JL: In Vegas?!

KP: Yep. In Vegas.

JL: That’s a hell of a place to find yourself.

KP: Well, it worked out that way.

JL: I remember standing around the soundboard when Azita (Youssefi) was mixing at the Fireside just so I could bum her cigarettes because I thought she was so cool. I just wanted to have the opportunity to give her a cigarette when she asked for one. U.S. Maple...god. I called Darren Gray last night or the night before because I wanted to talk to him because Danny had died. I had watched these YouTube videos of the Grand Ulena playing from eight or nine years ago. I was watching it like it was yesterday. There were these little things that Darren was doing: he’d be shredding through like a thousand notes, and then there would be this two-bar break, and he’d tip his hat to the crowd.

KP: (laughs)

JL: I remember him doing that like it was yesterday. So I was sitting there watching the video and thinking, “I must have been at this show.” Then, at the beginning of this sixteen-minute song, Danny knocks one of the tom mikes over onto the tom, and you can see me—the young me—jumping on stage to grab the mike and put it back in place. just for a split second. I’m watching the video and I’m like, “That’s me!” I’m wearing a fedora and I have khaki pants on.

KP: That’s you.

JL: God damn, the Grand Ulena was incredible. They used to rehearse in the dark so if the lighting was bad on stage on tour they couldn't be stopped. The most intense band I’ve ever seen. You saw them play, right?

KP: Yeah. I saw them at South by Southwest with you.

JL: When was that?

KP: It was the year you and I went because it was the first time Earth was going to tour in like a thousand years.

JL: (claps his hands) That was the first time I ever went to Austin!

KP: We thought “Holy crap! They’re actually playing a show in the United States! We’re going!”

JL: They were the most important band in the world to me. And I heard that they were playing a show. Sun, the Earth cover band, convinced Earth to come out of retirement and play a show. When was that?

KP: I can check the files...

JL: You should put a list of these shows from your notebook in the magazine. I would read that. Even if I didn’t know you, I think I would read that. 

KP: Yeah?

JL: It’s art, man.

On Touring:

KP: You have a hell of a tour coming up. You’re hitting all my favorite spots.

JL: I’m glad you think so. Most of the places we’re playing are dumps.

KP: Portland, Maine? The National in Richmond? At the National you’ve got a hot tub backstage! And a sauna!

JL: Gross. You go in those places?

KP: No.

JL: And two days before that, we’re playing at the 40 Watt with eleven people on stage.

KP: The 40 Watt's cool. Ask to see the place where they burn stuff. It used to be a funeral home.

JL: Sure. But Rams Head Live? The Electric Factory?

KP: Rams Head Live?

JL: Dump. 

KP: Yeah. I’ve never been to The Electric Factory. But Rams Head Live can poke it.

JL: Yep. And when was the last time you did a show at the House of Blues in New Orleans?  Man, that was one of the biggest dumps I’ve ever done a show in. For being a huge corporation anyway...

KP: I worked House of Blues in New Orleans for Pinback on September 26, 2007. I cut New Orleans some slack, given all the shit they've been through. 

JL: I give the city all the slack in the world, but a huge corporation like House of Blues that takes care of all the details in all of their other venues has really let that place go.

KP: You’re going to Missoula! See, I want to go to Missoula. I want to go to Boise. 

JL: Why? Why do you want to go to those places?

KP: I love Boise. I haven’t been to Missoula, but I have an acquaintance in Missoula.

JL: If they want to go to the show, let ‘em know. I certainly don’t know anyone in Missoula.

KP: If you get to Boise and you need something to do, let me know. I’m not going to say it on record, though. I’ve been sworn to secrecy on how amazing Boise is.

JL: (laughs)

KP: I’m not joking. Someone from Boise made me promise not to explain to anyone how amazing Boise is.

JL: My mind is racing with the possibilities.

KP: In short, it has everything a city should have, but it only has one of each. That makes it the ideal place to stop on tour on a day off. It has one great record store; it has one great book store; it has a couple good movie theaters: one big mainstream one, and one amazing art house—one of the best art house cinemas I’ve ever been in. I’ve already said too much.

JL: I’ve had good times in Boise, but it sounds like you have it figured out.

KP: I went there for my fortieth birthday. On purpose. I chose to spend my fortieth birthday in Boise.

JL: (silence)

KP: Yeah. You’re speechless.

JL: (laughs) I’ve been there on a birthday, also.

KP: Not on purpose.

JL: Not on purpose. I played poker all day.

KP: I got on a plane and went there for my birthday.

JL: That’s pretty serious, man. You’re a fan. 

KP: Man, you’re going to Reno, too. Fuck Reno.

JL: Exactly. I’ve been told that show is not selling very well. Imagine that?

KP: I had a really rough New Year’s Eve in Reno. Pinback played. It was the equivalent of a college-age Mardi Gras on ice. It was drunk people, much younger than myself, walking through the streets of Reno on sheets of ice. Take everything stupid about young drunks, add the Mardi Gras atmosphere of New Year’s Eve, and then put them in a really dangerous situation. On ice.

JL: Wait, you’re being literal when you say “on ice?” That sounds ridiculous. How was there ice there?

KP: Reno’s up in the mountains. It’s right near Tahoe. It snows there.

JL: I was only there once, and it was hot.

KP: Well, yeah. It’s high desert. It gets really hot in the summer, and really cold in the winter. Anyway, Pinback went on after like seven hip hop acts, and they also went on after midnight, so everyone had left.

JL: That sounds awful. New Year’s Eve shows are hard.

KP: Where else are you going?

JL: Look at the beginning and the end of our tour. We’re going to Bonnaroo, and to the other hippie festival. Sasquatch. You just know that Iron & Wine got festival offers from those two festivals, and then they called the booking agent and said “What can you do to get us a show every night between those two places?” Voila!

KP: Sasquatch is pretty fun, though. I had a good time at that festival.

JL: That was the worst show of the Pavement reunion tour last year.

KP: Did you get those sweet backstage trailers overlooking the Gorge? 

JL: Yeah, but as soon as LCD Soundsystem went onstage they closed the backstage down. Stephen Malkmus took his kid out to the parking lot, and then when he came back they wouldn’t let him backstage. Eventually, there were all these Pavement band members piling up, and the security guard was like “Nope! Closed stage!” The tour manager had to come over, and the production guy from the festival had to come over, and it got really nasty for a second.

KP: Those stage guys have it tough sometimes. They’re not allowed to use their brains. They’re just supposed to follow orders. That’s all. 

JL: It’s hard to get mad at him, because his only job that day was to not let anyone get past him when LCD Soundsystem was on stage.

KP: Exactly. Right.

JL: I actually talked my way through the security guard. I just denied his denying me. I was like “I have to put away that drum kit. I’m still working.” And I just blazed past him. It’s a Jedi thing, man. You just have to be like “You are wrong. I am allowed to be on stage right now.”

KP: “These are not the droids that you are looking for.”

JL: “I am still working, and when my work is done, I will be out of here.”

KP: I’m ready to go back on tour.

JL: I guess. I’m pretty excited just being at home, playing with synthesizers all day.

KP: Yeah, but I haven’t been on tour since early January.

JL: I guess that is a while.

On Showmanship:

JL: When’s your next show?

KP: Coachella, with Swell Season.

JL: I remember doing a show in Albany, New York, where Glen Hansard was opening up for Bob Dylan, and he was freaking out (because he was opening for Bob Dylan). The changeover was taking a long time. We hadn’t gone through and checked everything, but the whole show was running really late and the local sound guys were getting screamed at by Bob Dylan’s production manager. So even though we weren’t ready, Glen just walked up on stage and started the set. Halfway through his first solo song, people were still trying to patch in and someone pulled his mike. He flipped. He went into “I’m going to take over this entire room by myself with no PA” mode, and he did a couple of songs like that.

KP: He’s one of the best showmen I’ve ever seen. Say what you will about his music. Even the songs I don’t like, he totally owns them.

JL: He’s one of the most charismatic people I’ve ever met, too. On stage or off.

KP: He can make a room full of talkers shut up, and a room full of wallflowers hit the dance floor. Whatever it takes, I’ve seen it.

JL: Did you hear about his White House on Saint Patrick’s Day thing?

KP: (laughs) No.

JL: He was the band at the White House!

KP: Really?

JL: He had to take a day off from the Frames’ tour. It was something like the night before the show, and he had to fly to D.C. because the White House called him up and invited him to play. You don’t say no to that.

KP: I didn’t hear about that! It’s weird, because he’s so down to earth. He’s one of the guys. I was really surprised to be able to hang out in Dublin with him. You’d think he wouldn’t even be able to walk down the street. I mean, he was bombarded by fans, but he takes it in stride. Goes to get his dinner at the restaurant next door to the venue. Doesn’t have a rock star attitude about anything. And he’s a member of the second biggest band from Ireland ever. 

JL: He’s on that crazy next level, man.

On Stupid Questions:

KP: This sake’s getting better.

JL: That’s usually what happens with alcohol.

KP: My $5.49 bottle of sake that I bought at 7-Eleven. It’s still too sweet. It’s also a little sour. Not very dry, which is what I like.

JL: I’m going to go see Skull Defekts, Zomes, and Mountains at the Hideout tonight. And then tomorrow morning I get up really early to go to Portland, so my plan is to have too much to drink tonight at the show, wake up with a splitting hangover, and then get on the airplane and drink Bloody Marys.

KP: Really?

JL: That’s my plan, man.

KP: What’re you doing in Portland?

JL: Just hanging out. There was a deal on the internet for the Ace Hotel. Gwen had some frequent flyer miles.

KP: Are you a Stumptown person or a Kobos person?

JL: Well, Stumptown is the elephant in the room when you’re talking about Portland coffee. I’m planning on drinking a lot of it, myself.

KP: I actually had coffee the last time I was in Portland. Just an espresso. One’s my limit.

JL: One per hour?

KP: No (laughs). I typically don’t drink the stuff. But I had to try it.

JL: My rule is one every ten minutes.

KP: That’s how you keep the metabolism so high?

JL: I guess so.

KP: Anyway, I ordered a single espresso, not realizing that at Stumptown, there is no such thing. It says explicitly on the menu that I didn’t read...

JL: “...all espressos are made double ristretto. Blah blah blah.”

KP: Yeah. Something like that. I had no idea, and then I was standing there wondering why I got the dagger eyes from this little hipster girl.

JL: Baristas shouldn’t get mad at you for that. It’s like airport security. It changes all the time. In every country it’s different. In every city it’s different. Shoes on, shoes off. Shoes in the tray, shoes on the belt.

KP: Lube, no lube.

JL: And then people give you the death stare and you’re like “Look, I’ve been flying every day for the past week. I’m sorry that I didn’t follow your rules today. Don’t give me the look.”

KP: Right.

JL: I guess it’s easy to snap on someone when you’re dealing with hundreds of people a day. Think of all the bands you’ve recorded and all the stupid shit that they’ve asked you to do. They say “Can you make my drums sound warm and punchy?” You’re like, “Really? Did you seriously just ask me that?”

KP: Or there’s the drummer who plays all ticky-tack like Stuart Copeland, and then comes in the control room and says “Make it sound like ‘When the Levee Breaks’.” Well, you’re not hitting the drums. You’re hitting only cymbals, first of all. And you’re playing a million notes a second. You aren’t going to sound like Bonham.

JL: Every craft involves its stupid questions.

KP: Yeah. That’s when I give the drummer the same look that barista at Stumptown gave me. (laughs)

JL: Whenever I give that look I realize I need to give myself a break. Get away for awhile. Gwen and I are going to Portland for four days. It’s been so long since I’ve taken a trip that didn’t have anything to do with a tour. I just want to go there and not have any plans and hang out and walk around. Eat Thai food. Party.

KP: Thai food? In Portland?

JL: Pok Pok. You have to go. My two favorite places to eat Thai in the United States are Pok Pok and Sri Pra Phai in Queens. I’ve never been to Thailand, but those are two of the best meals I’ve ever had.

KP: Better than Spoon Thai?

JL: Yes. Better than Spoon Thai. Spoon Thai has its moments, but these places are killer.

KP: Gonna go to the Doug Fir?

JL: Probably not. I prefer the Pine State Biscuits. Fake sausage biscuit sandwiches with some hashbrowns? Aw, shit. It’s quite good, man. So much good food in Portland. 

KP: No baseball team, though. They left. The Portland Beavers moved to Tucson.

JL: Did you see that last Portlandia? They try to start a baseball team in the last one.

KP: Yeah, I did see that one! I didn’t realize that was the last one. The one where they interview the players on the field?

JL: Yep. The Portland Thinkers.

KP: That show was good. I only thought one episode was a failure.

JL: Yeah. It’s good. Strange. Strange is good.

On Expensive Tickets:

KP: The tour manager for my upcoming tour is a huge baseball fan. Should be a blast. You following at all this year?

JL: I'm sorry to say I have not been following at all for the last couple of years. I had this moment a few years ago when I saw a Cubs game at Wrigley Field: rode my bike over there, had a couple of beers, saw them lose in the ninth and then paid my friend $80 for the ticket. I realized that I spent the whole day and $100 just to get really upset, and then I realized (as a Cubs fan) that all they do is bring me down. They’re like a mean girlfriend. I snapped and then I stopped following baseball. I broke up with the Cubs. All of the time and money I spent on her. I can't believe it!

KP: Stay broken up with the Cubs and get back together with the game! It's really the best game. Look at it like poker: I doubt you have a favorite poker player you root for. Besides yourself, I mean. I'll be happiest if the Sox win, but I'm really just looking to see a good game between any two teams. Except the Red Sox and Yankees.

JL: I think I'll always love the game. It is quite a bit like poker, when you break it down. My problem is that it's gotten so expensive! Just like shows. I tried to buy Neil Young tickets yesterday and they were $200 each! For Gwen and I to go see him play, it would have been $500!

KP: Yikes. There are still cheap ways to see a ball game, though. Go to Dodger Stadium, for one. Cheap seats galore in that town. Not sure how to go to Wrigley on the cheap, though. What's the last concert you paid more than $15 to see?

JL: The last time I spent money to see a big show was Prince! In Las Vegas!

KP: I'm sure Prince was worth every penny, right?

JL: It was after Sonic Youth played at Coachella and Steve and I drove to Vegas after the festival. Prince was playing private events at the Rio on the weekends whenever he felt like it. It was announced on Thursday that he was going to fly in and play that weekend, so Steve and I got tickets through the Sonic Youth manager and went.  We still had to wait in line for will call and the lady came around with one of those remote credit card machines and rang Steve's card. I saw a number come out the other end that was in the 500 to 600 dollar range. I almost fainted. We had our own table with bottle service and Steve doesn't drink so I thought, “Fuck it. I just paid a fortune to see this. I'm getting champagne.” So I watched Prince play for three hours and got very intoxicated. It was one of the greatest things I've ever seen. Prince is the only guy on Earth that can play his own records before he comes on and get away with it.

KP: Sounds amazing. Good champagne?

JL: Yeah, it was pretty good champagne. After a bottle of it, it was pretty fantastic. I've never seen a performer as efficient as Prince. Every move his body made was calculated. It was like a movie. He doesn't waste a calorie on anything.

On the Short List:

KP: I really have to see Prince one of these days. He's on the short list of those I haven't seen already that I must.

JL: I'm going to have to agree. I think once is enough though: in three hours he may have only played one or two songs that I recognized.

KP: Who's left that you feel like you must see that you haven't already?

JL: Well, there aren't that many. Sometimes I get worried about seeing a band for the first time beyond their prime and having it be a bummer. I really wish I never saw Throbbing Gristle. I saw my first show in Brooklyn, and they were really terrible, and now my only real Throbbing Gristle live experience is totally tainted. Sadly, one of the only older acts that really blew me away in the past few years was Neil Young, and now I can’t see him play because it's too expensive. I'm afraid that Gwen has to see him play once though. Who do I have to see? Brian Eno, maybe?

KP: Does he still perform?

JL: I don't think so. And his performances could be super hit or miss. But he seems to be the only one that popped in my head who is still alive. 

KP: I feel like I should see Tom Waits once. I don't really care about him anymore, but considering I have about a dozen of his records and used to love them, I probably should.

JL: He seems like someone that would put on a killer show. I’ve always wanted to see Radiohead, too. I've heard their shows are really fantastic, but I've never seen them.

KP: I hope to cross paths with Radiohead at a festival or something along the way. I don't see myself buying a ticket, but would definitely check them out if given the chance. Ever seen AC/DC? It might be too late.

JL: Yes, AC/DC has always been on my list. Mainly because of you. I'm afraid it may be too late, but they might still have it. You and I get to see a lot of bands at festivals we are working. That’s why it’s so hard to pay $500 to see Neil Young: the last time I saw him I was standing on the side of the stage for free! He had a closed stage, but Sonic Youth was playing after him at a festival and I (ahem) had to have access to my monitor console while the "opening band" was playing.

KP: Smooth move.

JL: It's a classic one.

KP: I've pulled it.

On the Future:

JL: What's going to happen to all of your bands now that you have moved?

KP: Phantom Works is pressing onward via riff-swapping over the Internet.

JL: So crazy how both of us are now studio-less. I just saw pictures of the old Semaphore space with all new things inside.

KP: I saw some Semaphore pictures, too. Weird. To the future!

JL: Yeah, the future. I'll be honest with you, I haven't missed running my studio for a second. I have my own little house set up where I jam on synths all day and don't have to worry about anything. I'm actually recording Disappears tomorrow in my house. There is a long history of records being made in this apartment and I'm kind of excited to be extending it. I'll use the big studios when I need ‘em and do the rest here. I'm sitting here, talking to you right where John Fahey recorded Womblife. I still feel like I'm sixteen when I think about things like that.

KP: Nice! Recording at the Steam Room! I guess the Steam Room in Tokyo got tossed around a bit, but Jim (O'Rourke)'s okay.

JL: I heard that, too. Jim and I were talking about modular synths and then the earthquake happened.  That poor guy. He was two blocks away from the World Trade Towers on September 11, and now this.

KP: Crazy. Let's hope this stuff doesn't actually come in threes for him.

JL: Man. Let’s talk about something nice, eh?

Since her debut solo album was released in 1995, Holly Golightly has released fourteen long play solo records and countless singles; she has toured extensively in America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand; and she has collaborated with the likes of Billy Childish, Dan Melchior, The Greenhornes, Rocket from the Crypt, and the White Stripes. Most recently, though, the reigning queen of pre-rock electric country blues has been keeping it simple. Holly and her long-time band mate Lawyer Dave have released four albums since 2007 under the guise of Holly Golightly and the Brokeoffs. They live on “a scratch of land” in Georgia with a family of barnyard animals, tour two to three months a years, release a record once a year, and tend to their horses on their time off. Their newest album, No Help Coming, was released on April 26, 2011, on Transdreamer Records. I sat with Holly and Lawyer Dave after their show at the Beat Kitchen in Chicago on May 13, 2011, and talked about touring, bad jobs, horses, and life in the sticks.

Dan Duffy: How long is this tour you two are on right now?

Lawyer Dave: It’s not that long. About a month. We’ll be done in two weeks. In the past we’ve done eight, ten week tours. In Europe we usually do three months at a time. So we’re really taking it easy. We have for the past couple of years.

DD: Why do you suppose that is?

LD: It’s hard to tour nowadays at the level that we are, because some nights are really good, but there are a lot more that aren’t. I mean, it’s fun to do it on this level for this many people, but it’d be so much more fun to do it with a full band. We just can’t afford it. And we’re probably never going to be the next big thing, which is actually good because the next big thing is usually done by next week.

DD: You definitely come off as being more resilient than that.

LD: A lot of bands that do bigger and bigger shows over time, once that is done for them there’s no way they’re ever getting in a van and doing shows like we’re doing anymore. Their egos have been destroyed. But this is the way it’s been for us, and we’re going to stay here. Holly’s been doing this for so long that the trends don’t really affect her all that much. That’s probably for the best.

DD: Holly, how would you say this tour going so far?

Holly Golightly: So far so good. We haven’t had any bad weather, really. We had a couple of weird shows, though. In Boston, we didn’t realize that we were playing in the early slot, and we arrived just in time to load in and sound check in front of a room full of people. The crowd had already arrived, and the support band had already played, and there we were. It was alright, though. They were diehard fans. They knew something was wrong, too, because we didn’t have time to get changed into our outfits. We took the stage looking really raggedy.

DD: Wait, you were playing as an opener? For who?

HG: Oh, no, we were just the early show. There were two shows that night: they had us in an early slot, and then they had some Battle of the Bands punk rock thing later in the evening.

DD: (laughs) Did you hang out for the Battle of the Bands?

HG: No. (laughs) I can’t think of anything worse.

DD: What do you two listen to on the road?

LD: We don’t listen to anything in the van.

DD: Nothing? At all? Silence?

LD: Well, if anything, Holly’ll listen to the BBC News. See, on tour, we’ve got a lot to listen to anyway. There’s our own set, every night, and then we have to listen to the opening bands, who aren’t always very good and are definitely not always very...um...quiet. (laughs) By the time we get in the van, we don’t want to listen to any music at all. In that way, being a touring musician really sucks for your listening habits, when you really think about it. I think a lot about how if I wasn’t a musician I would like so much more stuff. As I get older, I continue making noise of my own pretty much every day, but I listen to less and less.

DD: Most of musicians I know listen to a ton of music.

LD: I reckon if I was younger and still excited about music, it would be different. And I should say that once in a while I’ll surprise myself. We’ll turn on the radio and I’ll actually like something and think, “Wow! I’m not such an asshole after all.” But really, the world is so oversaturated. Everybody’s in a band, and there’s always the next big thing. The older I get, the more I like musicians who are dead. I’m never gonna get to see ‘em, but at least nobody’s talkin’ about ‘em. The talk is what gets me. It’s just music. It’s not solving anybody’s problems. Anyone who expects it should be more than that is crazy. For me, music is just something that I do to avoid going nuts.

DD: What kind of jobs were you two working before it got to the point where you realized you could make a living making music?

HG: Well, I’ve always had a day job. Even while I’ve been playing music. I actually still have a day job now.

DD: What’s your day job?

HG: I work in a Feed and Seed.

LD: Sometimes. You don’t have to.

HG: I don’t have to, but I do. I like the job. I like to do it when I can. Music has never been my main source of income, actually. Thank god. I would have starved to death.

LD: I’ve had all kinds of jobs. I worked carpentry. I worked any kind of waiting job you could think of. I wrote trivia questions for a website for $25 an hour.

DD: (laughs) Really?

LD: Anything you can think of. I even used to be a construction diver in San Francisco. We used to do concrete underwater. It’s amazing to me to think back on the jobs I’ve had, and the jobs I’ve walked away from. Some of them were so good and high-paying and easy, and I was still a fuckin’ malcontent.

DD: What would you say is the worst job either of you have ever had?

HG: Well, I wasn’t there for very long, but I worked for an agency taking overnight deliveries across country, going out early one night and getting back in the morning. That sort of thing.

DD: You were a truck driver?

HG: I’m qualified to drive a truck. I have a Heavy Goods Vehicle License. I remember one occasion where I had a fridge on back—it was a supermarket truck, or something. I can’t even remember what it was. It was food. All I remember was that I had to plug the thing in. But anyway, I was having a cigarette and waiting for these kids to load the truck, and a dwarf... Am I allowed to say that?

LD: A midget.

DD: (laughs)A small person?

HG: A very small person who it turns out was the supervisor of the whole operation came up to me and crossed his arms over his chest and said “You have to clock off while you’re having a cigarette.” I had to put my cigarette out. Then this little person marched me through the bowels of this huge cold storage depot in the middle of the night, which was a weird experience because I was walking really fast, and he was having a hard time keeping up with me.

LD: Short legs.

DD: (laughs)

HG: And in the time that it took to walk to the machine and walk back, I could have just had the cigarette. That was the worst job I ever had. I worked two shifts. Then I quit.

DD: Were you playing music at that time?

HG: Yep.

DD: So then you went home and wrote a song about the midget?

LD: (laughs)

HG: Oh, no. I probably went home and went to sleep. But you know those jobs. The bureaucracy sort of makes it seem like you’re in a Kafka novel. Like I was being marched through this factory...

DD: ...to the machine that’s eventually going to kill you.

LD: Now touring is basically the only job we have, and we get a lot of time off, but we live somewhere really cheap, so we don’t have to make a lot of money anymore.

DD: Where are you two living right now?

LD: In Georgia.

DD: Whereabouts? What town?

LD: It’s not a town. It’s acreage in the middle of nowhere. We bought it with cash, so our $700 a year property tax is all we have to come up with as far as rent goes. So we can tour two to three months out of the year, release a record once a year, and then sometimes get commercials or whatever and get a little bit of money that way. We’re not rich in any sense. In fact, we’re probably way down there below the poverty line. But because we don’t live in a city or anywhere where you need to make X amount of money, we end up with a lot of time off.

DD: What do you do with all that time off?

LD: Holly’s into horses, so I’m into horses, too, now. They can be a bit expensive, but even they’re not really bad. All in all, you don’t end up spending that much more on one than you would a dog.

DD: How many horses do you two have?

LD: Well, we have two on the property itself, and then Holly has a foal that she kind of got on accident. He’s over at a friend’s house. It’s kind of a long story, but he’s a superstar horse that Holly ended up getting for $150 because of the economy being what it is.

HG: I have a little wonder horse in the making.

LD: He’s bred really well. His grandfather was this horse called Dash for Cash that earned a ton of money. So he’s living at a trainer’s house so he can keep his nuts and not be an asshole. Stallions can be really dangerous if you don’t handle ‘em right when they’re babies. So he’s getting trained so that he’s the type of horse that anybody can ride on, even though he has his nads. Most people wouldn’t even bother doing that, but Holly here is really particular about horses.

DD: Where did you get your horses?

HG: One of my horses I got from a neighbor who I’m actually very close friends with now. He’s an older guy, and he was actually my first real friend in Georgia. He holds horses for a living, all across the country. He goes all the way up to Alaska. People want the horses moved, and then they disappear and don’t pay him, so he ends up with a lot of horses. All the time. One of ours came that way, and then I bought a horse for Dave’s Christmas present a couple of Christmas’s ago.

DD: How about that. You got a horse for Christmas, Dave?

LD: Yep. His name’s Coal Miner.

HG: They just come to me, though. I get offered horses on a daily basis. It’s not difficult to find horses in Georgia.

LD: It’s hard to find a good horse, though. One that broke and will do what you ask him to do and not give a shit.

HG: Finding a good horse is the job. I’ve worked very hard on one of the horses I have to get her where she’s at. She was kind of a wild thing. Dave’s horse, on the other hand, is perfect for someone who doesn’t have a lot of horse experience.

DD: Have horses been your passion for a while?

HG: Since before I could walk. I can’t remember not being able to ride. I remember learning to ride a bicycle better than I can remember learning to ride a horse. I don’t remember not being able to ride.

DD: So your parents were obviously big on horses.

HG: My dad rode, and my mom did ride a little bit, but she was never that keen on it, I don’t think.

LD: Get drunk and go hunting. That’s the English pastime.

DD: Sounds like a good time.

LD: Go hunting on horseback and fall asleep on your horse.

HG: Yes, it’s more about the pub than anything else, really. But I was born in London, and then I grew up in East Sussex living with my Welsh grandparents. I was surrounded by the country, and people rode.  So it’s just what I did. It wasn’t that we were particularly privileged or anything like that. Everyone did it. My nearest neighbor was two years younger than me, and there were no other children within several miles, and there were horses on his property, as well.

DD: That’s great, and now you have a few of your own.

HG: Well, I’ve always had them, but keeping them in the UK is a real labor of love. It’s very expensive.

DD: Keeping them in Georgia is cheaper?

LD: It’s free.

HG: It’s free if you have a scratch of land.

DD: Do you have a stable?

LD: We don’t need a stable in Georgia because it’s so warm. In the winter we have a shelter set up because my horse doesn’t like getting wet. He doesn’t even need it, really. He’s a jerk.

DD: Is this place you live incorporated?

LD: No. The closest town is called Danielsville, but only 400 people live there.

DD: (laughs) You’re kind of making me want to move down there right now.

LD: Well, it’s a good idea if you like the country. It ain’t for everyone, though. I pretty much grew up in the country, and the I did the city thing for a long time. You kind of get addicted to the city because you end up making so much money, but you don’t really think about it, but your rent is so much higher and all that.

DD: Oh, I think about it. My friends and I...we’re all just barely breaking even.

LD: In the country, there’s no work. Unless you’re farming and know what you’re doing, or you know somebody out there who knows what they’re doing, you’ve got nothing. And even if you know what you’re doing, you won’t get paid very much. People work from home, or they do what we’re doing and go on the road and make their money there. But despite all that, the living itself is really cheap. Which is why Holly moved to the States from England. In England,  if you have land, you’re rich. You need to be, because land over there is at a premium. But out here, some of those land-owning people in England could come over here and buy land on their credit cards.

DD: So you’re touring until the end of the month, and then you’re going back to Georgia, and you’re going to hang out with your horses. Do you write songs from your...what do you call it? A farm? A ranch?

LD: It’s a petting zoo.

HG: Yeah, a farm suggests that there’s money in it. There’s no money being made. It’s our little world, you know? Our little world of animals. There are dogs and goats and geese and ducks. Sometimes we have chickens and sometimes we don’t. Sometimes the chickens get killed, and then I get some more, and then we have eggs for a while, and then they get killed again. We have kind of an endless cycle of chickens. And I’m actually trying to get a mini cow.

DD: I didn’t know there was such a thing.

HG: Yes. A miniature cow.

DD: Do you want it for the milk?

HG: No, I want it so we can get an agricultural exemption certificate, so we don’t even have to pay property tax. We have enough of an acreage to warrant that sort of thing. You need a cow though. Goats only count if you are using them for dairy. I don’t want to get into that. I don’t even like goat products. I grew up on a goat farm, I don’t need any goat products.

DD: I like goat cheese.

HG: Well, I don’t.

DD: (laughs) You’re burnt out on it?

HG: Just the smell of the fucking shit. That was my job as a kid. I just can’t be doing it. But if we had a cow I would milk it, and I would use the milk. I can’t get a full size one, though, because we can’t spare the pasture. I’ve got too many fucking horses. I can’t bring something in that’s going to eat the place bare.

DD: It is kind of blowing my mind right now to be talking to you about this.

HG: (laughs) Why?

DD: Because I used to listen to “There Is an End” almost every single day. Truly She Is No Other is one of my favorite albums. And now we’re sitting here talking about fucking milk.

HG: It’s not that outlandish, really. What’s sad is that most people who grow up in cities never get the opportunity to learn how to do these things. How to grow shit. I mean, I just grew up doing these things. It’s not that outlandish. The obvious progression if you’re a punk rocker is to eventually just fucking get off of it and look after yourself. That’s what I’m doing. I’m just not doing it with, you know, a green Mohican. It’s not a fashion statement. This is just the obvious thing to do. We’re never going to be rich. But we can exist without relying on anybody.