SHOULDA BUT DIDN

the seduction the band

Fiddler's convention weekend is here and gone. I kinda wanted to go, but couldn't open the door to leave home. The thought of carrying a portable chair, finding a place to put it, sitting for hours in place is boring already. Somebody appears onstage, plays a traditional tune on an instrument and leaves. Sit and wait. Sit and wait. Somebody else goes onstage and does the same thing. Sit and wait. Sit and wait. Somebody else does the same thing. Sit and wait. It looks bad to take a book, looks intellectual in an anti-intellectual context, thus pretentious, but if I'd chosen to go, a book would have gone with me. The alternative to sitting and waiting for hours is to walk around in the parking lot among campers and visit different jams going on. This is always emphasized as the best part of the fiddlers conventions. But I don't enjoy this either. I prefer my live music in a program with a band playing several tunes, or a jam at somebody's house, getting into their musical groove and playing the tunes from the groove. I know it is fiddler's convention tradition and I'm supposed to like it, but I've tried it several times and never liked it. Supposed-to means as much to me as should, nothing. 

daniel biggins, guitar, vocals

Have felt minor guilt Friday and Saturday nights over expectation, expectation in self, not coming in from outside. Every year I have to analyze why I don't want to go when I feel like I should. There's the word. Every time should pops up anymore, I delete it. A meaningless word like needta and oughta. I make the decision not to go to the fiddler's convention and hear an imagined voice in my head, a voice presumed from outside self, "Well, you should." Next thing, I'm thinking, "Should? Not necessarily. By what authority?" Next time I talk with somebody in town, I may be asked if I went. I'll say no. Then, You should have. I'll say, Not necessarily. And that sets us off to a bad start. Should have gone, a meaningless word. To say I should have done something in the past other than what I did cannot be correct, because I did something else. What I did is what I should-have done. 

brandon hamby, guitar

My focus on the present, on living the life, has relaxed considerably since realizing the meaningless nature of the word should and it's siblings, needta, oughta, haveta, gotta. There is nothing I needta do that I don't choose for myself. Like somebody says the Stones are gonna be in Atlanta, you needta go. Uh, really? Spend a hundred dollars on gas round trip, at least a hundred on a place to stay overnight and food, and however many hundreds it costs to get in. Uh, I don't think so. I'd rather go to Charlotte to a small club and hear local punk bands for five dollars. Much rather. Big auditoriums and mega-parking lots don't do it for me anymore. It was cool seeing Jane's Addiction  and Siouxsie & the Banshees with 50,000. I could not get to London in 1978 to see Siouxsie, like I couldn't get to LA in 88 to see Jane's Addiction at a small venue. It was a matter of take what I can get. Though a huge mega-concert has its own thrill. I like a small place for the immediacy of sound. Last time I saw Daniel Biggins' band, The Seduction, when they'd finished their set, people around me talking sounded like they'd inhaled helium. The sign of perfect volume. 

jacob shelton, bass

All my life I've heard and read that rock n roll is ruining the hearing of the young, you shouldn't be listening to it. It's just three chords. Yeah, tell that to Jimmy Page. I've committed the sin of listening to rock n roll since age 12 when Bill Haley's Shake Rattle & Roll was first played on the radio. I remember at age 16 sitting on the floor in my room, holding the speakers of the tin-can stereo to my ears listening to Chuck Berry and Little Richard as loud as it would go. Home alone. Not knowing right from wrong. In late twenties, I sat about ten feet from a wall of speakers at a Grand Funk Railroad show, County Hall in Charleston. My ears rang for three days and nights. I loved it. Bands like Van Halen, The Cars and Kiss, I've heard so loud no ears were needed. The sound waves I felt in my skin. That's a good concert. I let myself be a guinea pig to see if there's anything to losing hearing. Haven't lost it yet. It may not be perfect, according to this study and that, and I know it's not, but I don't care. Hearing Johnny Winter in my head, "I was raised on rock," one of my rock n roll anthems of the mind. Shoulda? I shoulda done exactly what I did, listened  to all the rock n roll I wanted to. After college, I saw people I knew put their rock albums in boxes in the attic or basement and call it a youthful thing---like good grown-ups they're supposeta listen to something less committed, American Idol. Not me.    

the seduction the band

photos by tj worthington

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