Back from a short (unscheduled) silent spell, just in time for the shows to start this week:
Thursday I’m playing my first show of the new stuff with a band. 5:30 pm at South Hill Cider in Ithaca, NY. Opening for Bronwen Exter, my excellent sister who is also lending me her rhythm section.
It’s for all ages, there’s no cover and apparently the cider is tasty, so bring the kids!
- Trevor
I told you I'd be posting every week, and that's still my intention. Of course the last time you heard from me was three weeks ago. Then I went into a real confusing funk, and it dawned on me.
I remember turning 30, thinking "Great, it's time to flush all those childish games from my 20's down the toilet and become a real adult". Then when I turned 40 I thought "great, it's time to integrate all the hard lessons I learned in my 30's and become a real adult".
Here I am today, a month into my 50's and I really can't say anything. I'm just here and I just have to own it: I am a mess. And the messy story is slowly starting to make a little hard-earned sense, but not enough. And milestones don't mean anything when you're neither here nor there.
But I do have a 5-year old nephew. And when I tell him that I'm ten times as old as he is and his eyes go wide, I get all the perspective I need for a season.
His mom, my sister Bronwen, is messily providing her kids with an environment somewhat free of the disturbances she and I had as kids, but full of all kinds of new disturbances which will be their work to untangle. Such is life, the best we can do is stay in touch. Help each other find a way to appreciate where we are and pick out a path forward.
I always need reminding that there's always a way forward, even when I don't see it.
There's a big old gap in my brain, telling me I have nothing to say. But sometimes The Stuff I really want to say is maybe too cutting, too close for mere music promotion? For a moment I actually let myself think "promo" is all this publication is for. It takes a lot to keep my head in the game sometimes.
But what do you do when your head and heart are exploding with vulnerability and you're full of fear, making up smallest-self reasons to hide & not be in touch?
The reality is that I'm a bit paralyzed by the reality of what I'm doing here.
Here I am, preparing to deliver a great experience to you this fall starting Thursday.
How great?
So great that you will feel compelled to share it with your friends and multiply the size of the audience to some critical, theoretical number that will somehow scale into my being able to deliver music for you in a properly prosperous way. So we can all be proud of our weird taste and know collectively that we weren't crazy, that the music is actually good for the world and worth our commitment to it.
But I'm also processing a lot of misgivings about my choices over the years, how I might have given into my fears more than a few times, with the unintended result of having deprived you and myself of the opportunity to jam together. It wears my heart out, thinking of all the singing we could have done, that we did not get to do during the years in which I just couldn't get it together to go out on the road and play.
To be fair, it's really, really hard for me to go out on the road and play.
It's also really hard to find a voice for the feelings I have about it. But when I make this move to go play after a long time away from it, the grief of all the lost time and scattered energy comes up to shout at me. The battle inside me is fierce, just like any musician's battle to go out and do that which used to be so normal. But today I'd like to testify to a particular facet of my internal battle, something to which I know many of you can relate.
It's about Music + Structure.
For me music equals structure. That's because early in my life my family went through some displacements and some big structure changes which left me feeling mostly on my heels. Some of it was generational but the thing that filled the gap was music.
I was lucky to be physically protected for the most part, but many of the important things that a child unconsciously depends on for their orientation, integration and growth, like home, neighborhood, location, school, society, friends, language, community... many of mine got scrambled up. Either taken totally away or just moved out of reach.
At some point my parents observed that I was flailing a bit and they decided to get music lessons for me. In order to help me put some structure into my young brain.
They didn't just get me music lessons: we got Suzuki music lessons. Suzuki is a kind of classical music cult for kids which, depending on who you ask, is either an abomination or the greatest thing ever. I can relate to both opinions but I don't really care because for me, at a cellular level, just to have any musical activity at all in my life was what saved me from going totally off the deep end at a young age.
Suzuki helped save me by giving me a simple structure in which to play, learn music and connect with other kids. It was fun, I learned how to play by ear and hear melodies. I had a really fantastic teacher.
But my need for structure beyond music was so great and so unaddressed that I ended up clinging to music in a less-than-healthy way and for less-than-healthy reasons through out my adolescence and young adulthood. This produced results I'm still having to process and recover from at age 50.
People talk about the music business, the economy, the country, the climate, the rise and imminent fall of globalization... no matter where you look it's all changing too much and too fast and you still have to pick a side.
But my flag is permanently planted in music. I believe in my bones that music is what we need to do more of. I believe our existence depends on immersing ourselves in the sounds that connect us.
Maybe that’s my trauma talking, but it’s true too.
It is my prayer that some of the healing I’ve experienced through my musical efforts will continue to touch folks out there who need to receive it.
It’s not entertainment, it’s life itself
On making true sounds:
Anyway, here’s my genre description for the new stuff I’m supporting on this tour: I’m calling it Indie-Yacht.
To spell it out, in case anyone asks: we’re talking Yacht rock without the yacht. Not for a******s. Melodic with a bit more grit & rocking with a little extra poise. You’ll be able to sing along to it unironically.
So come out! Let me know if it fits.
As always, big love to your ears. Thanks for tuning in here, we’ll talk more next week.
Trevor
Thanks for reading "Play It Like It's Music" by Trevor Exter! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
.
.
.
Do you like my stuff? Please help the audience grow by sharing this post with one friend:
* FALL 2023 TOUR DATES booking currently: @trevorexter.com
* Hear my music: the “Trevor Exter Playlist” (Spotify)
* Hear 80 penetrating interviews with great musicians in the Play It Like It’s Music podcast archive.
Thanks for reading "Play It Like It's Music" by Trevor Exter! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
Get full access to "Play It Like It's Music" by Trevor Exter at playitlikeitsmusic.substack.com/subscribe