photo: Dan CohoonSo I moved to perhaps the most opposite city I could find, Portland Oregon. You could eat a mushroom, walk from one end to the other and feel safe the whole way. Bike lanes everywhere, buses that actually ran, and a young population of people creating what they called "cottage industry" or something like that. That was enough to to get me to move there. Oh, my beloved Portland had plenty of shortcomings, but I was tired of the violence. Tired and bored of it. Violence is pretty square. You gotta be pretty uptight to harm another person.
In Portland the rain can be oppressive, but once you set foot into that summer, you never want t leave. It's hard to do anything in weather that nice, especially if you've been bordering on suicide after 9 months of gray skies! In Baltimore the climate dictates how I created in a much different way than in Portland, and Portland was and still is quite strange for me to get my creative muscle going. When I arrived in November 1995 I had little idea of what I had just walked into. The music scene was quite foreign to me. There were literally no bands I liked and I couldn't understand what folks dug about them. Well, with the exception of The New Bad Things and Muslim Delgados' The Caseys. They were just enough of a disaster to hold my attention. What I found there was divisive musically. People were into how you looked more than what you can do for the sound of their band. Where I came from you had to be good at what you did to gain an audience. What i mean by good isn't necessarily chops, but have heart, passion and be commited to the moment you are living. In fact the lifestyle had as much to do with it as the music. In Portland I don't know how many folks told me they were proud to have a mediocre band, and be a mediocrity, I do know I heard that bit enough to get pretty depressed. Funny bit was I could play well, an asset in Baltimore, a liability in Portland unless I went the straight route, blues, jazz, R&B, funk, etc. To me once music has a genre it's done on both sides. Not exactly a marketable attitude, but that's honestly how I've allways felt.
The first 2 years were rough. A few kind hippies would jam with me but most folks were pretty disinterested in anything I had to offer. I don't blame them and it was okay, I was at such a crossroads at that point I wasn't even sure if I'd continue making music. Then one day a dear friend introduced me to Jackie O Motherfucker. Nobody in the band had any chops and somehow they still wanted to work with me. At the time it was perfect. It was the first band I could explore playing 1 note for a 1/2 an hour and at that time it was the first completely sober band I had ever experienced. That in itself was really compelling when you realize you can feel what all of your bandmates were feeling moment to moment during performances. You could feel the love, insecurity, terror, ecstacy, joy, hatred. I was at a point where I couldn't remember what I liked about making music and I couldn't feel anything unless it was extreme. I had become uncomfortably numb to survive. Plus, I had re-padded this clarinet some friends found in an alley in Baltimore and I needed to learn how to play it. No other band would have tolerated me learning on stage unless it was free improv. I like melody, rhythm and harmony. I still like scales. the music we were making was like electricity and my job usually was to be the ground wire. I loved the role most days, other days my ego was frustrated by it, but I was learning so much it didn't matter. This was the first band I was in that made records and actually released them. I learned with intent, it's not hard to get a record made. The work falls into place if you have vision, and Tom Greenwood has that.
Funny thing was, my old guard for the most part seemed suspicious. I felt some of my friends were puzzled by my choice to create the music we were creating, with folks that didn't have my chops or abilities, whatever the eff that means! Some of my dear old guard let me know they disapproved of me playing the sax. To this day some give a sigh of relief when I say I still play electric guitar, like some kind of nightmare isn't true. I don't know why anyone would be afraid or bother to be offended, and I really don't care. 1992 Jef Brown died in 1993. Okay, the dreads lasted until 1998 when a lady told my drunk ass "mmmm, those dreads say 3 words: I want Pussy!" Those dreads got shaved off that night and I welcomed a new era immediately! Fuck stagnation! It's a terrible way to live! Change is scary, I know that. But I never want to be that desperate 22 year old ever again.
With the Jackie O, we made about 6 records together, Flat Fixed, Wow, Change, Fig 5, Liberation, Majic Fire Music and countless CDR releases. We'd make a big vat of poppie tea, some pasta, feed people, go into the basement at the Michigan Avenue Social Club and burn 4 track tape. At it's best we realized there is no failure in experimenting, just different degrees of success. I wore a lot of hats. Musician, engineer, writer, producer, music memorizer, cat herder. It was too much at points, but the work needed to get done. And we all wore many hats. Without Tom there would never have been any tours or records or music for instance. I've never been adept at sending out demos, calling clubs and selling the music. Writing about it tonight, I realize how incredible the whole experience was just in the fact that we accomplished so much.
Around the time Fig 5 was released my flight mode (I've lived in fight or flight conciouness for most of this life!) was starting to kick in. Mike Hinds of Roadcone records did a great job of marketing that album, and it was a good album. Groundbreaking. We had recorded Majic Fire Music in Baltimore earlier and that was my favorite record. Beautifully recorded by Craig Bowen at ACR studios, it captured us as a hungry rock band fresh off our second tour. It was released by Thurston Moores' Ecstatic Peace but was impossible to find and there was no press and none of Toms lovely artwork submitted was used. I was upset by this. I appreciated his help in getting us on the map but that record I would have loved to have more support with. So the record that got the press was Fig 5. And Mike did a bang up job. The reviews were glowing. We started being called "American Primitive" and all this jive about Harry Smith etc. I can't speak for anyone elses feelings but it seemed i kept reading the same review over and over again, like it was just a re-write of the press release. It seemes the writers were writing for each other and not really digging into their own feelings, like they just needed to impress each other. And this was perhaps my biggest mistake. I started reading them! Reviews whether good or bad have no actual meaning, it's all one persons experience at best. A good review can really fuck you up if you are like I was and needed approval all the time. See, musicians tend to be a low self esteem lot. You toil away in obscurity for years and one day someone likes what you've done and they wish to share it with the rest of the world. There is no ill intent there but suddenly the situation creates an agenda. It seemed to creat a , um, genre. Genre is something i've never been involved in, to me music is music, and suddenly that approval set what seemed to be an agenda for the next albums. Truth was, I was scared to death on the next records. "oh, are they gonna like this? Are they gonna hate it?" I was afraid to make anything that wasn't as good as the last thing and when I heard those albums back, that fear is what i kept hearing. And I got bored. Really bored. I started to wonder what things would have been different if Majic Fire Music got the press it deserved and Fig 5 didn't. In those days I had little understanding that everything happens in it's own perfect order, and to just relax. I had become aware of my own self sabotaging ways and it took most of my energy to not destroy a good thing. And with that awareness I still grew bitter and more depressed with the whole thing.
http://youtu.be/cGQVzBJNV6w
The last tour I did with JOMF was in Europe during the fall of 2002. The first notes of the first night in Leeds I knew I was leaving at the end of that tour. I can't imagine I was too much fun to be around. I was really depressed and getting deep into hatred mode! Not a fun place to be but also not to be avoided either. There is a lot of truth in pain, just as much as in pleasure. I got to see some awesome places and had a hard time appreciating that I was in Finland and Greece! It's crazy what being addicted to "more" can do to your well being! We recorded at the BBC in the same room that The Beatles did a record in and I hated every minute of it! Crazy! In fact i was deathly ill and went to the hospital in Leeds later. If my mind was in better shape, I'd have been healthy. Part of my struggle was I felt little connection with the other members on that tour. The band was usually men and women, this tour was all men. We also had no real time together. I don't like to rehearse too much, but with no time together it's hard to create a vibe. In 6 weeks I remember us really hitting our groove maybe 4 or 5 times. And when we did, it was incredible. The rest I was waiting for the bell to ring so I can go to social studies class.
But really it was just time for me to go. I had nothing else to say in context of the group. I knew I had to go cause I couldn't serve the band, myself, the audience and god in a way that was beneficial to any of us. About 4 shows into the tour I found my answer to what i liked about making music the most. We played a rather lackluster show in Belgium and an audience member expressed his dis-satisfaction after we finished. He flat out said "we payed good money for this, and you're not done!" We played another set and gave it our all with it ending with me on the sax and Michael Henrickson on drums. I blew that raggedy ass horn till I couldn't see straight and Michael beat those drums till he just about collapsed. The feller said "now that's what I'm talking about!" Really, at the end of the day it's about the same thing it was at the beginning, just doing your best. Doing your best opens that heart up wide and shares that love with all those around you. In that moment I realized what I like about making music. It's a sacred space where only the truth needs to be and fear ceases to exist. And it didn't matter if I felt bad or good, in that space there is no bad or good! I know we all did our best and I'm glad to see JOMF has continued to create and travel the world. And I'm glad I got to be a part of the trip. We made some shockingly beautiful music.
Funny thing was, when I returned to the states, the same folks who were suspicious of me joining such a band couldn't believe I would leave it now. "But, you guys are doing so well!" they'd say. Some folks will just never understand!
Keep the light flowing, xojb
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