I Heart Honky Tonk

Friday turned out to be beautiful, breaking the gloomy cloud-filled, rain-misted weekend that made Lyon and I wish we knew where we'd packed all our sweatshirts. Lyon's parents threw us a wonderful going away party Tuesday, and while the rain held off, it felt like a cool fall evening.

But by Friday, the sun came out and warmed our faces and our laundry.

That day, once our laundry was dry enough to pack in a bag, we drove out from West Stockbridge, MA where we've been staying with Lyon's parents, to Brattleboro, VT. There, we met up with the members that make up the honky tonk band, J.P. Harris and the Tough Choices; The lead singer J.P. Harris aka: "Squash," Ben the bread-baker drummer, Asa the Canadian pedal steel player, and Noah the lanky, mullet-rocking, bass player. And then of course, there's Lyon the boyfriend guitar player.

First thing, Asa decided that I should be called "Lyoness" (I took my own liberty with the spelling there) and we decided that being the Lyoness was pretty cool since, as the female Lyon, I surely did all the hunting. I couldn't help but picture a svelte, compact lioness racing over the African plains towards a startled zebra. That's me!

Once we got in what must be a 15-seater van, Squashed hopped in the front seat and we peeled out of there. He handles that van like it's a tiny sports car, and even, at one point, parallel parked it in downtown Brattleboro, pumping himself up before doing so, "I'm gonna parallel park the $%*& out of that parking space!" And he did.

Driving along, listening to the internal band banter and sometimes getting their jokes sometimes not, I pictured Lyon driving away for one of his long tours, and me at home watching X-Files with Kelly. It made me excited for Lyon, happy he'd chosen a lifestyle that allowed him to take off like that for weeks at a time and just play music. I am enjoying not having a job more than I ever thought I would. I liked my work, and I liked knowing that twice a month money would magically appear in my bank account. But I haven't worried about money at all yet, and I love the feeling of not knowing.



Their first gig was in New York State at the Philmont Pub. It was a small bar on main street in Philmont, frequented by the locals. As the money-taker at the door, I had to keep track of which locals walked out just to go down the street to grab a sweatshirt, so that when they came back I didn't pounce on them (like the svelte Lyoness that I am) for their $5.

At the bar, Squash introduced me to the owner as their new "roadie" which is admittedly more fun than just "the guitar player's girlfriend." He joked that having a roadie was a new criterion of the band. Claire, a friend of Squash's was their last "roadie," and is way more badass than myself (shaved head, lots of long bicycle tours behind her, etc). It turned out she forgot her license at home though and so was without it for their entire month-long tour this summer. So I joked that another criterion for the band must be that the roadie leave her license behind. Because yes, I did that. After losing my phone for a week, then after finally finding my phone, not being able to find my charger, but then finally finding it all, I left my little black purse with all the things I was proud as a human being to be finally keeping track of (phone, keys, wallet) in the car back in Brattleboro.

Oh well! The music was great! Ben was a lively drummer and it made me smile to see him playing straight up honky tonk since, as ipod D.J. of the band, he'd graced our ears with everything from Big Boi to Doo-Wop to the Raconteurs. Squash is a natural performer, singing hard into the mic with a deep, smoky but agile voice, and joking with the audience in between songs. At first, the owner, Elizabeth, who was dancing around whenever she had the chance, would yell with encouragement after learning a song they had played was a Squash original. But after a while, she stopped because he kept prefacing his songs with, "this is one I wrote," and the audience realized that they were listening to an original Honky Tonk band-which I think is rare. They only played a handful of covers.

It was great to finally get to see them play, and sort of weird that last night was the first time.

Off to Lancaster, PA today.

Alice