The Weekly Croissant: On Collision and Collaboration
OOPS, DROPPED A NAME OR TWO AND NOW I CAN'T FIND THEM
It’s been a gorgeous weekend here in Nashville. It feels like spring. Yesterday, George (name changed to protect privacy) and I went to one of our favorite spots, Mitchell Delicatessen in East Nashville. We drank Kombucha and ate perfectly ratio-ed sandwiches outside on the picnic tables in the sunshine, and eves-dropped on folks’ conversations about their new singles, and their booking agents, and their band dramas. If you are a musician living in town, this particular crossroads of Dose, Mitchell’s, and whatever awful development is about to replace Found Object, is a place where you are nearly guaranteed to run into someone you know.
Unrelated to this story, but because this post is unhinged, here is another of my favorite businesses in Nashville:
OK, I’m a child, back to Mitchell’s. Low and behold, while going inside to use the bathroom I literally ran into Bennet from The Silk Starting Kids. I asked him what he was doing in town (playing the Ryman, casual), and we caught up briefly before going on our merry ways. This collision reminded me of the last time that I had seen Bennet.
It was a year or two back, and I was asked last minute to do the opening set for The Silk Starting Kids in Cincinnati because their original opener had gotten sick. Of course, I was thrilled to take the opportunity and Steve (name changed to protect identity) and I trucked it up to Cinci to play what I think was our first-ever duo set.
It was a great night, Bennet and Khloe were sweet and hilarious, we had excellent sound, and Steve and I both played well. It turned out that the Lunch Brothers were also playing in town that night, and seeing as these two fancy pants groups were good friends, they were all going to meet up at a tiki bar after the show for drinks. Did Steve and I want to join? Why yes, we certainly did.
It took me a while to finish merch etc, and we arrived kind of late on the scene to this bar, Tiki Tiki Bang Bang (name not changed to promote business for this deserving spot!), which had a bartender dressed as a ship captain, and delicious boozy cocktails (Lunch Brothers approved!). Someone had ordered a pile of pizza and salad which was splayed out across the tables outside this bar and there was somewhat of a rager happening.
Steve and I were feeling pretty shy in this star-studded party, and poor Steve was also in his year of sobriety at this point, so had nothing to help ease the social anxiety.
I went and got a drink and ran into Bliss Sheeli himself, who was in a jovial rum-induced mood. This was around that time when everyone was watching that super long Beatles documentary “Get Back” (which I have STILL failed to watch, in my stubborn resistance to consuming any music-related media that is not actual music).
Some of the guys started discussing the documentary and in an effort to seem interesting (and interested), I asked Sheeli what he thought about it. He said something like “It’s a treatise on the profound value of collaboration”.
Trust a drunk Bliss Sheeli to come up with something like that!
It did impress me, though. I mean impress both in the sense that the comment has stayed with me since and that it made me admire him more. Someone who has been immensely successful and is arguably one of the most technically proficient instrumentalists in the world still believes strongly that better art can be made in collaboration with others. And Sheeli’s career supports that idea, as he is constantly working on new projects with various other great musicians and artists, trying out new mediums, with seemingly endless curiosity.
This year I am working almost exclusively in collaboration, and it is not without its challenges. Are you a kid who liked group projects? Me neither. It’s hard to let go when I am certain that the music would be better served with x or y and somebody disagrees with me. It’s not an ego issue so much as a fear of doing something with the art that I can’t get behind 100%.
The trick, I think, is in trying new options until you both, or you all, can stand behind the work fully. It takes longer, and it requires a lot of persistence, and patience, and emotional intelligence, and straightforward communication. But in having to try a million new options, you nearly always come out with something better than what you were so sure was the correct answer (the one the other person didn’t agree with). Alternatively, if you give up and compromise, you’ll always feel like the music wasn’t exactly what you intended.
I now believe in the outcome of positive collaboration more than I believe in my own stubborn insistence on being right about everything. And so far, I think I’m doing my best work with the help and shared vision of others. It feels almost as good as the sunshine did when it hit my face yesterday after a long, cold, month.
Hope you all are having a great week and eating many croissants
xo
Rachel