Live Performances

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Neither the ice storm nor the pandemic caused my show at Common Grounds to be postponed. On Saturday, January 22, 2022, from 8 pm until about 11 pm, I performed my first all-piano coffeeshop show.

Playing a piano show out live is uncharted territory for me. I’ve played solo piano limitedly, a few times, and I have been trying new gear setups each time. These have consisted of either running straight out through the stereo output of my Yamaha keyboard or using a less than ideal MIDI keyboard to trigger robust samples. This time, however, I tried using my Yamaha keyboard into my MacBook Pro where I triggered a piano in GarageBand. I liked this outcome. 

Collapsis played three reunion shows in 2021. As such, Dirty Wake, our principal album, has been on the fore-front of my mind. The first set of the evening was nearly all of Dirty Wake in sequence, with the exception of “I.O.L.” That song is tricky and seldom played. The second set was nearly all of Semigloss Albatross, the exception being “The Wall of Flies.” Rather than take a set break, I went straight into what was going to be the third set, which ended up being a handful of cover songs and balanced with a smattering of originals. 

I look forward to doing this again. While my sets were structured, not all of the songs I chose lent themselves easily to the piano.  Next time, a better approach would be two 45 to 50 minute sets, with more attention to overall flow and ease of performance.

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As we played our set on the Waterfall Stage at the NC State Fair, I thought about time travel. Between songs, I announced, “We’re Collapsis, a band from the year 1998. We’ve traveled here to the future to play for you.” To me, the essence of that statement is true. There, at 7 pm, on October 23, 2021, a band that was moderately popular some three decades prior reunited to play the same songs it played long ago. A synergy from the past traveled through some kind of conceptual wormhole only to appear years in the future through the vessels that created it.

Having played the NC State Fair twice now, I can confirm that the greatest obstacle a band faces when playing anywhere near the fairgrounds when the fair is in full swing is getting to the stage. We attempted to caravan to the stage after meeting up at Sushi Nine, only to fail in that simple one mile distance. Our caravan fell to pieces, first because of the size of one of our vehicles and second because of poor pedestrian management near the vendor admission gates. Note to future self (and any musician reading this): arrive on the fairgrounds in one vehicle and allow and extra two hours for transit.

Once we got to the stage, the production and production management was world class. Crisp clear monitors and an exciting stage made for an excellent show all around. Special thanks to Deep South Entertainment for doing such an excellent job with the Waterfall Music Stage.

We only omitted the Big Star cover from our planned set. We substituted “Seems” by QSS at the very end.

  • What I look at: set list, cheat sheet, amp/fx selection board.
  • Mid-Atlantic Wrestling probably used this particular dressing room back in the 80s.
  • I don’t know what this is.
  • We achieve the Collapsis font by placing “Council” font in all caps and putting an extra space between the letters.

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On the early afternoon of May 22, 2021, Ivy and I made our way to the venue. Even though Gibsonville is in Guilford County, Grove Winery & Vineyards is nestled at the end of several winding back roads. We arrived around 2:30 pm.

I drove right up to the stage and unloaded my gear, which consisted of four guitars, an amp, a floor board, and a keyboard set up. We didn’t start sound checking until about 4:30 pm, so Ivy and I walked around the grounds for a bit. My two favorite parts of Grove Winery were the vineyard rows and the lake behind the stage with the loud bullfrogs. The rows of grapes reminded me of some kind of rustic farming–idyllic in its own way. The bullfrogs called from the lake every now and then during the daylight hours. As night fell, they croaked constantly.

Ryan did an excellent job with the sound production. It didn’t hurt that he’s the front of house engineer for My Morning Jacket. He and James, his assistant, rung out the PA and dialed in the monitors quite well. Sound check was relatively effortless in that we were able to use the time to get used to the stage rather than mitigate flaws in the staging.

As people arrived, I spent some time reconnecting with friends and fans that I hadn’t seen in ages. What I enjoy most about Collapsis reunions is hearing how our music was a soundtrack for a particular part of a person’s life. About an hour before the Grove show, one couple told me that they listened to Dirty Wake everyday of their daughter’s first year of life. And, when they saw that we were playing within two hours of where they live, they had to make a family road trip out of it so they could share the music with their now 20 year old daughter.

Chris started off the show with some original acoustic songs. Before his set, Chris shared with me his rationale for using a Martin acoustic guitar. This particular guitar had two pickups and allowed for a nice blending in the PA. Chris’s songs would sit well in a playlist of Gram Parsons and Chris Bell songs–a very good performance.

I played some songs on the piano for the next part of the show. I performed “Gravity Affects Me,” “Semigloss Albatross,” “Oceans,” and “End.” The first song was from my 2004 EP of the same name and the third song was from my 1996 album, The Lessons of Autumn. The second and fourth songs were from my most recent album Semigloss Albatross. Performing on the piano is not as fluid for me as performing on the guitar, but the only way to get better at something is to keep trying, live, without a net.

The next part of the show featured just Scott and me–I played acoustic guitar and Scott played light drums with hot rod sticks. We did “Trouble in the Barynard,” “Crocodile,” “Believe in You,” and “Wonderland.” The first two songs were from The Lessons of Autumn and Building a Hole, respectively, while the last two were from the Collapsis album, Dirty Wake.

After a short break, the Collapsis set began. Chris made the set list and it flowed quite well. We tried to put songs in places we hadn’t usually put them. “Stumble,” for example, was almost always a transitional song in our sets. But for this show, we opened with it. “High Caliber Grease” often got relegated to our encores for one reason or another. But we played it mid-set this time.

We tried a handful of new cover songs and peppered them in the set here and there. “Eminence Front” by The Who was never a song I ever anticipated covering, but Ryan pointed out that it’s in the same key as “Dirty Wake” and would transition well out of it. “Feel” by Big Star added a chance to showcase Chris on lead vocals. “Corduroy” by Pearl Jam transitioned well out of our version of “Breathe” by Pink Floyd. Our show closer was “Life’s What You Make It” by Talk Talk. We invited James Chen to play keys with us on this song. Dillon Fence alumnus Chris Goode just happened to be sitting in the front row, so we invited him to play bass on the last song. Chris Holloway moved over to floor tom and added a polyrhythm to Scott’s groove.

As the set ended and people began to leave, I contributed to helping pack up the PA and getting the stage straight. Just before leaving, we took a band photo.

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If you haven’t heard, Collapsis is getting back together for a show on May 22, 2021 at the Grove Winery & Vineyards. It’s an outdoor show with limited, spaced seating.

The last time Collapsis performed was at the Cat’s Cradle anniversary show in the fall of 2018. That show was the first time I used the Line 6 Firehawk as my main amp. Since then, I’ve had the opportunity to rehearse with the rig much more and explore its many features.

My favorite thing about the Firehawk is that it allows me to approximate vintage amp tones without the excessive volume needed to fully realize those tones. A hundred watt Marshall sounds great wide open, but that kind of volume is generally inappropriate unless you are playing a stadium. Power soaks and power breaks offer negative volume solutions, but sometimes to the detriment of one’s tone. The Firehawk allows me to select an amp, dial in the tone I desire, and then set the output.

Here’s an example of what I mean. I love playing a VOX AC-30 with Top Boost. Every time I’ve had the privilege of using one live, I’ve enjoyed the result. The Firehawk interface allows me to select the AC-30 model with the amount of drive I like. I can also select a distortion pedal, phaser pedal, and delay pedal from a variety of options. And then, I can turn the output up or down as needed. Before, when the sound engineer would ask me to turn down, it meant sacrificing the delicate balance of tone obtained by driving the amp tubes a certain way.

What’s more, this single amp setting gets saved in the Firehawk and is switchable with an ethernet floor controller. Within the amp, I can save over a hundred different amp/pedal combinations. I only have four for the Collapsis show, but that’s more than enough.

The other three amp models I’ll use at this show are a 200 Watt Marshall Plexi, a Matchless DC-30, and a Fender Vibrolux. I’ve paired the Marshall for a semi-gritty tone that works well with my Stratocaster. The Matchless is a darker complement to the AC-30. The Vibrolux gives a more robust tone, when needed.

Do you use digital amps? Are you an analog only person? Let me know on Twitter or sound off in the comments below.

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The Songs about Trains show was great fun for me. Broadcasting live on StageIt usually goes off without a hitch. However, on a long enough timeline, technical difficulties are inevitable. My apologies to anyone whose feed dropped out mid-show. For some, it did not. So my assumption is that the error was attributable to something outside of my control.

Doing a themed show invited light research about the topic. Did you know that the term “train” comes from the French verb, traine, which means “to drag”? And, back in the 1800’s, people actually thought that their bodies would melt if they traveled at over 50 miles per hour. And–one more factoid–ghost trains run in the United Kingdom because the cost of abandoning old lines is more expensive than running an empty train every now and then.

The set list was a mix of cover songs and original songs:

  1. Crime Scene Part One (originally performed by The Afghan Whigs)
  2. Gone, Gone, Gone
  3. Driver 8 (originally performed by R.E.M.)
  4. Seminole Train
  5. Manic Monday (originally performed by the Bangles and written by Prince)
  6. Slow Moon Rising
  7. Interstate Love Song (originally performed by Stone Temple Pilots)
  8. The Original Pullman Palace Car Dream
  9. Ghost Train (originally performed by Counting Crows”
  10. Where’s the A Train?
  11. Jumping Someone Else’s Train (originally performed by The Cure)
  12. Don’t Stop Believin’ (originally performed by Journey)

I’ll return to StageIt the first Saturday in June. Stay tuned for an announcement with details. This show and the preceding StageIt show will be available, in audio form, in the Community later this month.

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I hope you’ll join me for my show on StageIt on Saturday, May 1 at 9 pm EDT. I’ll be playing songs about trains and only songs about trains. It’ll be the most fun you can have at an online show that’s only about trains.

As I songwriter, I only have four songs that concern trains. As such, I’ll be doing six or seven cover songs that feature trains.

What are your favorite songs about trains? Please let me know in the comments below or hit me up on Twitter. Here is a list of my favorite songs about trains.

Jumping Someone Else’s Train

Originally released as a single near the time The Cure’s debut album, Three Imaginary Boys, was released, “Jumping Someone Else’s Train” was later incorporated into the US repackaged album, Boy’s Don’t Cry. I first heard “Jumping Someone Else’s Train” on the Staring at the Sea double length cassette, which featured early singles and b-sides by The Cure. This cassette was required listening for all seventh graders . . . at least the one’s I hung out with.

Driver 8

If there’s a better song about trains, I haven’t heard it.

Interstate Love Song

Admittedly, this song features only limited train imagery, but I think it still counts.

Train Kept a Rollin’

I’m partial to the Aerosmith version of this classic, originally performed by Tiny Bradshaw and perfected by the Yardbirds.

Manic Monday

OK, so this barely counts, but Ms. Hoffs does sing about having “to catch an early train” in the second verse. Great track. True fact: Prince wrote this song. I particularly like the dark bridge lyrics–somehow they get obscured by the bright production. But that’s one of the many things that makes this song totally awesome.