It's release week for Triangle alumnus Tift Merritt's new album, which means you can see, hear and read about her all over. Sunday's paper has a story reporting on Merritt in her new hometown of New York City, plus a really nice photo gallery.
You can also check out the new episode of Merritt's radio show, "The Spark," or the video for her new single "Broken"; or see her on Jay Leno Monday night (or live at Durham's Carolina Theatre on March 22); or read this New York Daily News feature.
(UPDATE: Here is Merritt's Leno episode.)
Meanwhile, on the click-through, another oldie from the archives -- a 2002 feature from when Merritt still lived in Raleigh, shortly before the release of her first album.
ADDENDUM (3/2/08): On Bob Edwards' radio show.
New record, new pressure
By David Menconi, News & Observer
Feb. 17, 2002
Raleigh -- Tift Merritt and the Carbines drive a battered hulk of Detroit iron, a weathered 1988 Ford Econoline. Whatever color it started out as long ago faded into earth tones, sandblasted by 140,000 miles of road grime. The van has no nickname, but it does have a gender.
"The van is a 'she,' that's all I know," Merritt says. "She's wonderful, though we did put a new engine in her, and she leaks. But she has a good 30 miles on her underneath the empty line on the gas gauge. Anyone who stops for gas without pushing it at least a quarter-inch below is chicken."
The van seats all five members of the Raleigh band, with room to spare for their instruments. It has a few homey touches, too, including champagne glasses (left over from the band's New Year's Eve show at Cat's Cradle in Carrboro) rattling around in back. On this Tuesday afternoon, Merritt will add just a few miles to the odometer reading, traveling from the Carbines' practice space to the Lincoln Theatre in downtown Raleigh.
The show will be the equivalent of a pre-season exhibition basketball game -- a one-night performance for a friendly hometown crowd at a venue that's almost within walking distance of Merritt's house. It won't be the biggest crowd the band has played for, or the most important venue. But at least it will involve getting paid. Like all bands, the Carbines have played for free more times than they care to count in the four years they've been together.
There actually won't be too many more relaxed shows like this one before the high-pressure gigs begin. Merritt's first album, "Bramble Rose," will be released in June on a major label. A video shoot and live dates in Europe are on the horizon. So is a return trip to the South by Southwest music industry convention. Merritt and the Carbines played there last year on a pressure-packed showcase with label mates Lucinda Williams and Ryan Adams, for a crowd of several thousand people.
"I cried after that show, I really did," Merritt says. "We were kinda in limbo at the time with the label, the band, a producer, everything. And there was so much pressure with all the industry people there, and the whole thing of opening for Lucinda. All these people came around afterward, and I just did not want to see anybody."
Nevertheless, Merritt is eager to hit the road -- though a lot about the process of releasing an album makes her uneasy, fancy clothes and photo shoots and videos. She is practical enough to see the positive side of a low video budget ("We might get to use somebody kinda edgy"), and seems determined to stay one of the boys in the band. Which isn't always easy, even at the stage that involves more hard work than glamour.
###
4 p.m.: Pack mentality:
The Carbines' practice space near the Farmers Market is in a gray industrial-looking building made of cinder block and tin, right next to a cardboard recycling plant. Someone behind a closed door in another practice room is cranking out a dizzying array of Eddie Van Halen-type guitar riffs. It sounds like the sort of showboating you hear in instrument stores.
(Note: Volume 11 Tavern occupies this space now.)
At the very end of the building is the band's rehearsal room, a small space with a blue parachute tacked to the ceiling for acoustic purposes. The walls hold a few tokens and good luck charms -- pictures of Keith Richards and George Harrison, a pipe case that belonged to Merritt's grandfather.
But Merritt's talisman is the "mojocase," a small blue cosmetic case. The mojocase is Merritt's onstage handbag, and it holds practical items: hairpins, picks, strings. Merritt also keeps treasures in it: the set list from the first show where the Carbines got a standing ovation (at Carrboro's ArtsCenter two years ago), a book of poetry with a picture of Merritt's father and brother taped inside.
"All the nice stuff that makes me feel good," she says. Two years ago at Merlefest, the big Americana music celebration in Wilkesboro, Merritt found herself performing for an elementary school class. Not knowing what else to do, she showed the kids everything in the mojocase.
"Best gig I ever had."
Carbines multi-instrumentalist Greg Readling shuffles in and sets to work packing his keyboards and steel guitar. Merritt calls him "G."
"So how many people are gonna show up tonight?" Readling asks.
"They said they've sold about 80 advance tickets."
"Not bad for a Tuesday."
Merritt's Fender guitar amplifier is the first thing to go onto the cart outside the practice room, followed by her mojocase. Readling has most of his gear on the cart by the time guitarist Dave Wilson and Merritt's boyfriend/drummer Zeke Hutchins arrive and add their stuff to the pile.
The Carbines are capable of selling out good-size clubs like the Cat's Cradle. But they are still their own road crew, a situation that won't change anytime soon.
"Everybody has something they do," Merritt says. "Our first night out of town with Dave, he got us a table reserved at a restaurant right by the club; he's like the refreshment captain. Greg worked for a moving company, so he's the packing master. Zeke handles the money and is the tour manager." Bassist Jay Brown "takes care of everybody."
"Me, I just fret," she adds. "And I do the set list."
In short order, Readling has everything neatly packed into the back of the van.
"This part is less complicated on the road because everything just stays in the van when it's not onstage," Merritt says. "But tonight is just a laid-back hometown show, and an easy pack."
By the time everybody hops into the van for the drive to the club, the unknown guitarist down the hall has finally, mercifully stopped.
###
5 p.m.: Ready, set, wait:
It's cold outside as load-in begins, the pale late-afternoon sunlight quickly fading. It's also cold inside the Lincoln Theatre. The club, which began life six decades ago as a movie house, will need bodies to warm it up. With nobody there except the Carbines and a club employee setting up the bar, the cavernous main room is chilly.
So is the dimly lit backstage room, furnished with two battered couches, a refrigerator and television set. The only light comes from a small lamp and a red-and-blue neon Bud Light sign. Bottle caps and cigarette butts litter the dirty gray carpet, and stickers and graffiti adorn the cinder-block walls: "Girls are so much cooler than boys," and band names like DMCB, Alter Ego and Moonride. In here, you'd have no idea what time it is outside.
"Heeeeey, this kicks ass," Wilson declares, looking around and opening the refrigerator -- which he sees is empty. "Aaaaaw... well, it only kinda kicks ass."
Emptying the van takes 10 minutes. Soon all five Carbines are puttering around the stage, picking and strumming, tapping and tuning. Lincoln Theatre co-owner Mark Thompson arrives to take beer orders (Budweiser and Amstel Light), and Merritt pulls out a Sharpie pen to do a guest list -- friends and loved ones they want the club to let in without paying the $10 cover charge.
"OK, who has guests?"
"I do," Wilson says. "Kathleen."
"Craig Walker and Sara Bell," Hutchins calls out between rim shots.
"Just Lorraine," says Readling, duct-taping a power cord to the onstage carpet.
"I'm thinking," says Brown.
###
6 p.m.: Sound check shuffle:
After an hour of load-in and setup, all that's left to do before showtime is sound check -- which they can't do until sound engineer Ryan Pickett (Hutchins' old bandmate from the early-'90s rock band Queen Sarah Saturday) gets there. Meanwhile, the opening act has arrived, a San Diego country-rock band called the Bastard Sons of Johnny Cash.
"This is the time when you get nervous, if you're gonna," Merritt says. "'Cause all there is to do is stand around."
When musicians stand around, talk inevitably turns to food and gear. Merritt tries to get her bandmates to decide on a dinner destination. Hutchins hops off the stage to inspect the opening act's wares.
"Is that a Gretsch kit?" he asks.
"Yeah," says Bastard Sons drummer Joey Galvan.
"Mine is, too, but it's beat all to hell. Man, yours is nice!"
"Thanks. It's all from the early '70s, with a couple of toms from the '60s. Like this one, you can tell from the shell..."
Sound check commences as soon as Pickett arrives and takes up his station at the soundboard. Merritt says "check" into her microphone over and over as Pickett hooks up cables to the mixing board.
"You want me to sing something? Say something? Yo! I'm hungry!!"
The band starts in on a loose shuffle, a song called "If I Had My Way," then moves into the torchy "Are You Still In Love With Me?" Brad Skinner, the Lincoln Theatre's in-house sound man, sets the onstage monitor levels, then tries out the onstage lights, blue and red. Different instruments drop in and out of the main speakers as Pickett tests sound levels.
The third song, "Other Things," starts out well enough, then collapses in a haze of monitor static. Merritt stops singing mid-note, breaking it in half.
"Wait a minute, what just happened? There's this muddy noise up here and it might've been my guitar..."
One more song and sound check is done -- and now comes a partial breakdown, moving their gear so the Bastard Sons will have room to play. Guitars, bass and amps go into the backstage room. Hutchins moves his drum kit to a corner. Readling pushes his keyboards and steel to the side of the stage.
Brad Skinner grabs a mike and assumes a cheesy Cockney accent to summon the opening act: "Hey, ya bastids!"
"Yeah," sighs Galvan, "we've never heard that before."
###
9 p.m.: Behind the curtain:
After dinner at Glenwood Avenue's Rockford restaurant, the Carbines briefly scatter -- Readling to run by his house for cold medicine, Merritt to go change into a nicer shirt and put on makeup -- and reconvene at the Lincoln. The Carbines and the Bastard Sons mill around the backstage room (which a small space heater has finally rendered habitable), partaking of the beer Thompson put in the refrigerator and making small talk.
On the other side of the black velvet curtain marked EMPLOYEES ONLY, the room is filling up with patrons, although the "circle of fear" remains in full effect. Everyone keeps close to the perimeter and away from the stage, even after the Bastard Sons begins to play their chucka-chucka bar-band rock.
The individual Carbines drift back and forth between watching the show and huddling in the back room. Wilson uses a guitar capo to open a bottle of beer, and watches a public-access cable show. Hutchins changes from boots to sneakers and does stretching exercises. He's still a little gimpy from knee surgery in January, after injuring his right knee in November. How'd he hurt it?
"Break dancing," he says. "No, really..."
Merritt works on the set list.
"I'm supposed to start writing the next record this week," she says, scribbling with her Sharpie. "This is the last local show I want to play without at least a couple of new songs."
The set list consists of 13 songs, plus three for the encore. One song is conspicuously absent.
"Hmm," Readling mutters, scanning his copy. "No 'Bramble' tonight, eh?"
"Wow," Brown agrees. "I guess not."
"I'll wager she forgot."
"So you're gonna bet me?"
"I'll go check."
Thirty seconds later, Merritt is heard exclaiming, "Oh, my God! We've gotta do 'Bramble'! I forgot it and we have to do it! Being able to say, 'This is the title track to our new record,' I won't get over saying that for a while."
"Bramble Rose" goes into the set list at No. 9, replacing "Supposed To Make You Happy."
###
10:05: Open and close:
"Thank you, we're the Bastard Sons of Johnny Cash!"
Within a minute of their final note, the openers are hoofing their gear off the stage while the Carbines bring their instruments back out. Both bands try to keep out of each other's way.
"Man, they were great," Wilson says. "Nice guys, too -- dammit! It's so hard to hate the nice bands."
There are a lot of friendly faces out in the crowd, but none of the Carbines acknowledge anyone. There's too much to do with giving everything one final tweak.
"I've gotta go to work," Merritt says. "But first, the final lipstick applique."
###
10:30 p.m.: Heckle and jive:
"You ready?"
"Let's rock."
All five Carbines file out of the backstage room carrying beverages, from water to beer. Scattered whoops and cheers break out as soon as the crowd spots the band.
"Raleigh on a Tuesday night!" Merritt says when she gets to her microphone. "I didn't know people would stay up so late!"
The first song is "Virginia, No One Can Warn You," which moves like a glider taking off. The groove coasts along, Merritt's acoustic guitar interlocking with a loping beat as Readling and Wilson fill in around the edges. As soon as Merritt begins to sing in her clear, powerful voice, it takes wing and soars.
"With your eyes lit up and your dress see-through/With your heart so big it don't know what to do..."
It's not country, exactly, but not rock, either -- somewhere in the vicinity of Bonnie Raitt, Emmylou Harris and Sheryl Crow. The audience is crowded close to the stage, and their applause afterward is long and loud.
The crowd numbers between 250 and 300, with an early-30s median age. Men outnumber women about 3 to 2. Most clutch beer bottles as they watch the music, swaying back and forth. Bar business is brisk.
Onstage, however, it's hit-and-miss in the early going. Merritt breaks a D-string on her acoustic guitar halfway through the third song, and has to fish a new string out of the mojocase. The set list is reshuffled while Skinner changes the string. But the crowd's response is good, although not good enough for some people.
"DANCE NOW, PEOPLE!" bellows a man near the back of the dance floor after "Bird of Freedom."
"Oh, a heckler," Merritt says. "We're gonna do a slow one just for you."
A few songs later, another voice in the crowd yells, "Be more funny!"
"That is the most insulting thing a heckler has ever said to me," Merritt says with mock indignation.
The set is a good one, not a great one. But it does have one especially great moment toward the end, "4th Street Windowsill" (aka "the 'Somebody' song"). It starts slow and stays that way, getting more intense as Merritt leans into the chorus:
"Somebody shoulda been watching/Somebody shoulda seen/Somebody take this heartache away/Somebody keep him from me..."
Readling and Brown chime in on each "somebody" and the players all bear down on the arrangement, everyone hitting his strings and keys and drums a little harder. They vamp on the riff for a few bars before hitting the closing just perfectly, the instruments dropping away for Merritt's final "somebody." The applause is the loudest of the night.
"That's a hit!" someone calls out.
"Honey, that's a 6 1/2-minute song," Merritt shoots back.
###
12:05 a.m.: The nightcap:
"Thank you! Good night!" Merritt says, waving goodbye after the encore. Prerecorded music immediately starts playing over the speakers, universal symbol for "gig's over." Backstage, Merritt looks like she's about to kick herself.
"I threw my [expletive] pick in the crowd!" she yells, flopping onto a couch with a cigarette and a beer. "Man, that's the dumbest thing I've ever done!"
She sighs and everybody else snickers as Merritt wonders what came over her. Rock-star gestures usually aren't anything she indulges in.
Nobody's in a hurry to start loading the van. It's cold outside, and a few dozen friends are hanging around inside to pay respects. The house lights go up, universal symbol that it's time to start wrapping things up. The cash register at the bar runs its closing tab as the Carbines gradually break away to pack up.
Thompson pronounces himself thrilled with tonight's show. The bar sold about $2,000 worth of drinks, well above average for a Tuesday. He and Hutchins settle up with a sheet of paper detailing figures for a paid crowd of 265. A handsome stack of bills changes hands. Hutchins will deposit the money with the band's accountant, who will parcel out checks to the band members, Pickett and the booking agent.
Finally, more than nine hours after the pre-show festivities began, the van is loaded and it's time to go. The next stop is Slim's for a nightcap; unpacking can wait until tomorrow. Merritt is already looking forward to getting out on the road, and keeping the van packed up all the time.
"If we had four more shows this week, we'd be smokin' by the end of it," she says wistfully. "Tonight, we weren't really warmed up until 90 percent of the way through."
###
1:20 a.m.: The last note:
Outside, somebody has left a note on the front seat of the van:
"Yo, Tift girl & Zeke:
You [expletive] ruled the school. That 'Somebody' song almost made me cry. We'll talk soon. Thanks for the excellent show.
Love you, Aninda
p.s. You WERE funny."
News & Observer music critic David Menconi's random (and we do mean
random) musings about all things related to music and culture of the
"popular" variety.
