You May Say I'm a Dreamer

The first thing I noticed was four air-freshener pine trees hanging from the rearview mirror.  Each seemed to have its own scent which gave the van an overpowering smell of a detergent factory.  We were at LaGuardia Airport and had waited for a van transport to the Sheraton Hotel.  This fragrant Ford was it.  

New York City

Brian and I handed the driver (an ill-shaved guy our age, wearing a military jacket, dark knit hat, and a bored expression) our guitars and suitcases and the Switchback banner.  He slowly stacked them haphazardly in the back of the van.  A lady and her daughter from North Carolina came up with two huge suitcases for the driver to load.  They were cheerfully gesturing at pamphlets for Broadway shows.  The driver mumbled something, checked their names on his list, pulled a quick drag on his cigarette, and prepared to heft their bags on top of all our equipment.  Brian quickly took his guitar out of back of the van and sat with it in his lap.  Moments later we, the mom and daughter, a Chinese student, a lady from Brazil, and two women in the front seat (who never talked but looked straight ahead the whole time) all watched the air-fresheners sway to and fro as we sputtered along the expressway to our various hotels in the magical land they call New York City.

Brian and I were in town for a convention called APAP, which is short for the Association of Performing Arts Presenters.  They describe themselves as a “national service and advocacy organization with more than 1,500 members worldwide, dedicated to developing and supporting a robust performing arts presenting field and the professionals who work within it.”   In other words, we were in town to see if we could get some work along with the other 1,498 members.

Those fans who have been with us from the early days of Switchback can recall seeing us play at a pub on a Sunday night for a price of a beer or even free at a suburban block party on a sweltering summer day.  Twenty years later, we now are playing venues that are called Performing Arts Centers or PAC’s for short.   PAC’s are mainly theaters and range in size from small-town historic vaudeville stops to gleaming steel and glass works of art that present artists like us within their walls.  They charge a ticket price and we present our music, unmolested by flying beer cans and car alarms.   The common denominator is that they are manned (and wo-manned) by people who have dedicated themselves as much as we have to a dream that the good of the world can be fueled by the arts.  And so we all were in New York, some dreaming of “the act” that will bring people to their venue and the rest of us dreaming we are that act.  

The epicenter of APAP was the Hilton Hotel.  The theme of the event was “Imagine,” a nod to John Lennon’s vision of a utopian world and that (to APAP’s amazement) was incidentally written in the very hotel the convention was taking place.  All in all this great synchronicity did give Brian and me a glimpse of what Mr. Lennon may just have been thinking when he penned his masterpiece.  

If the convention’s three floors of football field-sized exhibit halls were magically turned into an ocean reef, Switchback would have been the little minnow that was swimming amongst some pretty amazing fish.  Big fish like Judy Collins, Cirque du Soleil, and the venerated Willie Nelson.  Or fish that were tributes to other fish, like a tribute to Chicago that sounded just like Chicago but wasn’t.  Then there were schools of elegant, beautiful fish, dance companies from the world over, graceful, imaginative, and colorful in dress.   Finally there were the angelfish and clownfish that one couldn’t help but enjoy seeing:  Annie, a beautiful woman who created a golden praying mantis costume and would strike poses in her exhibit booth, not far from Joshua, who did one man acts of Victor Hugo.  There was Kathleen, a friendly red-headed French-Canadian who fell in love with a group of Serbian singers who were on tour from the UK and was now producing them.  Three guys huddled at their booth presenting a drama all about Ernest Shackleton and the Endurance, and there was Mister Mojo and his Zydeco.  Every conceivable type of entertainment from around the world, darting and displaying on this great reef called APAP.  

And the agents who represented them were like fishing guides.  There would be powerful big agencies like Columbia Artists, who could give you any contemporary musical act provided your budget is right, and smaller agents who carry smaller acts like Suzanne Vega or the Thai Dancers.  And smaller agents with lesser known acts (but perhaps acts with a bit more intrigue to them), and then the folks like us, who represent, well, us.     

Switchback with fellow musicians

Terrance Simien and the Zydeco Experience

Finally there are the presenters, those venues I described, small venues to large, big city complexes, each having a unique need.  These people were the fishermen who would stroll up and down the aisles of booths, looking for an act to land.   If they did their homework and were interested in you, they would stop by to introduce themselves.  Or if the presenters knew exactly what or who they were looking for, they would cover their identification badge with a notebook and stare straight ahead like the two ladies in the fragrant Ford as they glided by, not giving you a second look.   

Some agents and presenters have been friends for years, and so a little minnow like us didn’t have a chance this time to catch their attention.  But if you walked over to the deli for lunch, you might just happen to strike up a conversation with someone who was a big agent.  At the end of the conversation you found out that they are people like you.  Business is business, and you have to be confident in what you do and who you are. But by and large, in spite of the seeming roadblocks, I noticed that the majority of people there were people who respected each other for keeping the dream alive.  The dream that the world can become a better place because of art.  Sure, we all have different ideas of how to achieve that dream, but that didn’t mean that Switchback had any less significance than Death Cab for Cutie.  We were all at our levels on the big reef.  And Brian and I relaxed and enjoyed ourselves.

Marty and Brian with Karen Knotts, daughter of Don Knotts

We didn’t know who we would see there either.  One of the best moments was meeting the daughter of Don Knotts (the patron saint of Switchback humor) at the Sheraton Starbucks.  Brian gave Karen Knotts a kiss on the cheek and told her, “Your dad has given so much joy to the world, and I can’t tell you how much he has made our road trips bearable.”  Brian is always quoting Don Knotts’ movie quips or doing a Barney Fife move when faced with a blown-out tire or odd interview.  Here she was, Don Knott’s daughter, pitching a one-woman show of growing up with the King of Cornball.   We walked away feeling like we met the daughter of the Dali Lama.

We did three showcases in a hotel room at the Hilton.  Doing a showcase is like trying to dress from a suitcase that you just jumped out of a plane with.  You have 15 minutes or less to convey to those in attendance that you have talent, personality, and the ability to be an act they can use at their venue.  Our showcase was in the JP Morgan Room, which I found kind of funny because he was somewhat thought of as a rich but stingy curmudgeon with little personality.  In the JP Morgan Room all the showcases were rich, but the room was fairly spartan, with just incandescent lighting, stage, and chairs.  “If you like us in this hotel room,” I told the audience, “You’ll love us on your stage.”

Down the hall, the showcases took a different tack.  There was a complete ballroom with theater lighting, a full sound system, hors d’oeuvres and wine, and the Turtle Island Quartet with Nellie McKay playing to a full house.   It didn’t take much imagination to see these guys playing at a venue.  But one didn’t know if the people in the chairs were there for the act, the wine, the food, or even if they had just wandered in off the street.  At least at our showcase we knew we had people there who were interested in what we had to offer.  

Not all people were there to book or sell acts.  One gentleman represented a record label in Montreal.  Another was reinvigorating a New Jersey town by turning it into a real artist community, complete with living spaces for artists and theaters for them to perform in!  Some were lawyers, looking for international acts that need visa applications for the United States, and some were looking to create crisis plans for venues in the event of any kind of emergency.

Tom Purcell and Dave Heuvelman with Marty

When it all got too much, Brian and I would walk down to Times Square and stare at the LED-lit altars of advertising.  The brilliance and sheer commercialism of this Manhattan Midway selling gleaming bottles of Corona beer, mascara, and Volvos were enough to make one long for the safety of the reef back in the exhibit hall.  We hung out with our buddies Tom Purcell and Dave Heuvelman, both entertainers who live in New York. They skillfully guided us through Hell’s Kitchen and past homeless guys asking for change, sidewalk preachers asking for your soul, and really dressed up ladies asking for something completely different.

Finally, the swirl and buzz of the convention came to an end.   About an hour before the exhibit hall closed, people started getting a bit giddy.  One booth would pack up and head off, then another.  The fishing guides were long gone, off to lounges to talk to presenters about pricing for this act or that.  We said goodbye to the long-legged dancer in the sea-foam pants and Annie the praying mantis lady and her husband Allyn the balloon god.   We bid our neighbors goodbye and headed off for LaGuardia.  

The doorman at the Sheraton whistled down a cab.  Out jumped this smartly dressed guy wearing a suit, tie, and slacks.  “You’re not a regular cabby,” I said to this guy.  “Yes, I am,” he said in a Brooklyn accent and proceeded to tell us that he dressed for his job because he has pride in everything he does.  That caught our attention and for $40 and change, Harry talked to us about his life as a cab driver in New York.   He worked for the Astoria cab company and if you get to the Big Apple, request him as your driver as he was worth every penny of the drive.  It occurred to me that Harry was exactly like us, taking pride in what he was doing and making a dream come true.  His very act of driving the cab with kindness was exactly the same as performing with the goal of touching souls.  And making the world a better place.  He was an entertainer behind the wheel and we his grateful audience.

We shook Harry’s hand and headed to our gate to wait for the flight back to Chicago.  I sat there at the airport lounge, vigilant to keep the cockroaches away from our carry-ons, and thought about the week.  Brian took an opportunity for a quick nap and leaned back with his fedora shading his eyes.  The lounge was fairly empty at that late hour, with a young family keeping their child entertained and a college student who had lost his wallet over a lost weekend and was now calling the credit card company to cancel everything.   I thought of John Lennon’s song and the past few days.  How appropriate “Imagine” was for New York City, for APAP, and for the arts.  “You may I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.”  How right he was.

Writing thank you notes after APAP