Dancing About Architecture
The Thank You / Fuck You Conundrum
Words: Scott Harrell
Photo: Michael Spadoni

It was a little over a decade ago. We were playing a little place on Central Avenue called the Voodoo Lounge, which, along with Fourth Street’s Junction Pizza, served as home and clubhouse to St. Pete original music during the early to mid ‘90s.

(Both have long since gone on to wherever all such nurturing venues eventually do – hopefully, Shit-Bar Heaven.)

The crowd was smaller than usual, maybe 20 people, and I just wasn’t feeling it, for some reason. Fight with the girlfriend, toothache, inordinately persistent hangover – I don’t remember what it was, exactly, but it could’ve been one of any number of things. I wasn’t singing lead in that particular band, and took advantage of the freedom not being tied to a mic afforded me by thrashing, flailing, falling and otherwise generally going off. The joy just wasn’t in me that night, however. I was definitely half-assing it.

I guess we all were, and that it showed. Between songs, another musician I kind of recognized but didn’t really know sidled up to me while I fiddled with my amp (the Voodoo didn’t have a stage, bands played on the checkered tile floor), and said:

“Look, I know there aren’t a lot of people here tonight, but the people that are here came to see you. They deserve to see you giving your all, you know?”

Or something to that effect.

Part of me – the part that’s sure I play music above all for myself, the part that doesn’t give a shit what the audience wants or thinks – really wanted to tell the guy to fuck off. I mean, seriously, the nerve. But another part of me realized he was right, at least to some extent. I would much rather see a band fail spectacularly than just come on and put out a vibe like they’d just as soon watch an episode of Friends for the 40th time as finish the set.

If I wasn’t gonna fake it, I should at least try to get my head as far into the game as I could.

Maybe seven or eight years later, I was sitting at the New World, interviewing a well-known punk act from Orlando, when their singer said something that forcibly reminded me of that night at the Voodoo. And since then, the two conversations have formed a sort of problematic yin-and-yang in my memory; I rarely think of one without thinking of the other.

The singer said:

“We don’t say ‘thank you’ on stage. We don’t thank the crowd for coming. They can show up or not, it’s their choice. We don’t owe them anything.”

Or something to that effect.

I don’t know exactly why I make music. I do know that it’s one of the things that define me, that make me whole. I couldn’t stop doing it any more than I could stop going to the bathroom; selling my guitars wouldn’t keep me from hearing new songs in my head.

But why would I, or anybody who writes or plays original music, get up and do it in front of other people, if not out of some desire to have other people hear it? It doesn’t necessarily mean someone is vain, or desperately needs to be validated or recognized. Maybe it’s just an attempt to make a connection that words alone can’t, to resonate with others on a level deeper than that of everyday interaction. Hell, maybe it’s just to share something with the world. Whatever the reason, once you step onstage, there’s something more going on than self-gratification.

So you’re not up there to get laid. So you’d be doing it even if nobody came. Is telling yourself or others that you don’t need the audience necessary to telegraph the fact that you’re an artist, or that you’re not in it for the free beer and oral, that what you’re trying to do is more important than that? Is a desire to perform well for an audience a sign of artistic impurity? Does a need to perform well for oneself mean you can’t entertain? Are the two mutually exclusive?

Or is it just like that thing where you’re supposed to act like you don’t like somebody you really like, because some moron told you that would make them like you more?

What do you think?