When It Happens It Will Happen Fast
In 2011 I finished a 2 song Ep recorded in New York called “When It Happens It Will Happen Fast”. I never promoted or performed the songs.
The songs felt locked into an emotional place I just dusted off from and was relieved to let them “blur in the rearview”. I had been connecting with the scuffed up evocative voice and sound of the “Essence” album by Lucinda Williams. My own Venn diagram of despair was crosshatching well with her dark and artful longing and beautiful vulnerability.
Now after reading her memoir “Don’t Tell Anybody The Secrets I Told You” it brought back that period and I’ve decided to release those tracks here. Two steps back, right before a leap forward with all new music this fall.
Like Lucinda in her memoir, I can look back on heartache with a softer perspective. the grip of it long released. Lucinda’s narratives illuminate how impermanent the most dire of romantic crises are eventually. Snapshots of the past. Her stories remind me the power of art to repurpose hurt into something more transcendent.
Beyond that, the recording process at Sabella Studios was an education. Producer Jim Sabella and his two engineers, Mike Mullier and Abhita Austin, created a kindergarten for me to color in sound, delighting in the work. Jim enlisted drummer Ben Gramm, brother of Foreigner singer Lou, and the studio bassist, Edgar Patterson Mills, from Marcy Playgrounds hit record “Sex and Candy” which Jim produced as well. When I hear that hit in the car, I hear the distinct sound of that wood slatted studio holding the tone of the music. It’s as much an acoustic instrument as anything else, the cradle from which the baby cries.
My artist name back then was Eric Ashland, as my real name was already “taken” by another artist. And Ashland sounded like I felt.
I’m stunned to see I’m included on Sabella Studios client list four away from Derek Trucks! Admittedly it’s just alphabetical order, but I like to think it means they had faith in me and the sound we all created. That I didn’t run harder with the ball though, feels like an artistic abandonment. It’s time to give these songs “People You Chase” and “Swerve” their own parking spots.
My life at the time was just full bore playing guitar in a band that was getting shows with national acts, a radio interview, a magazine cover. The promise of a childhood dream was playing out, and far more seductive than just me on my own.
When I listen now I more appreciate that half swallowed voice pushing through words I thought would solve a problem. I’ve had time to move the needle further down the road, accruing heavier losses, and grasp how deeper emotional grooves hold seeds from which we root into who we are. Aversion is futile anyway, better to own all of it. And just breathe into the present.
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