So I was listening to The Weakerthans (introduced to me by Anna Sudac), and I send Anna an e-mail, wanting to hear her version of “My Favourite Chords.” Two days later, this is in my inbox. The internet is amazing.

Anna Sudac – My Favourite Chords (Weakerthans Cover)

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That’s right! We got ourselves interviewed by The Columbus Dispatch! It should run in the Weekender this Thursday (10/1/2009), and will even have adorable pictures of us. In the highly likely scenario that Andy’s responses are heavily edited (no paper should ever include my words without many deletions) and due to the fact that it’s my website and I can say anything I want!, I’d like to put here my alternate response to the final question of the interview. Enjoy.

“Why should people come to a Trains Across the Sea show?”

You should come to a Trains Across the Sea show for the same reason you should be supporting all these local independent artists all over this beautiful city – because you used to. Before the kids, before the sixty hour weeks, before you let the wild-eyed idealism of youth fade quietly into the comfort of domestication, you cared about local art, you drank whenever it felt good, you rolled in the grass like an idiot, you learned a few chords on guitar and sang some song to impress a girl, you tried to sketch your friend, you saw your friend’s band in empty bars on Tuesdays, you ran wild and free throughout the city. And it’s not that you wanted to stop, or even distinctly chose to; it just the importance of self-happiness seemed to fade behind the deadlines and kids’ soccer practices and stiff social gatherings and now, suddenly, you’re on this other side, importing your art from the far corners of the globe that NPR tells you about, while the rest of us local artists are still playing those empty bars to our friends on Tuesdays, still making albums, still painting, still trying our damndest to peel off some corner of this city so we can keep providing it with a product as essential as any other local grocer or carpenter or plumber or librarian – a night of loud music to cut loose once in a while or a few words to a melody to change your mind about something, or knocking you upside the head with some twisted painting you didn’t expect – that art is important, damnit! And as long as we agree that art is important, then let us also agree that LOCAL art is important.

You should come to a Trains Across the Sea show, to any show, to every show, because “artists are workers and they need to eat too.” And if the only way to survive as an artist is to move to a coast, to flee this beautiful city, then we’ll keep losing the best of them and continue to think that “local” art is somehow “inferior.” But anybody who has taken a good long look under this city at all these people who are genuinely trying to build something greater than themselves through art can’t help but agree that we’ve got a hell of a party on our hands, and everyone’s invited.

Because to be perfectly honest, I’ve no fucking clue what’s next. All I can do is write. This is what came out yesterday. There are a billion different things you can do with a song – pay people with recording studios to record a better version to sell to people who want their music to sound NICE, find other (better) musicians and get them to play on it with you, tour the country and play it in front of people, license it to pretty people with great voices or great publicists – but that’s all part this OTHER thing, and I honestly couldn’t give a damn about all that. They are the temporary modern solutions to the forever problem of song (starving artists!), and are constantly reinvented as the technology changes. I just want to write great songs that will outlast the dizzying pace with which media is produced and consumed these days. So if you’ve any decent ideas on how we validate the thirty or so hours a week I put into music as an honest craft deserving an honest wage, I’m all ears. Until then I’m just going to stay holed up in my room and keep writing and driving a van. And please let me know HONESTLY what you think – it’s the only way I’ll ever get better.

P.S. It’s meant as a singalong. Feel free to join in wherever you are.

LOVE IS SOMETHING THAT YOU DO

(capo II)

[C]

[C]	[Am]		 [Fmaj7]	[C]
i woke up hungover and alone
a hundred and eighty days in a row
it says here that the midwest ain't so bad
as the mideast
i guess i'll walk the streets again
no particular place to go
but i walked the river instead
and i felt the river again
and i held the river again
like we did last year

[C]

[C]	[Am]		 [Fmaj7]	[C]
i think sad songs are happy songs
for when you're sad
but i'll feel alright if the room tonight
will sing along
to my idea of what the west would sing
if the west could sing a song

[Fmaj7]  [C] (3x)  [G7]
tell me when it's my turn to sing
tell me when it's my turn to sing
tell me when it's my turn to solo

[C] [Fmaj7] (3x)  [G]
[Fmaj7] [C] (3x)  [G]

[C]

[C]	[Am]		 [Fmaj7]	[C]
i write songs instead of letters to friends
maybe i should put that in a song
that okay if there's no missed calls
there's still some whisky left at home
because ever since the first of the year
the last time I woke up in your home
it's not that i don't want a drink with you
it's that i'd rather do it alone

[Fmaj7]  [C]
i thought it was a feeling
with a complicated meaning
i thought that i would know for sure
when it came along
i thought that it was up to the other
i thought that it was impressing your mother
i thought that that was our goal
but she thought it was the bible
and he thought that it was for sale
because he mostly cared for the making of it
she mostly cared for the saying of it
i knew that wasn't my goal
but if you're asking my opinion
what i really think about it
take a deep breath and sing along

[F]     [C]   		    [G]
love is something that you do

I wrote this back in February, right when I started this experiment. No response yet, but one always holds out hope. Nothing too revolutionary or interesting going on in the letter, but in case you’re bumming around the site and sometimes see Mr. Seeger at the coffee shops you frequent, maybe you could drop him a line. In case you are unfamiliar with Pete Seeger, this interview does a pretty good job introducing him:

“Pete Seeger’s life is truly the stuff of legend. He grew up during the Great Depression; assisted Alan Lomax in documenting America’s rich culture of “race” and hillbilly music; rode box cars with Woody Guthrie; served honorably in World War II (where he carried a banjo along with his rifle); found fame with the Weavers; wrote some of the most recognizable songs of all time; built his home by hand in New York’s Hudson Valley (which he still heats with wood he chops himself); faced down the House Un-American Activities Committee (he famously plead the First Amendment to charges he cavorted with Communists); waited out decades on the blacklist; allegedly grabbed an axe when Dylan went electric; marched in the Civil Rights movement; protested the Vietnam War; worked and fought for unions, the environment and other progressive causes; built a sailboat, the Clearwater; and stayed true to his roots as an activist and folk proselytizer by teaching and performing his songs to thousands”

- Joshua Klein, Pitchfork

And my humble prose laid meekly in his mailbox:

Dear Pete Seeger,

Good day. I hope the earth finds you well today, genuinely. I mean, it’s a nice first thing to say in a letter, but I do genuinely wish the best for you. Is the sun shining?

I’m sorry. Introductions first. My name is Andy Gallagher, I’m from near Cleveland, OH originally but living in Columbus, OH now. I’m 24 years old and have, a little over a year ago, sank myself into this universe of Folk Music. It started when people began to say the music I was writing reminded them of Woody Guthrie, and I had never listened to him. People been tellin’ me my music was folk music before I knew what that was. Of course I fell in love, and then dug deeper. Found you. Found Alan Lomax, that saint. Found Leadbelly, Cisco, the whole gang. Like all of you did, I hopped in and started rewriting old folk tunes with my own lyrics, honing the skills and exploring, wide-eyed all around, this absolutely amazing world. But me as a “songwriter” (though I much prefer being called “Andy”) is hardly the point of this.

Quite simply, I want to learn from you. I finished college a couple years ago, started one of them fancy office jobs where I sit in front of a computer in air conditioning, quite bored. It was the sort of job that people get because they want to earn a lot of money and watch TV and drive fancy cars and vote Republican (sorry, politics aren’t the point). I want to write songs. Or farm. Or anything timeless – the world is in too much a damn hurry and I’ve got to find my place that means something. But anyway, I’ve been saving up my money and now have enough to not work for a while. Of course I’ll travel, don’t worry.

What I’m getting at, I guess, is that I’ll be bouncing around the country for a while, and would be absolutely floored and honored if I could buy you a cup of coffee, or a drink, or any sort of excuse to sit for a while and talk. It just seems like everything’s moving so damn fast now and nobody’s quite stopping to ask why and it’s very clear that you’ve been one of those who helped remind people if they lost their way that they need to keep thinking (which is why I think I originally became interested in song, to communicate an idea to somebody and at the same time get them dancing/singing along to it, enjoying life). And all this other ball of troubles from the wars still going on, I just feel like I’ve got to find somebody (precisely like yourself) who understands things, who has seen such massive changes that have happened in your lifetime and still remains hopeful for humanity. Yours is a valuable perspective in this age, and just like Woody carefully taught Arlo the words to his songs before he went, so I feel that you should ensure your wisdom is planted firmly in the current youth generation, to find those precious few humans that genuinely give a damn about the common man and want to do something about it, and ensure the circle remains unbroken.

In any case, I’d love to hear back from you even if you (quite understandably) are a little weirded out that somebody would want to drive a few states over just for coffee with an old folk singer. Let’s just pretend that I happened to sit down next to you at the bar and struck up a conversation, not knowing who you were, and you mentioned casually how you play the banjo and write songs and I can say that I write songs and play too and we can move calmly from there to those rare human conversations that are genuine people talking about genuine ideas, genuinely.

-Andy

Silver Jews – Trains Across the Sea

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Dance Music – The Mountain Goats

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“We all play folk songs” -Thelonius Monk

Last night’s open mic went extraordinarily well. Everyone I meet these days has separately come to the conclusion to stay in Columbus and create art. I can’t tell you how happy this makes me feel. People who are actually good are finally coming out of their rooms where they’ve been working on this shit and getting really good. It’s a fantastic motivator, tapping into exactly enough competition that we all want to be able to absolutely bring the room down.

Where Did You Sleep Last Night?

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Mr. Tamborine Man

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Look for this one at some of the upcoming shows…notably Sept 12th…

John Henry

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Woke up at 5 and couldn’t get back to bed. This is what I do when I can’t sleep.

I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight

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My journal entry for the final leg of The Migratory Office’s first business trip: Charleston, SC.

and finally Pat wakes up and Joe’s been awake for a little while and we all agree that NOW, on this big sweaty car ride that started at five am with pretty much no sleep and way too much coffee from the thrift store thermos, that THE TIME HAS COME FOR THE SINGALONG. and out of the speakers jumps arcade fire’s “funeral,” and now it’s windows down and heads thrashing and we shout along to the parts we know and mumble vowels over the parts we don’t and play drums on everything and THIS IS THE HOME STRETCH down I-26 and the speedometer of this magnificent beast is pushing 90 but the-other-cars-are-doing-it-too so it’s okay, and for the softer songs we lay back and pant like dogs and it’s that great sweaty moment where the wind is cooling you everywhere and you stare at the skyclouds and your mind does that “REMEMBER THIS” thing and you’re just happy to be MOVING towards A COAST! because back while they were sleeping i decided i’m driving this thing straight into the ocean and there’s nothing else i need more than to dive into those waves and lick my lips all salty and completely wrap myself in the water and hair-be-tangled! and that’s exactly what happens and madeline meets us there and of course i tackle patrick into the ocean in his jeans and button-down shirt and he’s all soaked but fuck it, he dives in and i dive in and joe finally decides to dive in and its way too windy for a frisbee but WHO THE HECK CARES and it’s a little more fetch than catch with Reliable Pink Disc that keeps almost getting lost, and pat’s jump-kicking the waves and i’m diving through them and joe’s stepping over them until we’re too tired to move and we flop back on the beach, chests heaving, out of breath and sorta doing the nice-to-meet-you-what-do-you-do-shuffle with madeline but mostly just letting the five o’clock sun blind us and the let the sand stick to us in too many places and just waiting until our bellies finally cry out for love and that’s exactly what we do, reluctantly throw on shirts and start back inland, but only slightly, and only because we haven’t had a good meal since leaving our fair city, and tonight’s taco night.