10 December 2006
If I’d Only Done Better I Could Make You Stay
It was, I think, 1997. The station that at the time was calling itself KPOI held a festival concert out at Kuilima called PoiFest. R and I went, mostly for the Verve Pipe, which was touted as the headlining act. Local act Sunburn opened the show, and were followed (in some order) by Buck-o-Nine, Matchbox 20, Naked (whose set I don’t remember at all), Cowboy Mouth, and finally the Verve Pipe.
We didn’t stick around for the Verve Pipe. We were just spent.
But Cowboy Mouth. We’d heard one of the band’s songs, “Jenny Says,” which the station had been playing in order to hype the show. The band started off with some song that was high-energy and pretty cool. Then Fred LeBlanc, the lead singer (and drummer, ‘though he didn’t drum at this show) said, “You should know right up front that we are not going to play ‘Jenny’ for quite a while, so get comfy!” Then he admonished the moshers, saying that the band was just there to celebrate “the fact that every one of you is alive,” and therefore moshing was not in keeping with the spirit of the festivities. Instead, said LeBlanc, the best participatory response from the audience would be to POGO while the band played. The band was serious, and the moshers stopped. I think the moshers actually begain to pogo, which was cool.
Cool because here’s the thing about the guys in Cowboy Mouth: They put on what some people say is half pep-rally, half revival, and that’s a perfect description. They just won the crowd over, stopped the moshing, got the skeptics engaged, and cranked out an hour or so of positive, powerful, poppy rock. I don’t remember a single song the band performed except, at the very end of the set, “Jenny Says,” and by the time it got into that, it was like a huge release, like a plunge into a cool pool after a hot day (and it was a very hot day). R and I were amazed at what a good show Cowboy Mouth put on. We were instant fans.
I picked up a couple of Mouth albums in the next year, and then a couple of years after the show, we were driving home late from Ross’s house and a new song, “Easy,” was on the radio and we knew it was Cowboy Mouth! Very exciting.
“Easy to bitch
Easy to whine
Easy moan
Easy to cry
Easy to feel like there ain’t nothing in your life
Harder to work
Harder to strive
Hard to be glad to be alive
But it’s really worth it
If you give it a try.”
That’s the kind of almost sappy positivity we’re talking about. Now, I’m a lifelong rock geek and I love pretty much everything rock and roll has always been about, but it’s so refreshing, so cool to encounter a band that taps into that kind of energy and turns it into something positive, like cheerleaders at a football game. I mean, what’s wrong with rock and roll making you happy?
A few months later, Cowboy Mouth played the Pipeline Cafe and of course we went. It was like church. That’s really the best comparison. Where else are audience members exalted to “believe in yourself and anything’s possible!” In one live version of “Easy,” LeBlanc ad-libs “I’m alive! I’m alive! I’m alive! I’m alive!” and the crowd joins in.
If someone else were telling me about this band, I’d laugh, I think. Cowboy Mouth live is an amazing, amazing experience, and since the night we saw then at Pipeline, I’ve been a diehard fan, tracking down solo albums by the band’s members and every official live release I can. I’ve since discovered a few other bands with similar vibes (Blues Traveler, Sister Hazel, and Hootie and the Blowfish, but none of them are quite as evangelical as Cowboy Mouth), and I think if the music sucked I’d know. Somehow, it’s possible to be fun, energetic, positive, and sincere and still rock and roll.
A lot of Cowboy Mouth’s songs deal with getting over broken hearts. Moving on. Believing in yourself. I listen to them lately and I don’t know if I’m happy or sad. In the middle of creating sudoku puzzles yesterday, with Cowboy Mouth on the iTunes, I just started crying and couldn’t stop. Cowboy Mouth is one of those things we shared and now I don’t share it with anyone, and I wonder if her new husband even likes Cowboy Mouth. It is only the second time I’ve cried over her since she got married. It always comes when I’m not really thinking about it, suddenly so that I can’t forestall it or make my mind think about other things. Is this normal? I’m always worried that it’s going to happen at an embarrassing moment; the last time it was in a Starbucks while I studied. If people noticed, at least they didn’t make things worse by paying any attention to me.
I guess in every ended relationship, there’s a sorting out of stuff. This is hers, this is mine. Do I get Cowboy Mouth? Part of me wishes she’d take that; I know how much she really, really liked that band. It might make me happier if she got that and I got something else, something that maybe was never really OURS anyway, but I guess I don’t even know if she wants it. Maybe she and Mr. HBA have something else and she doesn’t even need Cowboy Mouth anymore, which would be good, because I think I do.
2006-12-10 :: me