Even if he wanted to, Giant Sand’s Howe Gelb couldn’t repeat himself. Just watch him sing sometime; the guy’s got two vocal mics, one distorted, one clean, and he doesn’t make up his mind which one he’ll be singing into until he’s halfway through his line. Tucson (Fire), Gelb’s latest release (credited to Giant Giant Sand), is named after his Arizona hometown. He will also be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week.
Gelb: Its just happens. But when you do end up hooking up with someone in the band, it’s the beginning of the end of the band. No matter what the arrangement is, it will throw an imbalance into the band’s dynamics and with each other.
If you are so clobbered by the desire of someone within the band and the feeling is mutual, then its a great idea to shove that chemistry into the songs every night and keep it there. You will freeze the attraction indefinitely. But if you instead begin the cycle of relationship, no matter what happens, that cycle will have a beginning and an end.
If you have an affair within the band and it ends up being the real deal, then eventually you are as good as married if not actually so, and that will definitely change the way the band behaves from that point. It can still break it up one way or the other.
If you have an affair within the band and it ends up being a mistake, then it tends to turn out worse a whole lot earlier, but with the same outcome as if it worked out: The band ends. So, there is no easy way with this stuff.
The worse news is that if you have a relationship with someone who is not in the band. They will miss you and begin to hate it when you tour so often without them. If you have children waiting back at home, it takes endless reconfiguration.
Being an indie rocker and raising a family at the same time is a grand experiment and not for the mush minds among us. The first thing you will notice that no matter how little sleep you get on the road, it’s way more then when you are home. But the good part of it all is you will provide your nest with certain bonus perks that would of remained out of reach, especially if you manage to marry someone from a different country. Then seeing the world will always be an option, learning about different ways of life and cultures is a big eye opener and getting your kids used to the stage is a great way to fortify them with a secondary form of income, should the need arise one day when they decide to break away from the rigors of the work-a-day world and see what else is out there.
My hero in this scenario tends to be a one Kristin Hersh and her brood; absolutely inspiring to see her and her manager/husband Billy O’Connell raise up all them boys and home school ’em to boot, while staying an indie rocker and still making the kind of music that tends to hold you fixed in trance.
You will have to reinvent how to continue on through this life with such affairs of the heart in context with the work place. In the end when you are finally alone enough to think, it won’t be the songs that came to bring such hither tounimaginable laughter into your life, nor the exhausting amounts of caring into your heart so seemingly beyond capacity; it will be the tumult result of dating at the office.
