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On-the-spot equipment repair in Little Rock: 'I wouldn't want to give up any of it.'

While we loaded in our gear, I overheard a fella telling his buddy as he glanced at me, "That guy studies tae kwon do." (After the show, I accepted the dregs of a pitcher of Killian's from a drunken woman who told me I looked like Tommy Chong.)

The next priority was repairing a key on the little Korg keyboard that had broken at the Ridglea. Sitting at a table in the club, Nathan removed the 20-odd screws that hold the instrument's case together and set about troubleshooting the problem, trying to find a way to repair the key's spring. It was a slow, laborious process that took a couple of hours, well into the opening band's set, but Nathan took it in stride, even when he realized he'd broken two more keys and needed to repair them, too.

"Imagine if he didn't have to deal with this kind of shit," said T.J. "How much more time he'd have to focus on creating." T.J.'s thinking of starting an indie label and has offered to distribute Nathan's c.d.'s. But Nathan takes a different view. "I enjoy all of it about equally," he said later. "Writing, recording, playing, hustling gigs, fixing gear. I wouldn't want to give up any of it."

The Whitewater crowd was obviously familiar with Nathan's music, singing along and requesting songs we hadn't rehearsed. "They're very patient and understanding," Nathan said. "I really want to give them a good show someday. I'm always playing here at the beginning of a tour, when I'm still kind of out of practice, or at the end of one, when all my equipment is broken."

Onstage, Nathan radiates intensity and focus. All of his limbs stay in constant motion, his left hand playing bass lines on one keyboard while his right plays chords and melody on another, one foot on a pedal triggering handclaps from the drum machine while the other keeps time with the music. Between songs, there's always a moment of chaos while he finds the correct beat on the drum machine or keyboard, then adjusts the tempo. Occasionally, he'll use his drum pedal to trigger a cacophony that sounds like a set of drums being dropped down the stairs; I'm not sure whether that's done unintentionally or for effect.

A scary moment: In the middle of his cheerleading routine, Nathan collapsed onstage. At first, I thought it was part of the act and wondered if I should run over to him with a gold cape like one of James Brown's Famous Flames. But it turned out to be real -- he was just worn out from the rigors of travel and performance. According to Riley Shaw, a local attorney whom Nathan and Chili stayed with over the summer, "He'll get so involved in what he's doing that he'll forget to eat or sleep. I'd wake up at 5:30 in the morning to go to work and he'd ask me, 'What are you doing up? What time is it?' after he stayed up all night writing or recording." Nathan was able to finish the Whitewater show after someone brought him a glass of water. "If this is happening when I'm 30," he quipped on-mic, "imagine what it'll be like when I'm 70 -- and still doing cheers."

Fighting the Style Fascists

Brown feels it's "not rational" for people not to like every kind of music. He's fascinated to observe "what elements of music people latch onto -- rhythm, harmony, melody, smoothness, edginess." He recalls his Ohm bandmate, the late Doug Ferguson, becoming upset when Nathan would listen to "mainstream" music like Steely Dan or the Pointer Sisters. "I should have kept my mouth shut more, but he used to get to me," said Nathan. "Doug would listen to things just because they were obscure -- all this English prog flatulence." Conversely, he says, his friend Dave Karnes "has a block against prog. He starts talking irrationally if I listen to Genesis."

While playing with Anne Hand and Ohm, Brown attended the University of Texas at Arlington for two years "to learn about how music worked. I didn't want to take any performance classes, but they made me take jazz combo." One of the requirements for his first-year recital was a drum solo. At the end of the most lugubrious version of Coltrane's "Mr. P.C." imaginable, Nathan scandalized the jazz cats by triggering some electronics and setting off a Wal-Mart airhorn, which was answered by others held by friends he'd stationed in various locations among the audience.

"My thing lasted longer than the song," said Nathan. "All the guys in the band were giving the audience these looks. When it was over, the jazz director threw up his hands and walked out. Afterward, I had to run the gauntlet of the entire jazz department. They elected this keyboard player their spokesperson, and he was waiting at the end of the line. He told me I had ruined the entire recital. The funny thing was, when I got back to the band hall, the guy who'd given me the most shit during the year was there and he said, 'Hey, that wasn't bad.' After that, no one in the jazz department would talk to me."

The Springfield Episode

Springfield, Mo., was the next stop after Little Rock, and the numerous empty storefronts and knots of kids hanging around made me wonder whether there used to be something there that's not anymore. We drove by a Southwest Missouri State University frat house where a volleyball game was in progress. "If all else fails," said Nathan, "we can try knocking on a frat house door and seeing if we can play there. It'd be cool to play outside next to the volleyball game." Yeah, I thought, but not likely on a Wednesday night in Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker country.

The folks in Little Rock had suggested that we try a downtown Springfield bar called the Outland. When Nathan approached the guy who books the bands there, though, the fella suffered what appeared to be an anxiety attack and rushed off. "Sometimes it's like that," Nathan said. When the booker returned, he was calmer and apologized for losing it with Nathan. But it was still no dice on a gig. "Give me a call the next time you're in town," he said. (Got a gig for Nathan? Just want to adopt him for a month? E-mail him at pretendking@yahoo.com.)

Next we tried a place called Cartoons, on Sunshine Street -- a doppelganger for J. Gilligan's, located on a strip that could pass for Division Street in Arlington, with an electric sign out front announcing "Jazz it up with Sweet Mizzery every Thursday." No dice. We headed back to Culley's, a downtown joint where the bartender-owner had said we might be able to play if the acoustic act he'd booked didn't show. On our return, we found a handful of people in the bar and a kid named Wade Mueller setting up on stage. He said it'd be cool if we played before him: "I've never had an opening act before."

While we set up, Ken the bartender told us about some of the other bands he's had at Culley's. "We had a Japanese death-metal band in here awhile back," he said. "They couldn't speak a word of English, but it didn't matter." From Ken's description, the guy who's held down Thursday and Friday nights at Culley's for a decade sounded like an amalgam of Jimmy Buffett and David Allan Coe, with an affinity for cussing in his lyrics. "He goes up and emcees the big biker rally in Sturgis," said Ken. He quoted some lyrics about fuckin', smokin' dope, drankin', and beatin' up on people. We got the idea.

The handful of barflies Ken sent in from the other room was a far cry from the friendly, receptive Little Rock crowd. A shaven-headed guy with a goatee asked if we did any requests. "We do one," said Nathan, "but you have to guess it." He even offered the guy unlimited guesses. "Play 'Sign of the Times,' " Mr. Goatee said. "Nope, that's not it," said Nathan. We played "I Wanna Be Your Lover" and quit. No cheers tonight, but no collapse, either.

Ken drew a couple of beers for us: our night's pay. He said that one of the patrons thought we sounded like "Prince playing with Mr. Miyagi." I was crestfallen at having been demoted from a tae kwon do-practicing Tommy Chong to Pat Morita in just one night.

After loading out, we sat and listened to Wade's set, applauding politely after each song -- musician protocol. Ken offered to find us a place to crash with one of his buddies, but midway through Wade's performance, a couple of women walked in who were inordinately responsive to Wade's act -- evidently friends of his. Nathan and I exchanged looks, then went over and started making small talk with the women in a manner that suggested we were both full of shit. NEXT »

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