Foreword: Vol. 4
Turn the Record Over (TTRO) started back in 2020, and since that first short story -inspired solely by the first and last lyrics of some of my favorite songs- I’ve gone on to write three volumes that cover 21 songs.
These collections -named after a lyric ripped from one of my favorite Gaslight Anthem songs, “45”- is a direct reflection of how my brain works with story. I listen to a lot of music- like, a lot, a lot, a lot- and it’s not that the story in the songs inspire me so much as a line, a feeling, or the vibe of it does. I can here the opening of a song and think ‘this would suit a movie trailer’ (like Get Down Moses by Joe Strummer and The Mescaleros) or, ‘this sounds like someone walking down the isle toward his teary eyes at the other end of it’ ( like Autumn by the Gaslight Anthem). That’s how it starts; I catch a vibe, see an image, wrangle a feeling- and out comes the story. The concept might be a little grainy but I can see the composition of the frame in front of me. It’s as if music triggers an old film reel in my brain, and there are thousands of them just waiting to be dusted off by a needle drop.
This is why TTRO is such a fun project for me, but there’s also a reason why TTRO has been a special project for me too.
TTRO was the first time I ever decided to put my work out there for anyone to read aside of what I was sending out as submissions. It was also the first time I ever really put a face to who I am as a writer online. Prior to all this I spent my time writing screenplays and television pilots in Los Angeles- dreaming about what my gowns for the Oscars and Golden Globes would look like… but I’d never ventured into fiction. Not since I was a kid. Which is probably why it was my mom who had been encouraging me, fairly relentlessly over the years, to write a book. It was her that planted the bug. I was always a voracious reader of novels and a storyteller so to her it made perfect sense. It took me much longer to take the leap.
Her and I had always shared a love of stories; it didn’t matter if she was waiting for me to finish wandering around Walden Books with an arm full of Goosebumps novels and Calvin and Hobbs Comics, or if it was me listing to Private Eyes or That Thing You Do on the way to a tennis or golf match, or if we were watching Hugh Grant curse in Four Weddings and A Funeral in her room while my dad was away on business, or if we were listening to Ben Affleck and Matt Damon curse in the dark of a movie theater during Good Will Hunting. My mom was always one of the threads tied to the many ways in which I understand story as a concept, and as a practice.
Later in life, when I’d moved away from California back to Montana we used to read together and talk about Edward Vs. Jacob, or how Hadley and Ernest fell in love and lived their wild life in Paris. Maybe I’d have gotten around to writing novels and short stories eventually without her encouragement- but maybe not. Because she didn’t just believe in me as a storyteller, she believed in the magic of stories themselves.
So here I am, two and a quarter manuscripts and twenty-one short stories deep, ready to start the next twelve. And this time, instead of just one song among a scattered many different bands and albums, I thought I’d focus on just one. But this isn’t just any album -because of course it couldn’t be- no, this is the album and the live show at the venue that changed everything for me.
On September 14, 2011, The Horrible Crowes took the stage at The Troubadour and I walked through the hallowed wooden double doors into that main room for my very first time. That night they played the entirety of their first (and only) record, ELSIE. It was their second show- and their last. At least for now… I mean, a girl can dream. The Crowes were a project of Brian Fallon’s outside of The Gaslight Anthem, conspiring with Ian Perkins these were songs they wrote together while TGA was on tour.
The album was only released on September 6th of that same month. In fact, I don’t even remember how soon the tickets when on sale for that show, but certainly only a bit earlier that summer. I was already a Gaslight fan -who had never seen them live before that night- and I had just moved to Los Angeles five months prior after my second stint in Montana, so I wasn’t going to pass up my chance to hear a few members of the band live.
I bought a ticket after only one single had dropped.
It wouldn’t have mattered if I had three months with that record or three hours before the show that night.
It became one of my all-time favorite records.
And that show, at that venue, is what started my love affair with live music.
I couldn’t be contained after that.
I saw shows all over the city, with old friends, new friends, and often alone (because not everyone wants to go out at 10pm on Tuesday to see a band they’ve never heard of but it’s their friend’s new obsession… I get it). I started buying vinyl and I lived in the pages of the lyrics. I couldn’t wait to escape work to swap dress clothes for moto boots and the distinctive sound of their rubber on a sticky venue floor.
But it was that Troubadour sticky venue floor.
That Horrible Crowes show.
That first (and only) album that mattered most.
Elsie unearthed the music fiend in me. So I figured, why not put out twelve stories inspired by the first and last lyrics of each song on the record to capture the story fiend in me, too?
Welcome to volume 4 of Turn The Record Over: the All About Elsie Edition.