Ryan ChartrandM. Ward is supporting Norah Jones on her next tour. Her next tour will see the two sweeping through big cities and big venues and big crowds. However, Kyle Field’s tour (in band form as Little Wings) had one stop and no tour mate. It had no booking agent, no press and no accompanying appearance on Starbucks compilations. It was one free show in my living room last Thursday night as he traveled up the coast. No soccer moms, no National Public Radio listeners, no fans of two albums per year that never leave room for exploration. Just around 50 sundry Central Coast scenesters.
To understand the importance of this, you must understand some history. Years back, M. Ward and Kyle Field were the local band Rodriguez. They were the scene and the motivation as I understand it now. They split with Ward going to Merge Records and Field going to K Records. One received cross over fame. One received a devoted fan base.
I e-mailed Kyle a few months back with the hope that he would play a big show at a venue in town. His reputation is high among people surrounding me and I felt assured of a successful show and a large crowd. In response, he requested a house show with some hat-passing to provide money. I quickly agreed, but plans died as time passed and I heard no response.
At 5:03 a.m. last Tuesday, he responded asking for a house show on that Thursday. I quickly agreed and organized it between projects, studying, work and classes. He got to my house at 7:30 p.m., engaging quickly in the party that formed as The Black Shirts and Watercolor Paintings played on my deck. Among coffee cups of wine and shared cigarettes, we prepared for his plan of a crowded, dimly-lit set in my living room.
Once the change of band location was announced, time passed in darkness in the living room between close quarters and plumes of smoke stretching out across guitar tuning. On the cassette tape recording of the show, the commotion stops and silence surrounds the first strokes of guitar. Kyle played with two locals who haunt Uptown Cafe and was pushed back in my recliner as the support howled under his vocals.
The set passed in waves with one song hitting only to allow minutes of laughter and talking. Eventually, he stumbled to my porch with a friend carting the last few vinyl copies of his album that has no plans of being re-pressed. During the final songs, I lit a cigarette and handed it to his stumbling fingers that could still produce beautiful, lonely, wandering folk. It was dark, silent and intimate until the last song.
As he explained, he is 38 now and lives with his mother. His knee has been screwed up by a skateboarding accident. My point in mentioning this is that Kyle Field is not only an important local musician, but a national one as well. Kyle embodies independent spirit and unbound creativity. His songs are on endless mixtapes and many people left by telling them the impression the nighttime deck show had.
Over the last few days since the show, the town has tightened together even more. Stories about meeting up with Kyle or skateboarding with him have sneaked into many things other people tell me. I got a call to my radio show the moment I brought up the Little Wings’ performance. Just another person to tell me about how they were talking about laying down tracks with Kyle. He’s our true local celebrity. Probably the only one that can pull people to my backyard on a Thursday night last minute for what is essentially one artist playing his instrument so freely.
Show Tip: I’m running my first show of the quarter on Valentine’s Day at the Steynberg Gallery. Canadian freak pop group They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? will pour sweat all over the floor for us as Part Time Outlaw and Cub Scout Day Camp open up the show. It does slightly say romantic date. But even more, it endearingly says that you’re single and crazy in a way that almost nothing else can.