Solar System: Bill Mallonee in Concert
I’d seen him despondent a few times as of late.
Sometimes the answer that loves gives is the hardest one to take.
Thus begins the Bill Mallonee (Vigilantes of Love) song, “Skin“, about artist Vincent Van Gogh’s self-inflicted removal of a portion of his left ear, and eventually what the artist removed from the earth — himself.
Last fall, I played a show at a tiny downtown venue in Birmingham, AL with songwriter Bill Mallonee, one of my earliest folk-rock heroes. The venue, complete with a pair of worn-out couches, an upstairs used-bookstore, delicatessen-style tile flooring, and overhead fluorescent lighting - hardly a rockstar arena - was that of my dreadlocked friend, Beau, whom I’ve known for nearly a decade, back when I called Birmingham home. Beau recently began hosting occasional concerts and, knowing I was a fan, asked if I’d want to open for Bill. My wife said I’d be dumb not to do it, even though my temp job required a late-night drive home afterwards. Bummer, since I was hoping to grab some Surin West Pad Thai while in town.
First, a little bit of history. I started playing guitar in college around 1991/92, and wrote my first song in 1993 (A stick of gum to the person who can name the title of that one). I, an inexperienced and impressionable neo-Christian, was a fan of radio-friendly mainstream Christian acts (*Little known fact: I once came *this close* to auditioning for the rap part in a Steven Curtis Chapman song when he visited my hometown during The Great Adventure tour. Will you mock this?) I had little to no experience with introspective, heart-on-the-sleeve music, so when a college friend made me a mix tape of a variety of under the radar artists (Vigilantes of Love, The Choir, Lucinda Williams, et al.) I found myself awed by the new world opened unto me with its gut instincts, lyrical poetry and spiritual honesty. For the first time, I related not because I was spoon-fed a message, nor because I was admonished to aspire to unattainable perfection or to someone else’s sense of right and wrong, but because of the artists’ willingness to speak of their own brokenness, their own dreams, their own failures and successes, their own altars to hope. This non-mainstream art was like discovering an entirely new solar system, a parallel world to that which I’d known. It was fresh with breath and breadth, and I, at the time, could not get enough of it. From my previously well-worn seat, I suited up, opened the hatch, and dove into that cosmos.
When the opportunity arose to hear Bill again, much less open for him, I was all too eager. I played my six or so songs, took a seat on the tile floor beneath the scalding hot coffee tap, and listened as Bill and wife, Muriah, played old and mostly new material for an hour or so. I watched as he animatedly pointed a finger at his skull or heart, or waved with his pick hand at the invisible air, visually portraying a lyric. This, I have always loved about his shows, especially in those early Vigilantes of Love days when his seismic band awed audiences, and Bill cascaded, guitar in hand, from standing to a kneeling position in one swift, free-fall motion. Aside from the hooks, watching his shows was half the fun.
I’ve had the opportunity to share a few email, phone and face-to-face conversations with Bill over the years, our last one circa 2003 when Miracle of Forgetting had just come out, and he had some nice things to say, not just about my music, but to me personally in offering counsel and insight in the form of his many grueling years of experience as a touring, album-making, songwriting artist whom nobody ever really “got.” We talked about commercial success, commercial failure, perseverance, and carpal tunnel syndrome. To this day, I am grateful to him for those veritable shots in the arm. Years later, at this tiny downtown venue in Birmingham, AL, while we each set up our respective gear and merchandise, I noticed that, while we chatted and compared notes on the year 2009, I felt comfortable in my own skin, and though I was most definitely a fan of his, I felt more a peer than a college-aged scrub. Years and miles, I suppose, have a way of changing you, of placing true reality on the horizon.
You know you come with empty hands, or you don’t come at all.
You deal your best hand out in the marketplace, and then wait for the axe to fall.
At the end of the day, when you “come with empty hands” - when your soul is on display for all to glare at, to laud, to criticize, to slice open - the unflenching hope of any artistic vocation is that these doings are less an act of squalid entertainment, but an act of obedience by the lifelong act of decreasing oneself. The sadness of Vincent Van Gogh is that, long after any ego trip he might have had was over, long after he stopped believing himself a decent painter, Van Gogh decided that his own life - and earlobe - were inconsequential, and he eventually removed them both. There isn’t a single soul on earth who isn’t better for having experienced the art of Van Gogh. And that is the way I feel about Bill Mallonee and his lifelong work, a solar system that I’ve had the privilege of glimpsing through hazel eyes for the better part of the last twenty years.
Be sure and check out and support Bill and his music here.
Skin
now i’d seen him despondent
a few times as of late
sometimes the answer that love gives
is the hardest one to take
i know he was prone to paint
the voice of his own fear
so vincent he picked up the blade
and he put it to his ear
look at yourself in the mirror
you’re all rumpled red stubbled and gaunt
you walk a dead end path in a dry corn field
and now this morose response
your princess she don’t wanna see you
no your princess she don’t wanna hear
so vincent he picked up the blade
and he put it to his ear
now look if you’re gonna come around here
and say those sort of things
you gotta take a few on the chin
you talking about love and all that stuff
you better bring your thickest skin
sometimes you can’t please everyone
sometimes you can’t please anyone at all
you sew your heart onto your sleeve
and wait for the ax to fall
you there with the paint box
you there with paper and pen
me i got this blunt instrument
i’m gonna play on ’til the end
and you know you come with empty hands
or you don’t come at all
you deal your best hand out in the marketplace
and let the chips fall
the package it comes wrapped up
there is a lesson here
vincent he picked up the blade
and he put it to his ear
now look if you’re gonna come around here
and say those sort of things
you gotta take a few on the chin
yeah you’re talking about sin and redemption
well you better wear your thickest skin
sometimes you can’t please everyone
sometimes you can’t please anyone at all
sew your heart onto your sleeve
and wait for the ax to fall
Written by Bill Mallonee for Irving Music, Inc., Allegiance Music, Russachugama Music and CyBrenJoJosh (BMI) ©1995
A.S. Peterson has crafted a work of compelling historical fiction which begs the question, “Can this really be a debut novel?” With dogged fidelity, Peterson captures the spirit, manners, and social conditions present during the American Revolutionary War. We meet colorful, credible characters who navigate the high seas of life and love, dependence and independence, war and peace, truth and consequence, and despite forays into dark places, The Fiddler’s Gun is beautiful, lyrical, and redemptive.
Walt Wangerin, Jr. strikes again.
Janner Igiby lives in Glipwood, a nothing little village in the land of Skree, on the edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness. Manhood is on the horizon, but Janner finds it hard to feel much hope for the future. Skree is ruled by foreign oppressors, snake men called the Fangs of Dang, servants of a shadowy emperor named Gnag the Nameless. The Skreeans are weak and weaponless. They’re even tool-less. Any Skreean who needs to use a hoe has to borrow one from the Fangs (and fill out the requisite paperwork). And from time to time, the Black Carriage arrives in Glipwood to carry young Skreeans toward an unknown fate across the Dark Sea.
I am not a fan of Civil War literature; in fact, I have always thought of it as one of those weird sub-genres for obsessive types. They’re almost like Trekkies with their re-enactments and maniacal devotion to detail. It’s just not my thing (although I’m secretly jealous that they get to dress up and shoot cannons).
A Randall Goodgame song is like a great independent movie. Characters deliver lines like they were lifted from a break room, a truck stop, or a downtown diner. Seemingly incongruent scenes are juxtaposed and plot isn’t obvious; in fact, narrative–a good story–is often more evident than linear plot lines. An indie movie, like a Randall Goodgame song, seems to tell itself. Rather than being rudely yanked by a chain through a sequence of contrived events, with a Randall Goodgame song, I have the sense that I’m being allowed a willing, but vicarious sneak peak into the real lives of his real characters.
Sara Groves irritates me just a little bit. With each album she makes, she moves from strength to strength and is always raising the bar with the quality, depth, and lyrical ambition of her work. And as a fellow artist, that’s just a little irritating since it means the rest of us are going to have to work harder if we hope to keep up.
I am outside on my front porch. The yellowed leaves are methodically falling from the black walnut in the yard, my breath is chalky visible in the recent cold snap, and lately I have been exploring the unpleasant nuances of the dark night of a soul - my own, to be exact. It is a strange passion we live out on this over-glorified orb of rock hurtling through space at some rate that I’m sure would astound me were I to know what it was. It is an odd series of days, I am realizing, when you question your own faith more than you question your own doubt. And, indeed, it is these nagging questions which have prompted me to share my thoughts on Andrew Peterson’s 2003 album, Love and Thunder.
11-year old Reuben Land, a character in the 2001 book Peace Like a River, provides narration that is clear-eyed and insightful, yet retains the magic, wonder, and innocence of youth. I found it easy to entrust my imagination to the author’s clever method of telling the story through the sensibilities of a pre-teen boy. An author with lesser skill would have either made the boy too smart-alecky for his own good or impossibly cute.
I just finished a book that upon closing it, I felt like it finished me in a sense. A quiet meditative book that reached down and stirred the deep waters in me. It’s Marilynne Robinson’s 2005 Pulitzer prize winner Gilead, given to me by my friend Andrew Peterson.
Eric Peters’s body of work addresses a diverse range of topics, but hope is a recurring theme that gently percolates in the midst of it all. And yet, somewhere between the 2001 masterpiece Land of the Living, and Scarce, the flavor of hope that Peters’s work emits has evolved closer to a tone that is more resolute than what came before. And though the complexion of hope has a broad range, the lyrics from Scarce–while intermittently contrite and timorous as in previous efforts, are now strengthened and bolstered by roots that have grown deeper, radiating an underlying grit and security.
Having read The Great Divorce many times over the years, I’ve found this classic from the great C.S. Lewis to be full of startling clarity and depth on the differences between Heaven and Hell. The only thing both have in common is that both begin in the human will; we can either let Heaven enter us and rule in us to blossom into love and goodness, or allow Hell to infect and reign in our hearts by the daily refusal to submit to Heaven.
Even if you haven’t heard Room to Breathe, its still likely you’ve heard Andy Gullahorn. He’s what I’d call a heavy lifter by trade. He writes lyrics, plays guitar, arranges vocals and adds production help to the work of artists like Jill Phillips and Andrew Peterson.
Allow me to preface this by telling you that I am a great despiser of gushing reviews. I’d much rather write (or read) a scathing dismemberment of the latest Brett Ratner film or Terry Goodkind book than suffer through four hundred words of overblown hyperbole about even the best of things. But when asked to write some thoughts on Frederick Buechner’s Godric, no amount of distaste for high praise was able to intervene. I hope you’ll take what I say with the understanding that I do not say it readily or lightly.
Bill and crew were a lifeline for me in the 90’s and a soundtrack to the burgeoning new face of my Christianity - my journey of musical and spiritual discovery is much like yours. Buechner, Mark Heard, and Bill Mallonee were voices that God spoke to me through when I realized that the emperor wasn’t really wearing any clothes and I needed some truth telling, and a faith that was more a wound than it was a bandage.
Thanks for sharing Bill with us again. This was always one of my favorite songs.
The family and I pulled out VOL’s Fade to Black dvd Friday night and were once again captivated by the energy and lyrics. The dvd captures one sweaty night in an English club with Bill, Kenny, Kevin and Jake giving it all their heart (right before or after Audible Sigh was released). If you never had a chance to see the Vigilantes of Love, search for the dvd!
I heard Bill play a house-show a few years back while i was in school and remember just enjoying the heck out of his music. he’s easy to listen to, but when you start thinking about the lyrics they really start to get at you. a deadly mix. one of my favorites he played that night was this song.
First of all, Birmingham is an awesome city, and hearing you talk about Surin makes me miss home. Also, War Eagle.
Secondly, if you remember, what all was on that mix tape? I’d love to check out the artists that inspired the artists that helped me along on my own “neo-Christian” journey.
I remember first hearing this song on “the other” college radio station. You see, I attended school in Ruston, Louisiana, but the Monroe school, located a little further down the street, had its finer moments in college radio. They also had a better antenna and larger budget for programs such as The World Cafe with David Dye. Anyway, upon hearing this song, I took note of the band and the next purchase I made from the CD store was the VOL Greatest Hits. Needless to say it was pure musical/lyrical bliss. A few years later a friend asked me to help him with a weekly show on the Louisiana Tech radio station and after accepting the job; I would always make sure to play a few VOL tracks whenever possible. This was, in my opinion, an attempt to level the competition with that other school down the street.
I had a similar “mixtape” experience. Of course, it was the fact that I was a VOL fan that go me there in the first place. I was digging through the stacks at Long’s Christian Music store in Orlando 10 or 12 years ago and I was shocked to see that VOL had a track on a tribute album for a guy I’d never heard of - Mark Heard. I bought it (of course) and my musical horizons exploded. I fell in love with Mark Heard immediately. But beyond that, I discovered Buddy and Julie Miller, Pierce Pettis, Bruce Cockburn, Victoria Williams, Tonio K, and a bunch of others. From there, it wasn’t a far leap to get to Emmylou Harris, Shawn Colvin, Steve Earle, and a ton of others. That was a life-changing record for me. It’s called Strong Hand of Love, and it’s a must have.