Eliot Bronson - A Synthesis of Youth and AgeThere's a fascination that comes with watching someone young going through a "coming of age" period. The whirl and blur of new experience carries an impact and incites a response. If that someone decides to pick up a guitar and write songs about it to sing to others, the results can be inspiring or they can be like fingernails scraping a blackboard. In the early spring of 2003, the Postcrypt Café on the campus of Columbia University in Manhattan, was its usual, cozy bustling self. In this space, located in the basement of St. Paul's Cathedral, there are no microphones or amplifiers and the unadorned s ounds rebound off the antique stone walls. This is like a monk's idea of a theater-in-the-cellar playroom. The three by eight foot plywood stage rises a foot or so off the floor. While solo players have no problem, acts using three or more players have some difficulty squeezing in. There's free popcorn at the snack bar, and a bunch of nice microbrews in their fine selection to choose from. The place starts to fill up around 8:30, a half hour before show time. By 9 o'clock most patrons are fully sated and ready for the show. The first act is of particular interest Into this subterranean cavern an irrepressibly young Eliot Bronson alights. The soft gel-covered spotlight and candles sitting on the tables reveal someone who is perhaps twenty-something but looks even younger. He looks as if he cuts his own hair and the mustache he's sporting at the moment is a wispy understatement. He's already created something of a name for himself in his home town of Baltimore, but the Postcrypt is his only foothold in Manhattan. He deserves more. As he takes the stage, a smirk crosses Eliot's face and he confides to the audience that the zipper of his pants is not working as it should, so "watch out something may give." It reminds us of Mick Jagger saying, "…ya wouldn't want me ta bust a button on me trousahs, would ya?" on an early live album. He may have been doing his '60's homework. His boyish good looks are not lost on the coeds in the audience. Still in the "youthful" category, his voice retains an earnest, Jackson Browne-like quality. There is an expertise on guitar that many of today's young players display. Not all of the younger singer/songwriters, though, show the joy and fluidity that we're witnessing here. He draws attention to the ambient room noises -- clanking pipes and creaky stage -- before he plays a new song, "Calling Yourself." A sweet nimble, rolling finger picking with unusual chord combinations fills the room. The notes flicker and dart, with hammer-ons and turnarounds. The wistful air and pensive words speak of lost illusions. They tug at that lonely place we all carry. It's a "keeper." Combining lyrics and melody like an alchemist, with the voice of a choirboy and the mind of an aged poet, he sings:
Like the still of the morning Before the world shakes off her sleep Like the fire in your belly Before you find the words to speak Like the money in your pocket Like the song spinnin' round your head Faded picture in a locket Like the fragile safety of promises Gone without warning Light of the day You hear yourself calling yourself From far away… from far away.
He follows with another, even more urgent song. "Breathing of the Night." This one is more percussive with a funky Bossa Nova-like backbeat. We hear the beckoning of desire in the driving urgency and forceful directives:
Leave your wallet and your cards by the bedside, bedside Walk with me to the window and look out Moon lighting up the evening like a fire, fire Maybe, maybe it will burn away our doubt Lean out, lean in, lean back again Feel the rush of wind upon your skin Let it tell you you're all right Empty your head, listen instead To the breathing of the night… Hold me close and I will lead you in the dance Lean out, lean in, lean back again…
He has said that he's had more audience acceptance at times for opening for folk/rock acts than in opening for "serious" poet/singers like Richard Shindell. While taking a moment to reiterate that the poet/philosopher is always at hand, one reason might be, simply… he rocks. Beginnings Born and raised in Baltimore, he absorbed the city until the age of 13, when his parents moved the family to the suburbs. His first path was as a Gen-X prodigy, a skateboarder, competing in and winning contests. He originally thought he was going to be a skateboarding professional. Fortunately, for everyone concerned, the impulse passed. In his childhood, he remembers, "There was always music around." He played violin for about 5 years, but was never very good at it He chose it because his brother played and he thought it would be "cool" to play it as well. He lost interest after one month, but his parents wouldn't let him quit. It took all of 5 years until they gave in. We discussed briefly the aural effects of bad violin practice and he said: "It is a hard instrument &endash; it's got a big learning curve on it and it's not very forgiving. When you hit a bad note, you really lean into that bad note, unlike guitar where you can flub around it and nobody notices." [Depends on who's listening] When asked about his early musical surroundings, he recalled: "My father and mother were into 60's folk music They had those records around and they played them, so… there was music. It was just part of the atmosphere. My dad liked the old Bob Dylan. He also liked the blues and he played blues records. It was a long time before I decided that it was OK." Then, the drive to make music finally struck in high school. He states "Somewhere around my sophomore year, mid-teens, I got into punk rock. There was a punk scene happening &emdash; an alternative community. We considered ourselves to be very socially aware. We thought we knew what was going on in the world and we were very self-righteous. The punk bands we listened to were out of the mainstream, like Fugazi. Amidst the high school scene, there were the jocks, the preps, and the burn-outs. Then there was us. We were this group of people, who had this cool music. We thought we were really smart. Everything fit into this neat little picture. I didn't like the music that much &emdash; it wasn't that interesting. The sentiment behind it was like, 'there's another way of living, another way of thinking about the world.' The irony was that it led me back into the 60's stuff that my parents were listening to except that it had better music, and I thought, 'Oh yeah, this is coming from the same spirit,' except that, I liked the sound better. Once I got an acoustic guitar, the other piece of the puzzle fell into place. I discovered that I had a real facility for playing fingerstyle guitar. We had been playing this thrashing kind of punk music and I was just a mediocre guitar player (my first guitar was a Fender Squire &emdash; a low-end Fender electric &emdash; I think I wound up selling it to make a car payment later on). But I found that when I started playing with my fingers I took to it really fast. And that sounds much better on an acoustic guitar".The Writing Process He saved up for a year and bought a Washburn acoustic/electric. It had the sound he wanted. When he got that guitar the writing process began. He then bought a little 4-track tape recorder and made recordings of himself &endash; little instrumental parts over the top of rhythmic riffs and whatever songs he had written. He said: "I didn't 'play out' &endash; I was probably 16 or 17 and just writing songs in my bedroom." A sense of independence pervaded his approach to leaning guitar and fueled his songwriting. He states: "I'm the kind of person who likes to learn on his own. I had private lessons for a couple of years, but I was poor at disciplining myself to practice what I was taught. I'm sure that it did help to have someone giving me instruction, but I learned a lot on my own. I would go home and have a song to learn but instead of learning that song I'd write one of my own." Harshly critical of his own laissez faire nature, he states: "I'm a slacker." He added: "I'm deficient in some of the theory behind the music… but I think that the creativity part is more important anyway. I began taking lessons when I had the electric. In the beginning we were learning scales &endash; it was all pretty boring. And I'm not sure there was any "magic moment" when I decided that I wanted to play the acoustic guitar, but when I started doing the fingerstyle, even on the electric, I liked the way it sounded." For any singer/songwriter, coming of age can take a lifetime. For Eliot, the process is ongoing, and he'll continue to examine the scenery of life's winding roads and report back to us in ways that are continuously astonishing. Eliot's new album appears to be one-half to two-thirds finished. The 6-song demo CD sent to me displays polish and maturation. Eliot was supposed to be playing the Postcrypt this November, but the booking person mistakenly chose Thanksgiving weekend for the gig. D'oh…! School's closed that weekend! Eliot will be rescheduled for the Spring semester. Watch these pages for an update. Or, visit Eliot's web page at: www.eliotbronson.com In the meantime, in addition to regular gigs, he's appearing elsewhere in the Fall Tour for The Kids Are All Right, a duo featuring Eliot and Josh Lamkin. Nov 1 8pm The Kids Are All Right w/ Josh Lamkin The Six String Cafe & Music Hall , Cary, NC Nov 2, 7pm The Kids… Jammin' Java , Vienna, VA Nov 5 The Kids… UMBC/University of Maryland-Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD Nov 6, 7pm The Kids… House Concert, Arnold, MD Nov 7, 8pm The Kids… Steel City Coffeehouse , Phoenixville, PA Nov 15, "Songwriters Invasion" w/ Brian Gundersdorf/Lisa Cerbone/ Vyktoria Pratt Keating The Patterson Theatre , Baltimore, MD Dec 5 Solo feature 8pm Aletha's, Monkton, MD Feb 7 7pm w/ Annie Clark Panzers House Concerts, Columbia, MD reservations required call: (410)531-9233 or email: spanzers@cs.com July 28 8pm w/Erik Balkey / Laurie MacAllister Vic's Music Corner, Rockville, MD $15 Tickets $12 in advance. www.victorheyman.com, (301)984-1897.