EASE DOWN THE ROAD

What is Ease usually doing, you ask, when most area music enthusiasts are spending their post-work Friday evenings pre-drinking and getting ready for a night out? Probably trying to find a movie – oftentimes Cameron Crowe’s cheesy Singles – to watch or an album to immerse myself in – anything, really, to talk myself out of a night of socializing. One of the pitfalls that comes along with the anxiety-ridden corner of my heart is that I’m usually met at local bars with a greeting like “Wow, you came out more than once this week!” rather than “Buy me a drink” or “Have you seen this band before?” Truthfully, I do go out to see bands much more often than most people, just not enough to be considered a regular part of Fort Wayne’s music scene. Typing those four words – Fort Wayne’s music scene – just now felt very good.

This past Friday I ran into a friend who moved out of town sometime last year only to return with much longer hair a few weeks ago. After talking a bit said friend seemed shocked at the abundance of great out-of-town bands our city has played host to since his recent return. After he landed this point home I realized I’d been to area bars four times in the past six days to see out-of-town bands. Me, a self-described misanthropic hermit, found reason to leave my comfort zone four times in less than a week! Something’s happening here.

While hanging around Indianapolis’ Broad Ripple area the following Saturday before a Stephen Malkmus show at the Vogue, I walked into Indy CD & Vinyl to kill time. There I spotted another old friend – a somewhat “famous” experimental hip-hop producer named Scott Matelic – working behind the counter. After some small talk he asked me the same thing he’s always asked me since I moved to Fort Wayne from Bloomington in 2001: “How’s Fort Wayne?” For the first time ever I was excited to answer this question, going on and on without hesitation about how good the music scene has been of late. “We have a good number of great bands,” I said, “and cool national-level indie bands are playing all the time now.” (Side note: I also told him that a mutual friend of ours, Stephen “Sankofa” Byrden, is currently featured on URB Magazine’s annual Next 100 list. He loved that.)

Later that night, while watching Malkmus riff thick and fantastic, I started counting the Fort Wayne inhabitants I spotted in the crowd, a total sum approaching the 30 mark by the end of the night. I was shocked; even three-fourths of Thunderhawk was in the crowd just one day after playing their second historic Fort Wayne set! Once home I looked through the week’s local music calendar, counting the cool shows I’d missed that featured good national-level bands. Three. In addition to the four Fort Wayne shows I attended in eight days (not to mention the Malkmus show) there were four others I’d have attended had it been possible. The Teeth. Mr. Gnome. The Cut*Off. The Pack A.D. The Hands. And the Moneynotes. Thunderhawk. Hillbilly Casino. Deals Gone Bad. All bands of Ease reader interest that were either at South by Southwest a week earlier or should have been. All bands that played a Fort Wayne stage during an eight-day stretch. How did this happen?

Kevin Hambrick – who brought Ease favorite The Teeth and And the Moneynotes last week, not to mention countless others over the last six months – for one, has helped our little city quickly earn a reputation. Those dudes at Little Brother Radio – who made the rumored-to-be excellent The Cut*Off show happen just a few days ago – have also helped Fort Wayne further establish itself as a live music town that welcomes creative artists. And let’s not forget folks like Joe Pinckney, Jon Ross, Matt Kelley, Brad Etter, Jeff Anderson, Jason Davis, R. Mike Horan and Brenn Beck, to name just a few of the regulars, who have set up shows with national indie bands over the last six months. Mid City Grill, Kaysan’s, the Brass Rail and the Woodland Lounge, to name just the venues I went to last week, have also all been more than willing to share their stages with out-of-town bands that pass Ease’s draconian test of quality. There are far too many out-of-town bands to mention in this small space who are already scheduled to come to Fort Wayne in the next few months. Again, something is happening here.

It’s our bands, too, who have made a difference. I used to stay up late every night, daydreaming about an EaseFest show featuring all my favorite local bands. Well, not really; but I actually could do this now if I wanted to. Without going into detail about the many Fort Wayne area bands Ease follows and adores, I will say that Lee Miles’ new album, Heathen Blux, has in one week become – Malkmus’ new album (of course) aside – my most-listened-to album of the year so far. It’s an album I’d put up against anything released in any other city in the country – it’s actually that good. With the easy and direct access MySpace allows networking-minded artists, our collection of indie-friendly bands have often taken the initiative to set up great shows that never would’ve happened before (gulp) MySpace.

Watching Singles now I realize that Crowe’s depiction of the early-90s Seattle music scene, however sensational it may be, now seems somewhat relatable. Underdogs that we are due to our passable proximity to at least nine other popular music markets, we, the offbeat audiophiles of Fort Wayne, are winning some rounds – building to something great. Bring Wilco to Fort Wayne? Ehh, maybe a few years ago before the million-dollar tours started stacking up. How about bringing The Whigs or The Black Lips or Destroyer or the Silver Jews or Bon Iver to Fort Wayne? Our fellow overlooked fighters. Why not?