The Last Thing the Author Said: Writing by Nick Sweeney
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Do Musos Dream of Electric Angst?

5/8/2013

15 Comments

 
You’d think, as a musician, my dreams would all be of myself stepping up to the front of the stage and doing a brilliant guitar break, singing a song perfectly, bringing some great musical moment to the fore. The crowd would be on their feet, cheering for ten minutes to demand an encore. I’ve never had a dream like that - such dreams probably lie deeper than the subconscious of anybody who wants to stand on a stage and perform.

No, my muso dreams are of failure and panic, loss, letting people down. Typical dreams go:

We’re at a venue. We’ve done the soundcheck. As ever, it’s hours before we play. [As in real life], we go off and eat, or go for a drink, either together, or in small groups, or on our own. I have gone off on my own. After a while I realise that I am far away from the venue, and can’t find my way back to it. Panic.

I’m at what is obviously the wrong venue. I’ve got the night wrong. I can’t contact anybody else in the band by phone. I can’t get a cab. I’m in a place that has loads of corridors or staircases, or both. Everybody around is focused on whatever’s happening at the venue, or I am too embarrassed to admit to anybody that I need help, because it’s ridiculous to turn up at the wrong venue.

I have lent my guitar to somebody in another band. I am either in the venue, outside it, or near it somewhere. I can’t remember who I’ve lent it to, and again feel too embarrassed to admit to this.

My guitar is broken, or won’t work for any number of reasons. Or I’ve forgotten to bring it.

Variations of some of these have actually happened: equipment failure is common, especially with one very temperamental amp the band owns, guitar strings breaking during a set or, on one occasion, one minute before we were due to go on, a clarinet being dropped on cobblestones and broken, and one of our tubas has dents that wouldn’t look out of place on a car in Naples, testifying to a lot of tumbles. On a recent trip to Glasgow, I started to feel a bit lost when a group of us went on a walk, and for a drink, before we played – we weren’t lost at all, in the safe hands of one of our trumpeters who has an excellent sense of direction. Various members of the band lose stuff at gigs, small things, usually, a guitar tuner or capo left on the stage, trumpet mutes, sheet music, clothes and hats left in dressing rooms shared by (and I kid you not) fifty other people. Nobody has lost an instrument yet (though one band member, shocked by sudden bad news, left an instrument on a train once – he got it back later) but I can see it happening. There has been the occasional almost last-minute dash to a venue if a band member hasn’t been able to get there earlier.

What I found weird was that I’m not the only member of the band to have these dreams – many of us do. I realised then that it wasn’t so weird. No matter how well things have gone, once we look back on them, gigs, tours, and recording sessions, even rehearsals sometimes, are all ventures that rely on the organisation of people and their time and resources, and are also subject to adverse events, lapses in people’s goodwill and efficiency, and pure luck. Obviously, we can’t approach everything with white-knuckled anxiety, or it would all seem a bit of a slog, but I think our dreams show that anxiety is not so far away, and will settle its amusing little account with us in the end. 

15 Comments
Athalia
5/9/2013 06:36:22 am

Some prefer the real live anxiety and sleep better.

Reply
Nick Sweeney link
5/14/2013 10:31:48 am

True, Athalia. I think we all get a mixture of the two, though.

Reply
Eddie J
5/9/2013 06:39:18 am

Is this trans siberian march band? When are the DJ YODA shows?

Reply
Nick Sweeney link
5/14/2013 10:34:30 am

A bit off-topic, Eddie, but thanks for your interest. You can see what we're up to with and without Yoda on our website here: http://www.transsiberianmarchband.com/gig-dates/ Definitely doing Glasto Fri night/Sat morning. May have a show in London in June.

Reply
Denzel link
5/10/2013 02:57:38 am

You can have all of your dreams explained at this site http://www.dreambible.com/

Reply
Nick Sweeney link
5/14/2013 10:35:21 am

Cheers, Denzel. I'm not sure I want them explained, though. I think they speak for themselves.

Reply
Jerry Meyer
5/10/2013 08:04:10 am

I get dreams of messing up on stage and I have not been playing with a band now for 15 years. I think theya re dreams about messing up whatever you do in your life or whatever you might do and it is just because you play music is another chance to fail. I don't know what they mean if they mean anything. Dreams are just ways of reminding you about stuff though of course in a very indirect way.

Reply
Nick Sweeney link
5/14/2013 10:38:24 am

That is kinda weird. I mean, you don't get dreams about messing up whatever you do now, as a job, for instance? A friend of mine kept having a dream that he was losing his kids - I don't mean in the courts, but in places like the shops - ie, dreaming of his fears of being a bad parent. Yes, maybe dreams keep you on your toes about various things you need to be keeping an eye on. I used to cycle a lot, and often had dreams of falling off my bike, or nearly falling off it (both of which happened reasonably often in real life).

Reply
Massai
5/10/2013 09:34:10 am

M<ost dreams are about things you dont wannna think about. So it follows that you will dream about getting things wrong. I had a dream I was doing a presentation work thing all wrong even tho it was simple and I did it a milloion time s before and I didnt worry about it in my real life, it bored me more than anything but I still had that dream and that made me troubled so I took it as a sign I should take extra careful when I did it and sure enough there were people there from high up who did not normally come to things like that so it was a good thing I took exrtra care. It was like a warning to me. So sometimes dreams help you out when that happens.

Reply
Nick Sweeney link
5/14/2013 10:39:26 am

Yes, that's interesting. Maybe they are a warning. At least that's useful!

Reply
Hadleigh
5/10/2013 10:00:36 am

Hi it’s me again with another question. Do any of your stories come from dreams? Pavlov’s bitch all seems like it’s a bad dream, or it has that kind of quality. And the same with the Monstrous Men story. Do you write down your dreams?

Reply
Nick Sweeney
6/6/2013 05:56:43 pm

Hi Hadleigh. No, Pavlov's Bitch is from 2 stories told to me by two different people, but yes, it has a bad-dream kind of feeling in it. Monstrous Men - yes. A small part of that came from a dream, though the dream didn't end up in the story. The dream, as far as I remember, was about me being in somewhere like a theatre or opera house, and the president came by, and he looked like he was in some kind of trouble or distress. He pushed something into my hand - it was food of some kind, I think. I occasionally write my dreams down, and I have lots of them written down, dating back to the 1970s. They're often a bit tedious to read, quite honestly, the only interesting thing about them being that, as with any kind of dream, I have forgotten the details, so they are new stories to read.

Reply
Jenny Reagan
5/10/2013 06:10:06 pm

WTF? You mean you all dream the same dream in the band you’re in? That is kind of wierd. I think you probably spend too much time together, like when girls live in an apartment and start all menstruating together lol. I never heard of people having the same dream.

Reply
Nick Sweeney
6/6/2013 05:58:46 pm

Not exactly the same, but all anxiety dreams, as we all have the same anxieties particular to the band. I'll ask the girls in the band if they all menstruate together when we're on tour... actually, better idea: I'd better not!

Reply
Morris Ann
4/14/2016 02:33:58 am

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    LAST THING

    Nick Sweeney

    Kent-based musician with Clash covers band Clashback, among others. Writer of novels, short stories and pastiche Balkan tunes. Laikonik Express is out with Unthank Books; my stories are all over the place... in a good way!

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    The Emigre Engineer, my novelette of transition from the Russian Revolution to the America of Prohibition. Out with Ploughshares, October 2021

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