It was 2006ish…Dogtown was alive, different than Nashville in a gritty way. 

on any given day in any given room you could catch a legend whether it be at The Village, Stickyz or WWT, etc…. These places held something for artist of every caliber from Randy Rogers and across Canadian Ragweed to Taking Back Sunday and Norman Jean. It was exploding with music. The city had its own beat and if you weren’t careful, what lurked behind that beat would swallow you alive.

I was too young to be in this place but, somehow my soul old enough to fit right in. It was Smokey, Dangerous and inviting all at the same time. They called it “White Water” I was a kid, maybe 16/17 but, you couldn’t have told me that. I snuck in to test my freshly printed ID and see if I could buy a beer and catch a live band that a friend told me was closely tied to Arkansas…kind of local legends. 

Lucero.

This Skinny fella with haggard tattoos all up and down his arm and a smoke hanging out his lip walked on stage. He uncomfortably strapped on a barely held together guitar that somehow still looked more held together than he did. I thought “great, it’s some acoustic show…I don’t want to hear a bunch of Springsteen covers tonight…” on and on like a staggering, teenage idiot does.

He fired up a song with these beat out chords and sang…….

 “ Smoke and the wine and the whiskey don't mix

Shakin' so bad, think I'm gonna be sick

Buy 'nother scotch as I head for the door

Now it won't make me better

But I wanna make sure

Hold, me close, I love you more than you know”

It flew all over me like shrapnel from some heartbroken grenade. I sat there, song after song absolutely hanging on every single word, we all did. In a way that your grandpa is telling you a story about the war, you just listened.60-100 strangers not saying a damn word.  A1, mouse fart situation.  

As the night went on, for the first time in as long as I could remember I didn’t feel so damn alone. I didn’t feel so misunderstood. You can call it teenage angst and immaturity but, I had some sadness in me brother, I swear I was born with it for whatever reason. As the night went on he poured his heart out in that tavern and ours along with it. How every line seemed to barely escape his mouth without a tear chasing it. How he captured every single person in that place from the moment he spoke. How well he understood exactly how to deliver it in a way that made you feel as if you lived it too because you did. 

He sang about heart break, self deprecating addiction and loss. All topics we had been served before but, only in a “tailgates and tan lines” doggy bag. I witnessed a reckoning that evening in a dog town, dive bar and it sent me on the path I’m still on today. Still chasing that wave, that song and that ability to maybe make someone else not feel alone in some smokey, dim light dive