The Moth - The Moth Podcast: Instrumental

Episode Date: August 16, 2024

On this episode, we celebrate musicians with two stories about learning to play an instrument. Plus, we feature some music by Mazz Swift, recorded at a recent Moth Mainstage.Host: Michelle JalowskiStorytellers:Alistair Bane learns to play the guitar from a punk musician. Mari Black performs in a fiddle contest as a 6-year-old.

This autumn, fall for Moth Stories as we travel across the globe for our main stages. We're excited to announce our fall lineup of storytelling shows from New York City to Iowa City, London, Nairobi, and so many more. The Moth will be performing in a city near you, featuring a curation of true stories. The Moth main stage shows feature five tellers who share beautiful, unbelievable, hilarious, and often powerful true stories on a common theme. Each one told reveals something new about our shared connection. To buy your tickets or find out more about our calendar, visit themoth.org slash mainstage. We hope to see you soon. Welcome to the Moth Podcast. I'm Michelle Jalowski, your host for this episode. If you've

only ever listened to the podcast or radio hour, you might not know that most of our shows feature a live musician. An instrumentalist opens each act and then stays on stage throughout the show, acting as a sort of timekeeper, letting the storyteller and the audience know when the teller is over their time limit. We're all about storytelling here at The Moth and music tells its own sort of story. Our musicians help set the tone for our curated live shows, and we've been lucky to work with some incredible musicians over the years. On this episode, we'll be celebrating how instrumental instruments are at The Moth,

with two stories about learning how to play. Plus stick around, we just might be sharing some music from a live Moth show. First up, we've got Alistair Bain. He told this at a Denver Story Slam where the theme of the night was pride. Here's Alistair, live at the Moth. So like a lot of queer kids in the 80s, I ended up on my own pretty young.

And there were some harsh parts to that. But there were some awesome parts, like that Wednesday when me and my best friend Candy were in a dive bar in New York seeing 10 local bands for a dollar. Thanks to our new fake IDs. I was a little bit worried about mine. This said I was a 40 year old white man named Norman Schwartz.

But this was a kind of bar where it was like, hey, we're all human. When the fourth band came on, the singer was like the second coolest person in the world, next to David Bowie. And the awesome part was the whole set. He kept looking right at me and Candy. Now because of our height difference, it's hard to tell if he was staring at her breast

or my face. But when the set finished and he came to talk to us, it was my face he was liking. He ended up writing his name and number on my arm, and he said, I wrote that in Sharpie, so you can't forget to call me. And Brandy was like, that's the most romantic thing. I think you guys are soul mates. So the next week, I met him in a different dive bar, and we started talking.

And this bar was having a drink special, 25 25 cent shots of peppermint schnapps. I didn't know. I had been on the street enough to be experienced in a lot of things but peppermint schnapps not so much. But Danny the singer ordered a dollar's worth so I was like okay we're about the same weight sure I ordered a dollar's worth. We kept talking and then this thing happened where the peppermint schnapps hit my skeletal system and it turned my bones into pudding and I fell on the floor like in this big person puddle.

I remember like Danny saying, are you okay being in a cab, maybe crawling on stairs? And then it was morning, and I woke up, still fully clothed, in a big fluffy bed that weirdly smelled like Estee Lauder perfume. And I looked to see if Danny was there, but instead it was a 70-year-old woman. And she was like,

oh, you're awake, sweetie. I'm Danny's grandma. He was so worried that you might choke on your own vomit in the night that he asked me to watch over you. And I was like, this is not punk rock. I gotta get out of here. So I found my shoes.

I'm like, okay, thanks. I was gonna bolt for the door. But when I opened the door into the main room of the apartment, there's Danny drinking coffee. He goes, good morning, Norman. My fake ID is sitting right on the table in front of him I sit down he pours me a cup of coffee and he says ah yeah it's really not cool you lied about your age now I kind of nod and he said and you know you were like passed out drunk and not every guy would be you know like decent about that and

he was being so nice that somehow it just embarrassed me more and pissed me off I was like I'm not some stupid baby you have to protect in lecture I know people aren't decent I've been knowing people aren't decent since I was 12 and you could done whatever you want to me because it wouldn't matter you just be one more jerk in the world and I'm nothing I Didn't mean that like just to sound punk rock somewhere There's some truth in it and he saw it and I saw his face And then I just burst into these big ugly so undave a boy so uncool sobs

ugly, so undave-a-boy, so uncool, sobs. And I was sitting there trying to get my other shoe on and I heard him say, you know what you're not too young for? Do you want to learn to play guitar? I was like, what? He said, I don't know, like I always thought if I had a little brother, I could teach him to play guitar. And so over the next year, I'd go over to their apartment, hang out with him and his grandma, learn chords. And while the rest of my life had a lot of chaos in it, that was just one like beautiful place where there was this friend that really respected me and liked me just for me.

He moved to LA the next year and we kept in touch by letters. But during those days of no internet, no cell phones, it was easy to eventually lose touch. The last letter I got from him was when I was 24, I'd written to him to say I'd gone to rehab, I had three months clean, and I really saw a future for myself. He wrote back in the last paragraph of the letter, he said, I hope you're proud of yourself, I hope you make sure that the people in your life value you,

and I hope you still play guitar. And yeah, Danny, yes to all three of those. people in your life value you, and I hope you still play guitar. And yeah, Danny, yes to all three of those. Thank you. That was Alastair Beane. Alastair lives in Denver, Colorado, and in addition to telling stories, he's a visual artist, quilter, and clothing designer. In his spare time, he rehabilitates feral dogs from the reservation.

He says it's a much more relaxing hobby than it might sound, as long as you don't mind a tiny bit of growling. Up next is Mari Black. She told this at a Boston StorySlam where the theme of the night was denial. Here's Mari live at the Mock. So at age six I entered my first fiddling contest. It was the Skowhegan County Fair up in May 1993. I know, right? The 90s.

And so I'd spent like two weeks picking out my outfit. It's a very, very long process. A little skirt, shirt with a fish on it. Fiddle hat. Had to have the fiddler's hat with a weird brim. It's a taxi driver hat, really. I'd spent about three weeks learning how to braid my hair myself and two braids and about a week and a half wiggling furiously at my other front tooth so

both would be missing on stage. Details, they're important in the performing arts. What I had not devoted any time to was learning the three songs I would have to play on stage. So details apparently are not that important. I wasn't, this was not something I did just like being a dumb kid. My mom is a professional musician. She's a champion fiddler. She was playing in the same contest. I'd watched her and her students and her colleagues and everybody prepare for this kind of thing. I knew what preparation was. I just, you know, kind of didn't need it. And you have to play three songs a waltz, a jig and a reel. I knew a jig. And when my mom would ask me, hey, you

know, how are the tunes coming? Because you can't play unless you know three tunes. Oh, yeah, no, it's great. I'm getting there. I know I'm good. Total, I was good. That was the end of it. The state of affairs persisted all the way until we got in the car to go to the contest.

There's my mom, her fiddle, me, my fiddle, my brother, who is along for this rather dramatic ride. And in the car I'm reminded again in a way that I actually hear it this time that unless you know three songs you can't play, how many do you actually know, Mari? Ah, crap. So, you know, I didn't want to waste the outfit and I did have two holes in the front of my smile, so it's like in the car I finally burst into the tears that should have come weeks ago and begged my mom, please, please, please, please help me.

So in the three hour car ride in the car, she proceeds to, well driving, teach me the real. I don't know how we made it through. We tried to make it through the waltz. I only made it halfway. So I knew half a waltz. Awesome. But all this is fine because when we get out of the car there's the fair and the fiddle contest. I mean there's a big fair. We're talking rides, games, food, everything everywhere. Hundreds of thousands of people. Counting fairs are a big deal up

in Maine in 1993. And the big main stage is the fiddle contest and there's the the bleachers at like a horse it must have been a horse racetrack or something and it's packed. And most fiddle contests they divide everybody up by age this was not one of those it's just everybody all in together. Alright so let me put this in context there's big prize money in this sort of thing so it brings out all the champion fiddlers you know the year olds, the 50 year olds, the 90 year old fiddlers who have been playing their whole life and are amazing.

And then there's me, six. And again, like, I don't care, I'm good, I belong here. I play about midway through the night, it was already dark. I get on stage and the MC hands me my microphone. And so here comes this big hammy intro to every tune and and it was so great the hammy intro talking all about oh this tune and I how I loved it my entire life and nobody noticed it was half a waltz. And I get to the jig and I

tell the story about, you know, how this jig is so awesome and Eileen and I go, this is my favorite jig you know. And my mother at the piano to this day when she tells the story goes and I was thinking, it's the only jig you know. So I get through this program and I brought everybody along with me. Every single person in that audience was as convinced as I was of my dedicated preparation and they went nuts and I loved it and that's probably why I'm still doing this. But you know we get off stage and my mom is not in denial. My mom is a pro, she knows what's up and so she very gracefully, even

though she probably did place, she very gracefully kind of ushers my brother and I like, oh it's late, you know we should go home and I said absolutely not. We have to stay because I've won a prize. And my, oh my poor mother, my god, someday I'm going to have a kid who does that as punishment. And so she couldn't get me to leave. So we get there and it's late, it's really late, and everybody's been waiting for the results and they announced third prize and it's my mother. And she's just like, oh yeah, yeah, smile. And she's like, okay good, we're done, let's go, let's go home, it's late, oh boy. I said, no, we can't go because I have won a prize. We have to wait for mine. And they put me second.

And now I'm embarrassed by this. And I'll tell you what, to this day I still don't know the second half of that waltz. Every now and then I go and take a look at my brain, see if it's there. No, it's still gone. And the even further epilogue to this is the one thing that was great about that night was not only the huge prize money and the big fair and the crowd in the microphone was they were supposed to give us trophies and that to me was like the greatest thing in the world but they didn't have them that night they said we're so sorry something got mixed up in the mail we'll send them to you now as as a pro I know that in the music business when they said it's in the mail you're never going to see that thing and my mom knew this so she's like aha it's fine.

For weeks I checked the mail every day I was waiting for the postman do you have my box do you have my box do you have my box do you have my box. It must have been six weeks and my mom could not believe I wouldn't give up. And finally, one day, much to her huge shock, but not to mine because I knew, huge box shows up. Inside, it's addressed to both of us, inside there are two gigantic trophies. They are purple, they are gold, they're sparkly, they say, Skowhegan Fair 1993 and at the top is a golden fiddle. And they are identical except for one thing.

One of the trophies has the neck of the fiddle snapped off. It got bumped in postage and it turned to my mom and it's totally serious. I said, oh, mama, I'm so sorry. Yours is broken. That was Mari Black. Mari is a professional multi-style violinist who was raised by a mighty clan of dynamic storytellers. Through them, she inherited a passion for living the kind of life where anything can become an adventure worth retelling.

And so far, she's succeeding. Find her music at mariblack.com. We wanted to end this episode by featuring some of the music from a recent Moth mainstage. Maz Swift has been performing their improvised violin pieces with the Moth since 2006, and they've become a beloved part of the Moth family. This is from a Moth mainstage in Harlem, where the theme of the night was back to life. Here's Maz. So So I'm going to play a little bit of the melody. ["Symphony No. 5 in D Major"] I'm gonna play a little bit of the same thing. So So And I'm going to be singing this song for you. That was Maz. Maz Swift is a Juilliard trained violinist as well as a composer, conductor, singer, bandleader, and educator. They engage audiences worldwide with their signature weaving of improvisation and composition.

They've performed with the Moth countless times and their ongoing work, the Sankofa Project, is centered around protest songs, spirituals, and the Ghanaian concept of Sankofa, looking back to learn how to move forward. A special thank you to Mass Swift, along with all of the musicians that have performed at Moth shows throughout the years and throughout the world. If you'd like to see one of those musicians live accompanied by some great stories, go to themoth.org events to find more information about our Story Slams and Main Stages. That's it for this episode.

Remember, if you like the stories in this episode, be sure to share this podcast with a friend and tell them to subscribe so they can take a listen as soon as it comes out. From all of us here at The Moth, have a musical week. Michelle Jalowski is a producer and director at The Moth, where she helps people craft and shape their stories for stages all over the world. This episode of The Moth podcast was produced by Sarah Austin-Giness, Sarah Jane Johnson, and me, Mark Salinger. The rest of The Moth's leadership team includes Sarah Haberman,

Christina Norman, Jennifer Hickson, Meg Bowles, Kate Tellers, Marina Glucce, Suzanne Rust, Brandon Grant Walker, Leanne Gulley, and Aldi Casa. The Moth would like to thank its supporters and listeners. Stories like these are made possible by community giving. If you're not already a member, please consider becoming one or making a one-time donation today at themoth.org. All Moth Stories are true, as remembered by the storytellers. For more about our podcast, information on pitching your own story, and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org. The Moth Podcast is presented by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange, helping make Public Radio more public at PRX.org.