The First Show
It all started in 2008, at the Rhythm Kitchen in downtown Peoria, Illinois. Beneath the New Orleans-inspired decor and wine-bottle chandeliers (still there here in 2024), I took the stage with my Samick acoustic guitar, my brother, and my obsession with the Decemberists.
This first performance was at the open mic that went down every Wednesday in those days. I met the house band —a small collection of older, welcoming men who, as I would later learn, were an adequate stand-in for every older, welcoming house band of every bar this side of the Midwest.
As I sat at my table awaiting my chance, the nerves reached a fever pitch. I made small talk with a member of the band who was studying a piece of sheet music. After asking me something about my playing, he waxed about forever being a student of music and never feeling like he was anything beyond a novice. I don’t know how much I believed him at the time, if for no other reason than being under the impression that one needed confidence to succeed in this sort of environment. Of course, “this sort of environment” was a small, artsy restaurant in downtown Peoria, not exactly Carnegie Hall. So, I guess it’s at least possible that he actually was some degree of novice, no matter how much he philosophized about his humbleness before the God of Music.
Even at that most vulnerable moment there was an internal duality at work. One voice that reminded me how terrified and neophyte I was; the other voice set to convince me that I was different from these forever-toiling musicians, and that while I too may be learning, that learning was a precursor to my heading somewhere.
Silly, arrogant, and misguided are the three words that first come to mind. Not only had I not put in anything resembling the same amount of work as these other musicians, but I did not remotely understand the volume of talent and skill that existed beyond the walls of my bedroom. Sure, you reserve a perch for those musicians who you idolize and wish to emulate —the world makes more sense when your heroes occupy an unattainable high ground— but it’s jarring, uncomfortable, and radically humbling when you realize the multitudes who have outworked you, outclassed you, and share the same desire for recognition, and still don’t attain it. You are a small fish in an enormous pond. And that pond doesn’t just have fish in it; it’s full of great white sharks, giant squid, and some prehistoric, aquatic dinosaur that everyone said was extinct.
But there I was, shaking on my way to the stage as the house band finished. My brother offered instrumental support as we played “Crane Wife #3” from the Decemberists’ fourth album, The Crane Wife (2006) --if you’ve watched Parks and Recreation, this is the song the band plays in their guest appearance at the Pawnee/Eagleton Unity Concert. One thing I remember about playing that song was feeling modestly protected by the beautiful guitar riff that swims through it, and having my brother —a much more accomplished guitarist— play it. That riff could serve as a distraction if my side of things were to derail.
I played four songs that night. My memory only recalls three of them for certain —”The Crane Wife #3” and “Eli, the Barrow Boy” by the Decemberists, and the traditional “O Mary Don’t You Weep.” There are a few contenders in my head for what the fourth was, but my best guess is that it was “We Both Go Down Together,” yet another D’s track. The stakes felt immensely high. In a way, I guess they were, as there is a non-zero chance that a negative experience might have scared me off the entire enterprise. But I received the same lukewarm, kind response from the scattered musicians and patrons that I would receive for years after, across hundreds of performances: Just enough breadcrumbs of audience love to make me willing to come back for more.
While that night at the Rhythm Kitchen isn’t quite the place my songwriting career began —it began several months later— it is the place my public musical life did. It is the place where all of the questions and curiosities and doubts and explorations of what it means to be a songwriter started to manifest. And much as I continue on, so too does Rhythm Kitchen: It’s the best restaurant in Peoria.