Martin Sexton and “It” Moments: Musings on “Artistic Grace”

Posted by admin on March 25th, 2009 | 2 Comments »

I saw Martin Sexton, one of my favorite singer /songwriters live at the “Belly Up” in my hometown of Apen CO two nights ago.  I had seen him before at the Gathering of The Vibes Music festival three summers ago performing to a crowd of 10,000+ people.  There were about 300+ people at the Belly Up.  This was not a good show for Martin it seemed.  I could be wrong, maybe he felt differently, but to me, it was sub-par.  The sound was surprisingly off for the tiny venue and for some reason, the sound-man didn’t EQ his vocals correctly so you couldn’t hear or decipher any word that was sung.  All of his songs ended up sounding like scat solo’s over whatever progression he happened to be playing.  I am a huge Martin Sexton fan, but the show was mediocre and I actually left in the middle of it.

Now, I don’t believe that this was in any way shape or form, Martin’s fault…or actually had anything to do with him at all.  Some things are out of the artists control, and in this case, the Belly Up didn’t do it’s job in providing top quality sound.   Perhaps another reason why it was hard to hear Martin, in addition to the sound quality was because a little over half of the crowd on the packed dance floor were chatting it up…talking at the top of their lungs, while Martin, onstage alone was falsettoing, bellowing and belting over the chatter.  I am not sure if he noticed, or even cared.

There is an open-mic everynight in Aspen at the Crystal Palace Grill. It is an amazing open mic…usually packed with people and each artist gets to play three songs. I have been performing every Monday night give or take for the past three-ish months and every-time I have performed I have left feeling somewhat discouraged by the fact that during my performances…as well as during all the other artist’s performances, there are sometimes a select few, sometimes a majority of people…again, chit chatting over the music.

I walk home and think about my musical heroes…about the greatest singers of all time, and wonder if they too, would be greeted by a mixture of listening ears, and chattering mouths.  I wonder if Aretha stepped into the Crystal Palace Grille, but nobody knew who she was…just another unknown Aspen local playing a song or two…and she started fucking WAILING, if there would still be somebody talking…and I don’t know the answer…but if I were to guess, I would say that yes, people would still talk.

The whole point of these two juxtapositions…Martin’s performance and the open mic at the Crystal Palace is to address this idea I have had of what a “successful” performance should entail.  I’ve had it in my mind that everything falls short of success unless you, the performer are SO captivating, SO mesmerizing and SO powerful, that literally nobody has the choice but to shut the fuck up.  I realize that this is quite a ludicrous concept, which is why I am writing about it, but I think it spawns from the few and far between magical moments I have felt at some very special concerts I’ve gone to.

For example, when I saw Martin perform at the Gathering of the Vibes in front of 10,000 people…FAR less intimate than the Belly Up…I felt an “it” moment.  I felt like I was right there with him, connected to him, his openness and vulnerability…deeply rooted in what he was singing about.  Even though he was far away from me on a huge stage and I was surrounded by masses of people I could still feel his connection with both the audience and his music, almost as if I was in his living room.  As a concert goer, and as a performer myself, nothing comes close to comparing to these “it” moments, and thus, I think I have started to associate successful performances with whether or not I feel “it” so to speak. These moments feel objective to me…It’s like everybody in the audience starts breathing together when “it” happens.

However, after seeing Martin Sexton up close and personal, in a room of bad sound and chattering fans, I realize what an extreme practice of insanity it is to feel that a successful performance entails a silent crowd and or undivided attention.  Did Martin Sexton fail two nights ago?  Was his performance a failure because me, a huge fan, left because the sound was bad and the audience wasn’t giving him their undivided attention?

The question is obviously rhetorical, but it points to the main issue of this post, and also, one that I feel every artist can identify with to some degree.  On a personal level, I truly believed that my open mic performances were failures to some degree or another because I had failed to capture the attention of the entire room, for the entirety of my performance.  Perhaps I am both arrogant enough to assume that I am deserving and commanding enough of such attention, and also insecure enough to require such attention to feel good about my performance, but either way…my artistic grounding is no doubt, off-skew.

I realize now after watching Martin Sexton perform a less than mind-blowing performance, that as artists, we must connect to something deeper than the need for “it” to happen…on a regular basis…or at our beck and call.  Most have felt those “it” moments in some form or another, but when I really think about them…I realize that I  must not mistake them for anything other than artistic versions of Grace, or Divine Intervention.  I understand that I can
only do my diligence to practice being as open and vulnerable as possible in my expressions, and the more I practice opening in my day to day life, the more frequently I will be open enough for Grace to enter, but I cannot force it or even take it personally because Grace is impersonal.

…Impersonal because I never feel worthy of Grace.  In the instances when Grace does come into my heart,
I know that it’s not because I have done something to deserve it…but instead because I have either consciously or serendipitously allowed myself to relax enough into my “essence” so that Grace has room to enter.
 In other words, when I do nothing but relax into the “deep river” (to avoid using religious terms) that is always flowing within me and within everybody, and I am not blocking it’s flow with my thoughts or my habitual patterns, or more importantly, my need to force things to go “my way”…then Grace has the room to take over and “it” happens. 

This is what I believe happens when musicians talk about being “played” by the music, rather than playing the music themselves.  But, after watching Martin Sexton — an artist who on a regular basis creates “it” moments, give a mediocre performance due to sound issues etc… I understand now that as artists, in order to keep our sanity, we must be connecting to something beyond our desire for “it” to happen…especially in our internal measuring of our successes and failures…

What that new connection is…I have to think more about (any suggestions, please offer a comment) …because up until this point, my gauge of fullfillment has been based on whether “it” happens or not…  Now I feel I must gauge things very differently, and when those magical moments do happen, simply be grateful and maintain my connection to my artisit process…in whatever form it presents itself.

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