this is it
Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
[Since this writing, our lifetime residency at Vincent’s Worcester has been scheduled to resume on September 11th and will repeat every 2nd Saturday of each month thereafter to infinity and beyond]
we’ve been playing vincent’s worcester for a long time, and over the years, its dive bar zen has deepened like a bukowski poem or a fante novel. from being the bar we played to hone our sound in ‘04 and ‘05, to the scene of a powerless (literally and figuratively) chance encounter with fate, vincent’s (or, “vincent,” as the sign actually reads) continues to deliver raw bohemian truth. a couple of years ago, when this photograph was taken by Ted Theodore, it finally (after 14 years) dawned on paul and me that “vincent” was actually a van gogh himself— ie, vincent van gogh— and we made the connection. now, the iconic “this is it” neon sign in the window of at the front of the building has morphed in meaning from, “this is the place, stupid,” to “this - the here and now— is all there is.” long live vincent, and long live his loyal van gogh brothers.
life is art and art is life. for me, the two are intertwined and sometimes i can’t tell them apart. i guess it’s an outlook or a way of life. i’ve lived this way for so long now, i’m not sure. i think i inherited this point of view from my dad. life was a giant canvas for him and he painted it with travel, entrepreneurship, music, creativity and colorful characters. a lot of it was a joke. in his own irreverent and bohemian way, he was a buddhist.
change was a central feature in my dad’s life. he was fearless and when change was necessary— either required or forced— and he tackled it like a zen master. he was hungry for life and change was a way to liven up his palette. i inherited this characteristic as well. while i am a creature of habit in my daily routines, the bigger blocks of my life are subject to reshaping, whether it’s where i live or how i love. i hope this is enlightenment, but i don’t know. it’s just what life is to me at this point. my closest friends know and accept this about me.
we all got the COVID change. for some of us it meant our lives got smaller. for me it meant my life changed, and, being a change addict, i loved it. i got to redefine myself in the context of the pandemic, and luckily, i had met donna and i joined her in working the farm, opening the farm stand and ramping up the programs, including the music program, “Live at Magical Moon Barn.” as COVID waned and my “old life” resumed, i had to change again. and now we have a music program that will continue this summer, and i will bring others in to help with it as it grows.
i look back on periods of my life, mostly with fondness, and i always miss certain things that were unique in the time. in the late ‘60’s and early ‘70’s, we young people lived with a passion for art, love and freedom that is unparallelled since. i loved the freedom of the COVID lockdown. i was free to live differently, and certain aspects of life were in suspended animation— cancelled or postponed. i was free to isolate. donna and i lived in a nostalgic bubble of our youth for a few months. then i was called to poke my head back up again and i wasn’t sure i wanted to pick up where i left off— but things have changed again.
vincent’s survived the pandemic and, hopefully, will be fully open again in the months ahead. they offer an acoustic stage at the back of the bar, but are not able to host full, rocking bands yet. in the meantime, we will be part of the Live at the Magical Moon Barn saturday afternoon summer series which starts on june 5th. the van Gogh Brothers will play on june 26th and again on august 7th. at some point in august or september we will also play a ticketed show inside the barn which is being beautifully updated. donna is a force to be reckoned with and summer 2021 looks to be amazing.
i am thinking about the release of “ghost,” our 15th full-length album, which we finished in march. we will probably release it in the fall or early 2022. i would love to release it with a show at vincent’s, so i’m watching the virus and the occupancy rates for bars and restaurants. in the meantime we’ve started our NEXT album at woolly mammoth with david minehan, and anthony resta and karyadi sutedja will produce and mix the first track, “this is love,” at studio bonique in laurel canyon, los angeles. i hope to get out to see anthony and all my la pals sometime in june.
i think that’s about enough out of me for now. i hope you are able to get out a little more and i hope to see you at the Farm on some of the saturdays this summer. the address is 575 summer street in marshfield.
love,
jc