Nick Atkinson’s bandmate is a confirmed subscriber to the concept of male glamour. But he’s a little overdressed for the job at hand.
Listen to the story as it was told at The Watercooler storytelling night or read on.
We arrive at the hip Auckland nightspot Golden Dawn on a lowering Sunday afternoon. It’s a suitable evening for live tunes. You don’t want it hot outside, no one will ever come in. There needs to be a little chill in the air to tempt folk indoors, where the temperature is already climbing.
My bandmate Tim is already here and his personality fills up the room. You can hear his booming conversational tone from down the street, though the building that encloses him is built from heavy kauri and brick. You should hear him sing. It’s magnificent.
Even at this early hour there’s an issue though - he’s overdressed.
Being a confirmed subscriber to the concept of male glamour, tonight Tim’s sporting a prize from a recent sojourn in Mexico. He dons a grand embroidered poncho. This particular traditional riding cloak is felt-grey, with an intricate rural scene picked out in thread across the shoulders. It’s done up with a substantial toggle.
Beneath that he wears a heavy leather riding waistcoat which partially covers a thick calico cowboy shirt that could withstand a Patagonian gale all on its lonesome. No doubt he ameliorates the rough feel of his course shirt with a luxuriant creped cotton singlet.
His jeans are held high with a preposterous belt-buckle and pointed cowboy boots bought in Las Vegas complete the ensemble.
While he’s all set for a relentless snowbound journey on horseback he’s utterly over-swaddled for trumpet playing, which is what’s required for the next two hours. He beams with pride as his outfit astonishes the regulars at the bar. I forgot to mention the enormous cowboy hat.
The picture is complete as boutique beer cascades down his ginger beard after being scooped out of his pint pot by his ludicrous moustache. He’s clearly the most epic trumpet-playing bluesman you’re likely to see in all Ponsonby.
Even though we’ve got an easy hour’s work to set the stage and write the set-list, we seem to always run out of time. But we do start parpin’ right on 6pm. I’m playing bass clarinet and Tim’s on trumpet for the first couple of tracks as we don’t want to unleash his glorious tenor vocal this early in the piece.
While he’s all set for a relentless snowbound journey on horseback he’s utterly over-swaddled for trumpet playing, which is what’s required for the next two hours.
Having played at Tim’s side since we were 13 years old I know his quirks and I can sense he’ll begin to overheat very soon.
The thing is, Tim’s a chef by trade, and well upholstered to boot. That’s before he starts dressing for a Sergio Leone audition.
The first tune goes well, though I detect a slight waver in his tone as we play the melody for the last time. We play the final measure at largo pace and this unveils my friends discomfort a little more.
The next tune is a be-bop workout born of our own cunning and showmanship, but the engine needs to be running cool to pull this one off and we’re only a few bars in when I spy trouble.
I steal a glance at my glorious bandmate to see sweat running down his glistening brow, his cheeks a piping-hot pink as he presses those hairy lips desperately against the trumpet mouthpiece.
Perhaps no one in the crowd has yet noticed, but the situation is progressing apace now. I now hear sharp, hurried gusts of breath being sucked in urgently, but my man is already full of hot air. He needs no more!
He’s inflating himself to dangerous levels. All of this new air is held up in his chest, none goes down deep below the diaphragm where the horn player, and indeed the singer, must store their steam. Soon his tone will begin to waver and when that happens the nerves take over and my overheated buddy, committed to the tune, will start to shudder and shake like a rock climber about to pop off an overhang.
The tune approaches its nadir of difficulty, a heavily articulated passage bristling with semi-quavers and accidentals. Tim usually chops this up like his mise en place, but tonight his edge is blunted with overheating and near suffocation.
A slow bridge in the tune lets him gather his nerves but his lips almost buckle before the song splutters to a close, with the audience sensing that perhaps not is all as it should be.
He looks to me for the next song, his darting eyes trapped in a skull about to boil over. I suggest he takes off his heavy woolen poncho. He agrees with alacrity and flings off the garment before bringing the trumpet once again to his lips.
I suggest he ditches the leather vest too. He hesitates, but then sees the sense in it.
Perhaps he’d like to gulp down some cool water?
Twenty seconds have passed since the song ended. It feels like an eternity, even on this humble stage.
Now we’re set to continue, only two songs down. Tim plants those boots a shoulder width apart, straightens his back, grabs his tambourine and counts in the next number.
During the chorus the bourbon bottles on the top shelf start to rattle as he stomps on that down beat. Heads are nodding and the night’s just begun.
This story was originally told at The Watercooler, a monthly storytelling night held at The Basement Theatre. If you have a story to tell email thewatercoolernz@gmail.com or hit them up on Twitter or Facebook.
Illustration: Lucy Zee
This content is brought to you with funding support from New Zealand On Air.
