I wrote “The Fog of Memories” for The Echo Society’s sixth show, Family. Sometimes we try to scale everything up. I mean, let’s be honest, usually we try to scale everything up. But for this performance, the idea was all about intimacy. It was a year after the 2016 election and I don’t think anyone felt much like a bombastic performance. So we decided to look inward, and wondered about using the concept of a family to loosely explore what was happening in our country. Like disparate personalities and perspectives all stuck inside the same house.
We started looking for a big old family house that could be transformed into a venue, and though we considered a handful of different spots, when we saw the Paramour Estate, there was a palpable sense of excitement. As we wandered around the sprawling mansion, it was buzzing with possibility.
Five acres of lawns surrounding a 1920s villa from Hollywood’s golden age… If we could use this space, we could host a magical choose-your-own-adventure evening with guests wandering through hallways and staircases to find hidden rooms of musical surprises – perhaps a quartet in a bedroom or a harmonium and gramophone installation in the dining area. There was even a stunning pool, practically begging to be used as an immersive underwater installation for the bravest of guests.
The Paramour Mansion, circa black and white times
The Bravest of Guests. Photo by Michelle Shiers
As everyone explored the estate, I was drawn to a little room that wasn’t even labeled on the floorpan – a tiny sitting area next to the giant ballroom. Barely big enough to hold seven people, it was lined with books, a comfy leather chair, and at one end, a tiny bar.
I was immediately sold.
Scouting trip, August 2017 - The Parlor Bar
I knew it would be too small for a proper ensemble, but I figured there might be a way to make it work if I really leaned into the theme of family intimacy. And something about it reminded me of my own past…
I grew up in a huge extended family, and I remember numerous gatherings at my grandparents’ house. Dinner and Christmas presents and the chaos of forty grandkids causing a ruckus. But crammed into a back hallway was a tiny wet bar. Always full of too many aunts and uncles, deeply engaged in random conversations while making drinks. It was a little bottleneck where you happily got stuck. Hazy memories of late night conversations, enhanced by the close proximity and cabinets full of dusty sherry.
With this in mind, I began scheming.
I knew we’d only be able to welcome a few people at a time, so I wanted to keep the instrumentation stripped down. And inspired by foggy memories, I enlisted two of my oldest musical collaborators to join me.
I first met Aaron Esposito in England when he was 15 or 16. I was in the middle of recording a record for The Cinematic Underground and one day I heard this amazing kid playing a trumpet in an old factory building. I poked my head in and asked if he wanted to lay down some tracks. I’m not sure he’d ever recorded anything before that day. He certainly didn’t know what I meant by “lay down some tracks.” But like any bored kid, he said yes.
Aaron Esposito - Photo by Michelle Shiers
Jonny Rodgers in the Parlor
Around the same time, I had been experimenting with tuned wine glasses. I’d employed the technique on a few projects, but when my band shared a bill with Jonny Rodgers, I suddenly realized I had met the master. It was a perfect match: I gave him the idea of illuminating his glasses with a strand of Christmas lights and he gave me the idea of just hiring him for the rest of my life.
Photo by Michelle Shiers
We tucked into the room, Aaron playing from the leather chair while I perched on a window sill. Jonny built a special two-tier array of tuned glasses to fit into the bar. And speaking of the bar, I decided to make drinks for the guests who were game enough to squeeze into the room and sit cross-legged on the floor. This piece was about the fog of memories, so why not add a little extra fog is what I figured.
Jonny and Nathan behind the bar.
When we got around to recording the album, I decided to bring in one more old friend to produce the whole track. I met Jake Sinclair when he was a scrawny teenager playing bass in a church band… Strong Beck vibes, which didn’t do much for the church music. We struck up a fast friendship.
Jake is an accomplished producer and I figured he’d be perfect for this song. Partly because of how much he prizes speed. My tendency is to twiddle and tinker and overthink, but Jake just hits the ground running.
Jake Sinclair. He runs hot.
So… when I showed up in his studio to record a simple guide track, he convinced me that the first sketch should be the keeper. Aaron dropped by with his trumpet and laid down a couple tracks (he knows what that means now) and then Jake added the final touches with some bass, background vocals, and a big old marching band drum that was lying in the corner of the room.
Definitely a marching band drum.
By this point, Jonny was working on a project in a remote cabin somewhere in Oregon, so he recorded his glass parts up there and sent them over.
The final recording that ended up on the album isn’t all that much different from the original performance in that estate… a handful of old friends laying down an impressionistic sketch about memories. But if you want to go the extra mile and really recreate the magic, just make yourself a cocktail and crawl into a closet.
