"Sing It, Beb"

Singing... a life-long head trip.

Narration below:

"God, singing is such a mind fuck," my friend Mel of Marl Superstar said when recording her vocals for a new YMLA song. Hearing someone as naturally gifted as her express these feelings gives me such comfort. 

I think back to when I was sixteen and recorded myself singing into a tape recorder for the first time—listening back in horror at how different my voice sounded coming from that tape player than it did in my head. That little fucking device, a secret that I would hide under my bed for years to come—retrieving it only when absolutely NO ONE was home—with the hope it would someday change its mind and echo something acceptable back to me. To think of the affirming joys and crippling defeats I'd have missed if I had just quit after the first time that tape player crushed me. 

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It's a tattoo. It reads, Sing it beb, on my right forearm next to the tattoo of a sunflower-headed ballet dancer. Jamie was kind enough to inform me (in front of one of my favorite singers, Dustin Kensrue) that it resembles the Dave Matthews Band logo. I took this as life's little reminder that the more I deliberate over anything involving serious commitment, the more time it has to deride my decision. 

My feelings around the Sing it Beb ink vary in direct relation to my ever-evolving regard for my voice.

This particular week has less to do with facility than with the interminable journey of being a singer. (Think Jamie Lannister finally returning to King's Landing—down a hand and that imperious pretense, but better for the journey.)

This odyssey of sorts baffles me upon reflection. Secretly singing into tape players. Sneaking into my dorm's common room in the middle of the night with my guitar to midnight serenade audiences of none. My college graduation, where I sheepishly unveiled songs I had recorded while sharing with my surprised mother that with my freshly minted Bachelor's degree in business, I would try my hand at music.  

I wrote in my last Substack about worshiping at the altar of a Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk poster. Well, it makes this last stop on the journey all the more chimerical—as I'd be joining a murderer's row of singers to perform at a Jeff Buckley Tribute night in Hollywood. 

A transcendent mind fuck it was…

The cozy sphere of Grandmaster Recorders was a buzz with nerves at soundcheck. Think: over 15 singers who had never met, waiting to test their renditions of songs that belonged to the most revered male singer of the last 30 years. 

LJ Benet was first. One of those perfect-looking humans that make you wonder if LA creates these beings from test tubes within some secret Walt Disney stem-cell movie star manufacturing plant. A powerhouse voice, too. I panicked in the corner—hearing in my head all the times that little tape recorder insisted I wasn't a singer. 

"If I sneak out now, no one will notice." 

But then, as LJ finished, he broke into this shy laughter and addressed the group. 

"I'M SO SCARED RIGHT NOW!" 

I would message him the day after to thank him. That moment of vulnerability put the entire room at ease. 

The rest of the night was filled with mind-blowing performances and palatable camaraderie. I had thorough conversations with musicians I admired, like Jackson Singleton and the brothers of LA band Ceremonies, about the precarious landscape of making music these days, and, on numerous occasions, I found myself genuinely insisting they keep singing—something I needed to hear as much as anyone. 

It's easy to forget what makes this place so intoxicating, but the Buckley night proved this weird city doesn't always have to churn us against each other in some perpetual ego wank fest.

I thanked Nikia Lee, the dedicated curator of the evening, and headed back to my car. I beamed up at the purple night, feeling like the girl in Coyote Ugly after the first time she boot-scootin' boogied on the bar, and I reveled in the gamut of experience LA has to offer: 

A movie star couple sharing a cigarette under the awning of a bustling nightclub. 

A man, pants around his ankles, urinating freely into the intersection of Selma and Vine whilst fervently shouting scripture—something about a secret chord that David played to please the—I don't know, I was trying to repost an IG story and eat my Fat Sal's pastramis-chicken tender-cheesestick hoagie while dodging rabid luxury Uber drivers. 

Can you imagine? Immortalized via the back page headline in the Hollywood Reporter…

"Tribute Singer with Underwhelming Social Media Presence Flattened by Yukon blasting Avicii." 

And below the photo of the scene of the accident—a mess of high hopes and discarded vape cartridges—would be a picture of me holding a microphone—likely taken of my bad side and one I'd loathe from the afterlife. But next to it, people would read in bolded font, "singer." That would be pretty cool. 

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Photos by Zachary Zelinskey

*Regarding the ballet dancer tattoo, DMB's song "Lover Lay Down" still draws tears, so count it as yet another link in the long line of peeved surrender to practiced self-acceptance.

**Will be copyrighting Perpetual Ego Wank Fest for future event branding, so don't even try it.

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