I tried my best to keep my grin to a simmer, sat down at the board, and watched as Mark, Miguel, Tom, and Ben started tunin' her up But the live room, this was gonna be a first, and a real treat. Those boys know what they're doin,' havin' made quite a few of their records with us. So I just gave him my grandest grand welcome and stepped aside, happy to have them back. 'Thought we might try somethin' different this time, good buddy,' says he. 'Headed for the big room, I see.' (If Whispering Pines was a church - it ain't, mind you, but iffin' it were - the live room would be the holy pulpit, I reckon.)īen (he's the singer) just looked at me, touched the brim of his hat, and nodded. As always, the boys showed up early - but not earlier than ol' Tubbs here - and made haste toward the studio's live room.

That day, one of my all-time favorite acts happened to be booked in Whispering Pines for a recordin' spell, those good-time bootscooters and rhythm rascals known as the Lord Huron. But then it happened, somethin' I'll never forget for as long as I live: My little tune came to life before my very eyes.

There's a stranger in my eyes again. It almost got to where I was more used to the tune bein' there under my hat than my own face.I swear to God I don't know him. Could it have been that ol' Tubbs here had somehow tapped into that cosmic eternal and unwittingly written his first tune without even knowin' it?Ī week (or was it a month?) went by and the tune never went too far from my head. It was sublime - that drivin' jangle of the guitar, the steady thump of the drums, those breezy, liltin' voices - but I just couldn't place it. It was the loveliest thing, and dang me if it didn't keep sounding chummier and chummier. I'd be doing something mindless - scrubbin' my cup, combin' my hat - when all of a sudden, here it came again: It's hard to make friends when you're half in the grave, but I ain't dead yet and I've got something to say. That little number stuck with me for more than a few days. (And take my word for it: the ol' upstairs is a titanium steel trap for tunes, even now.) It was a conundrum. (You've heard me say that one more than a few times, no doubt.) But then the more I thought about it, and the more I listened to this little tune janglin' around upstairs, I realized that I couldn't place it as somethin' I'd ever heard before. It was a funny thing, because it immediately felt familiar to me, as a song that creeps into your ear usually has to be - 'specially for somebody like me who don't write 'em.I just roll 'em. So, sometime in what's now the not-too distant past, I was sittin' in my usual seat inside Whispering Pines, cozied up to a glass of something cozy, when, from outta nowhere, this particular tune crept into my ear. Funny how time just keeps clickin' along. The first time you read it is already in the past. Hell, take another peek at that sentence again. It just seems to me that, these days, the past is everywhere you look.

But don't we all? Or shouldn't we, in any case? Maybe I do tend to take a good hard glance into the rearview before I step my boot on the gas. Yeah, I smell what you're sniffin' at: 'Oh boy, here goes ol' Tubbs again, ramblin' about those good ol' bygone days of yore.' Well, sure, I'll allow you that'n. I guess if you know me, that's nothin' new. I been thinkin' a lot about the past again. Tune Prism Cover Artist Spotlight: Lord Huron and the Long Lost Sounds of Yore Words and Memories by Tubbs Tarbell Doors open at 5:30PM | Show starts at 7PM | 18+ | Tickets start at $47.50

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