Not Home Often - Track

The blog title may be confusing. I do not go home often to The Track Lounge. When I do it is very nice to see that Richard and his wonderful team have kept it tidy for me. The Track Lounge was the first venue that I photographed live music at, and it was The Robots. Tonight, The Robots.

I cannot stress enough how many of us will swim every day in chaos within our minds. We learned to accept it, we learn to navigate it seeing only what we want to see. We try to avoid that chaos, to replace it, with different chaos, meaningless activities like television, shopping social media, and other escapes. You can control only what you are able to control. But are you just trading one chaos for another?

A few have recognized chaos and have trained themselves, their minds, to recognize chaos and push it to the side for what it is. Time away from what you want to do, time from achievements, time from being happy, finding enjoyment in life.

This evening I sat back in my chair, at the far end of the Lounge along side of the band, and looked out at everyone. Removing the chaos I had in my mind (thoughts) blocking me from seeing what was now there, I saw differently, refreshingly. I saw a bunch of cool people socializing. I saw a wonderful staff providing great service to their patrons. I saw Richard strolling and talking to his patrons, not getting directly involved with the operation at that time and giving his staff the freedom to get things done the way they should be done. I saw holiday decorations, that if you did not look up and around, would not see the beauty they created.

As a photographer sometimes I will see Uniqueness voice an opinion to me, so I will take a photograph. If I am around others who are photographing, they show me their proud visual voice and I always say to myself or aloud, "Why did I not see that? Where were you Uniqueness?" I often find I do not see Uniqueness' voice. I am coming to the realization it is because of the mental noise, the chaos that goes around in my head, that narrows my senses to hear the images speak to me to photograph.

Tonight I am hoping I was able to capture through my lens what Uniqueness' voice was moving me toward. If a find a photo that does not do that, I am not not showing it to you. In the past I was not so diligent. The last couple of months I have been. As I keep re-training my mind, removing the chaos, I hope to become better in my photography.

The Robots . . . as I talked with Pete it hit him, then me, that we could not believe we are still coming here. Meaning we have not been thrown out but rather asked to come back. For The Robots it could be circa  2009. For me I started photographing my first band and at my first venue here, in 2012. It still seems new to me, most likely because I am not home much. I apologize, Richard. Yet thanks to you, Richard, I now have a lot of fish to fry with photography, and writing.

Life progresses, gets passed on. Our stories, our music, the changing of the guard who devote themselves to teaching what once was through replay, and add to such newness, it revitalizes you. It makes you want to block out the chaos and to pay attention of the unique story unfolding right in front of you. The Robots did just that. They played some new songs I had not heard them play before. It caused me to make the solid connection to them and to The Track Lounge once more. This is why Richard keeps bring The Robots back, and in his own way bringing me back home.

What's on Musically at The Track's near future . . .

The Track Lounge

318 N. Jackson St.

Crown Point, IN 46307

(219) 663-9838
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Appreciation of the Arts

Imagine if you could / would, a sudden void of music. A void that scares you to a chilled reality of no boundaries. One that makes you want to document all of music history and experiences on your body, as tattoos or something, so that it is not lost to anything. In a way it could be like Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451” (1953) where people memorized literature to secure it’s future. I think I would prefer memorizing over tattoos. I do not have enough skin surface for all that I would want.

This evening, I had another great experience with two bands I love. One of original writing and play, and the other of who’s members deeply enjoy what they do as their own escape into themselves and capabilities.

This evening as Nomad Planets were playing one of their songs, I had my eyes closed, head down, standing at the pole in the middle of the venue. I was jamming with myself in my mind and body when suddenly, I felt a void of music even though I could still hear them play. The joy, the wonder, were vacuumed out even though life around me was still present. A sudden scaredness with no time to react with any fight or flight.

I popped out of it in a split second, though the experience was there taking up a lot of space in me. I love the guys of Nomad Planets because of who they are individually, as musicians, as a contributors to humanity. That same goes for a few more bands I have had the personal experience to go see and listen to. Yet, Nomad Planets in their live performances seem to hit home more often.

The Unstoppables did not deny me an experience. They never do. At times I will have that special connection for that given moment, and The Unstoppables gave that to me powerfully near the end of the evening. I was standing off to the side while Dan Soto hit it on lead guitar and vocals. Tim Flat watching him with percussional meaning and rhythmic intensities of mood, he catching a glimpse of me just down right getting down to that song in dance. Now to let out my dirty secret, I could never be a musician because I can never recall lyrics, let alone the song or band name. My vibe to the song however is deeply remembered and comes out of my body in deep physical and mental emotions to emphasis feelings and intent. Like when I photograph bands, musicians feed me song that move me physically and mentally. I in return feed them back with a further defined meaning through expression of dance. When that vibe turns into me photographing, they see and feel it all and reciprocate with more intensity. Such a high we ride. That one song tonight by The Unstoppables, whatever it was near the end, was like Wow, Thank You.

Appreciation of the arts. For the most part we take for granted what is around us. What life offers. Sometimes it is given to us for to enjoy, other times taken away like that void I felt.

We define our quality of life by what is around us, what we appreciate, what we care of or for. We make decisions that will make us happy, therefore improving our quality of life.

Sometimes we take the arts for granted because society has taken a wrong path. As defining life comes and goes we may not realize how the arts are effected. High School shop classes were to me a form of art. You created with an attempt to master that craft. Music class, art class, chorus, it all sung to us as artistry, back then. Yet somehow we managed to let it go, disappear, falling towards a void of some sort. Not exactly to the void I felt.

Well, I am here to give kudos to Raymundo Garcia and his establishment, EAT. His restaurant held one of many events for the year, this event benefiting the Food Bank of Northwest Indiana. 

Every venue I go to, at EAT there is something more for me to appreciate each time I. First of all is Ray himself. Such a wonderful person. I am drawn to this establishment because of how I defined my appreciations and expectations over the years. I just love the atmosphere of space, AND ART. Art which to me is out of this world, and in many forms. EAT is art, in and of itself.

His establishment EAT is located downtown Hammond, and is the old Woolworth’s corner building from back in the day. The inside is really cool, clean, roomy, very inviting. The event this evening was to benefit the Foodbank of Northwest Indiana. In these times humanity needs to take care of their own, not to be selfish, self serving. We need to reach out a helping hand to others, to understand their plight, and help survive with us in humanity. Sometimes we need to organize, to circle our wagons around to make a statement. Events like tonight to benefit the Foodbank of Northwest Indiana is one, and I thank them and all who attended tonight that supported our region humanitarian needs.

Oh, and let's not allow any art form fall into a void because that is what defines us as us unique individuals. With all this uniqueness, on with the show!

A little "Air Soto" going on in the next photograph. 

Coming out into the crowd to play . . .

Eat

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Nomad Planets

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The Unstoppables

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Food Bank of Northwest Indiana

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You can see a categorized thumbnail of all blogs by going to StreetPhoto.Me.

Further down this blog post are five buttons to click on: E-mail this, Blog this, Share to Twitter, Share to Facebook, and Share to Pinterest. Please take advantage of them and share this blog post with your friends.

The "219 Music™" and "219 Art™" are owned trademarks of Wesley (Wes) Bushby.

Click on this line and read my copyright.