Suck and Blow by John Popper

quickly, and soon he would be running it. Chan was this sexpot who was ready to take it all on, and Brendan was the quiet one. I was the weird one, but when I stuck with Bobby I felt fearless. I was more theoretical, saying, “We could do this . . .” and then he’d be like, “Fuck it, man, we’re gonna do two of those. Stop thinking small.”
    I was going to the New School and learning about the aesthetics of music and philosophy from these jazz legends, and then at night I’d play with Jono and learn how to sell drinks and get people dancing. Together, those two schools helped develop the way we played as musicians. Once you learn an art form and how to go out and peddle that art form, it never lets you down, much like a magical power.
    I can remember watching the Worms with Jono, and it seemed like the whole floor was made of rubber. Everybody was just bouncing up and down. Then when the song stops, you have a few seconds and want to keep the momentum, but you want to pace it and do it right where everyone’s happy and getting the right kind of hammered and having fun. You learn these things through experience. It’s the right balance; and it’s sort of like hosting a party. And if you do it right, the crowd gives you the energy back, so your energy and their energy augment, where one plus one equals three and it keeps reverberating back and forth. We drive them and they drive us, which pushes them, which pushes us, and it’s sort of like a combustion engine. If you have all the balances of the combustibles right, it lasts for a long time as long as you don’t flood your engine.
    The goal is to make what Miles Davis called social music. Bill Graham called it pelvic music—music you can move your pelvis to. It’s social interaction music; it’s music people live their lives to. Bebop wasa great social music because when you went to a club to hear Dizzie play, you were slowly sipping your gin and tonics with your girlfriend and it got you into the mood and into the moment and you were a part of it. You were participating just by being there, and that to me is my favorite kind of music.
    There’s such a beautiful mishmash of American culture that happens in a bar, in real time, in real music. Suddenly nobody’s white, nobody’s black—we’re all just here, and that is a great feeling. I think music can do that when it’s allowed to.
    Most places where bands play also sell alcohol, and as people start drinking, they get a little looser and want to dance. If they’re too stiff, they don’t quite want to make fools of themselves, which is what they’re supposed to do. And what you learn very early on is that the people paying you to play there want you to sell booze, which actually helps your show and makes it more fun for everyone. I always say we work ’em from the front and the bartenders work ’em from the back.
    Jono and a couple of the older guys explained that if the bar has a good night, they’ll hire you back, and if the crowd you draw doesn’t tip so well, they won’t. It’s important to remind people to tip their bartenders; to this day I always mention that. You should make friends with the bartenders—they are your pals.
    The lessons of the New School and their artistic applications made for a great combination with the practical realities we learned while having actual gigs at Nightingale’s. If you combine the two, then you’ve got something special. If you just play dance music, then you might as well play covers, and if you just play super-ethereal, aesthetic, virtuoso music, you’re going to bore the shit out of everybody. It’s gotta be some kind of balance, where people’s feet are moving so they subconsciously respond, and then they’re free to get into it on a conscious level.
    Jono taught me how to read a crowd. You can’t ask everybody how they’re