It was one of those moments where you wish you could develop momentary amnesia or have a rewind button on your arm just to relive it all over again.
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You could call me a 'fan' of M. Ward's before Friday night's performance at Webster Hall. I found him by chance years and years ago and liked what I heard enough to buy an album. I particularly loved this song called 'Chinese Translation.' So much so that you could've found it in my live repertoire the last few years. Brilliant song.

And yet, for some reason, this record wasn't enough for me to delve into the catalog. It wasn't love at first sight.

But slowly over the years, I got a few other albums, ignored the Zooey Deschanel project (never been a fan of hers) and really sunk my teeth into the catalog.

Still, it was really good but not life changing.

Then Friday night happened.

I saw something that had been lost on me in the past couple years. Real musicians, seemingly enjoying themselves on stage. Improvising. Laughing. And the songs sounded way different from the record. I mean, 'Rollercoaster', was a rock-a-billy riot while 'Chinese Translation' was a introspective ballad. You think the Vaccines would do that?

The show could've been marred with three or four too-many technical gaffes. Like when the bassist's strap broke on the opening song, 'Post War,' while Ward was serenading the pin-drop-silent thousand who showed up, creating a few horrible sounds. The audience gasped.

Or when a bad guitar cable gave off a couple of deafening shrieks over the P.A. in the middle of the third song. Not to mention the feedback and one member seemingly playing the wrong chords during a song.

All of this could've ruined Beach House's set. But these guys were different. It wasn't that type of atmosphere. This wasn't an exhibition of sounds or a replication of the product of hours and hours honing a certain message on a tape machine.

This was six guys thinking aloud with their instruments.

And I left the venue that night with a new lease on music. And even after all these written words, I still can't describe how it affected me but isn't that the beauty of art?

Maybe the reason the show affected me so much was that the album underplayed Ward's intensity or even chops which allowed the live experience to really blossom. Like when a football team purposely doesn't use all of it's playbook until it plays a formidable opponent.

Or maybe I wasn't looking in the right places. But in the middle of an hour and a half set, two encores, Conor Oberst showing up to jam, and the whole floor shaking, I fell in love with music again.

Simply put, reinstated was the seemingly lost sentiment of making a live performance...well, alive.

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I'd never been to Miami before I decided to transfer in 2008 from Brooklyn College to work in the renowned Journalism program at UM. To me, it was just a pitstop. Get a degree and move back to New York.

But a funny thing happened on the way to that mythical piece of paper. I took a left and transplanted myself from one of the most reputable and prestigious tracks in the train station, to what would prove to be one of the most unsteady and unpredictable; "The Miami Music Scene." (cue diabolical music)

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So...I'm moving back to New York. And it's very important to me that the focus of this piece of writing be not on 'What's wrong with the Miami Music Scene, who's part of the problem and who's part of the solution etc.' (that's been discussed enough - and I'll weigh in later) but on the people in this scene for which I'm most grateful. Those who helped me climb off the ground and onto the first few steps of the ladder. Because the hardest are the top ones...but the second hardest are most certainly the bottom ones.

Just A Young Pup

Oski Gonzalez and Eric Garcia were the first two promoters to give me and my band a chance. And for that I'll forever be grateful. We were thrown into the fire, big gigs right away and within our first four months of performing live, we were given a well-paid weekly residency in the Grove, nominated and elected to play in the Florida Grammys and a New Times battle for a spot in the Langerado Music Festival. I mean, at that point, I was still praying the signal path in my pedal board would work before each gig.

'This is easy' I thought. But it took me a few more months to realize what the currency was in this new business I was learning. Why we had been given big opportunities almost immediately and the older, more established bands accepted us with open arms.

Because we had fans.

And those fans, were mostly our friends. That's the undeniable truth in this business. If you have fans, you have the world.

So this is a humongous thank you to all my friends who became fans and my fans who became friends. Who stood for hours waiting for us to hit the beautifully grimy stages of Tobacco Road. Or ventured into the volatile waters of Little Haiti at two a.m. on a Wednesday morning. Or withstood the rain at three a.m. at the now defunct PS 13.

Losing to Afrobeta IN STYLE!!!!

Rocking Hard (sorry. had to)

So why am I moving? And to Brooklyn of all places... I mean, how cliche? Well on the surface it seems obvious. You've probably already drawn your own conclusion. "Musician seeks better opportunity, goes to 2000's version of 90's Seattle."

And some of that can't be denied, there's infinite more opportunity in a place where more than .5% of that city's population are interested in the idea of seeing live music being performed on musical instruments by musicians. Ask Rachel Goodrich.

Miami is an incredible city. And non-Latin/Hip-Hop/Ultra stuff does have a chance thanks to gatekeepers like Arielle Castillo or Jordan Melnick, of Beached Miami. But the next step, personally and professionally lay elsewhere.

I’m going to continue to be the hardest working musician you know and when I achieve my goals and have the opportunity to earn many more fans around the world, I'll always remember those who believed in me first.

And you know, if I don't, and I teach piano lessons to kids for the next forty years, I'll still be grateful as I sit on my porch (possibly in Coral Gables) and reminisce about what an incredible three or four years you gave me in those early days.

Indebted,

Tristan

p.s. See you on tour this summer

James Mercer should be requisite reading in all songwriting classes. The Shins writer isn't flashy but he knows how to make you feel good; a lost art these days, if you ask me.

Remember, when you're hung up on something - small or large - it's only life. Who knows what else is out there. Heaven? Maybe. Another life? It's possible.

But the possibilities are endless which is enough reason to enjoy the time right now because they'll never be another one quite like it.

Some new shows coming up. Come check out the new electronic sound!

February 10 - Bayfront Park, Tina Hills Pavilion - Miami, FL
February 23 - University of Miami, Patio Jams - Miami, FL
March 17 - Rockwood Music Hall - New York, NY

Photo credit to DJ Rich Russo