today’s audio is “the pink elephant”, which i wrote in 1995.
one night, rummaging through my parents’ junk drawer, i happened upon a strange bottle opener. it was made of brass, covered in chipped red paint, and cast in the shape of a jaunty elephant, sitting on a ball. the ball had a banner around it that said “pink elephant”. the elephant itself looks incredibly happy to be where it was.
as a teenager, i was thrilled by this oddly, whimsical object in a house where mirth was in short supply. what an artifact! what a find! naturally, i imagined all the places the pink elephant had been, what it had seen in the hands of family members on the way to its current resting place in a junk drawer in small town virginia in the 90s. thus the song was born and, along with the story of the bottle opener, was a staple of my earliest concerts.
of course, just now, in two seconds of googling, i found the exact bottle opener on ebay. not odd or unique at all, it turns out. but we didn’t have google then. and if we did, i wouldn’t have this song.
ebay has everything!
my first winter home from college, i took my guitar over to a friend’s house, and in their bedroom recorded what became my debut, self-titled, 6-song cassette, with “the pink elephant” included.
the guitar i played on those first recordings was my pride and joy, my main guitar for many years, a gibson chet atkins SST.
a few years earlier in high school, i was looking for an acoustic guitar that could be plugged in. i was starting to play gigs and my actual acoustic guitar was unwieldy and more importantly, didn’t have a pick up. i went to my local music store to see what was around, and there i encountered one of our local heroes, a musician named sean michael dargan.
sean was what i wanted to be: a working, performing songwriter. he ran the open mic i had started playing at in 10th grade. his songs were catchy and warm and clear. and he was very welcoming and nice to me, a beginning performer and pipsqueak who wanted to hang with the big guys.
i was lucky to be growing up in fredericksburg VA in the late 90s. in general, virginia in the 90s was a great place to be a clever songwriter and killer acoustic guitar player. we were at a nexus of college coffeehouse culture and southern jam bands. sean was the first example of this mixture i met, but then my mom’s garden club friend’s son came back to fredericksburg and started playing around: keller williams. and my camp counselors told me about a guy they’d seen performing around charlottesville bars: dave matthews.
sean, keller, and dave all played the same model guitar: a gibson chet atkins SST. a strange hybrid of an instrument, it was solid and with a silhouette like a les paul, thin like a telecaster, but sounded completely acoustic when plugged in.
that day in the music store, when i ran into sean, it turned out he was looking for someone to buy his SST. did i want it? did i ever. i don’t remember what i paid for it, but i know i paid for it with my own dough. i had a job framing pictures and selling art supplies, and i had done a few gigs already and saved up some money.
for the next 15 years, the SST, or “the chet” as i called it, became my main stage guitar. if you’ve been a fan long enough, you definitely saw and heard it in action.
hey yall! popping in with what i hope will be a quick set of announcements and news:
i leave this week on tour with my dear friends Welcome To Nightvale. we’re playing all throughout the american south. come see a show!
last week, i released a new single “summer school”. it’s an excerpt from a work-in-progress staged musical memoir of my virginia childhood. you’ll recognize it from an earlier version that was featured on the nov 22, 2022 episode. the new version is better!
and finally, there’s a production of MISS YOU LIKE HELL currently running in seattle and a production about to open in tempe AZ, which i’ll be visiting in november. for dates and tickets, please check out my tour page or the links below.
as always, rate/review/subscribe or tell a friend!!
all my guitars have come into my life the way the chet did - a moment of chance and like a bolt of lightening. when you know you know. it’s always been like going to a crowded dance and locking eyes immediately with the one person there you should meet. i have never gone out looking for a specific instrument. i’ve merely encountered them at the right time and right circumstances.
this happenstance is so beautiful precisely because it is so surprising and consequential. an instrument shapes a style, influences where you go as an artist. what sounds good on that instrument becomes what sounds good to you as a writer. you create in order to bring out the best in the piece of wood you are holding. your future sound is out there waiting for you to find it.
so the chet shaped my early style: percussive, bass heavy, a controlled clear tone that sung on the top and thumped on the bottom. as much a drum as a guitar. you can hear it in the songs i wrote for that cassette and in the songs i wrote for my debut album, distillation.
and the chet wasn’t just great to write on. it was a monster onstage. you could plug it into anything, an amp or a PA of any size, and it immediately sounded huge. for someone who is not huge, physically or recognition-wise, it was a great shortcut to immediately get noticed.
that chet traveled with me everywhere. on my first trip to the west coast where i got around by greyhound bus. to ireland, england, italy, and most of europe. along the way, i customized it little by little. i colored in the sound hole logo. i put a sticker on the back that said THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS. i marked my favorite tone and volume settings on the top. i replaced the regular guitar frets with extra thick fretwire to allow me to detune down sick bass notes.
and then… a new guitar came into my life, a cool green electric hollow body, a totally different animal. i played that one for years… until just after my grandfather died, when yet another guitar came into my life. this one completely acoustic and tiny and silver. and on and on. these days my main instruments are small and light, because i want to move faster in the world and want to give my shoulders a rest after a generation of abuse. but they all came in the way the chet did.
over the years, i have also moved as many guitars out of my life as in. of course, that’s primarily the necessity of limited space. but it also doesn’t make sense for an instrument to sit in its case and not get played. and it’s been over a decade since i have played the chet.
so i’ve decided it’s time to pass the chet on. i don’t feel sad or sentimental about this. and i’m not selling it with any bitterness or cynicism because i need the money or it represents some kind of unfulfilled promise. i just know that my time with it is finished.
i am sure the right person will buy it, at the right time. and maybe that person will know its history or what it gave to me. or maybe not. that’s ok! i was lucky to know where the chet had been before i had it. but i have other instruments whose origins are mysteries to me. there’s something kind of beautiful in that too. and yet whoever gets the chet will see that it’s had a great life up until now. its been played and it has traveled and is still humming along, ready to thump and sing for the next pair of hands that find it.
x erin
if you’re interested in bringing the chet into your life, here is the listing.
ps - here is your carl content!
somebody doesn’t like going to the vet
¡ME GUSTA! : SOME OF MY FAVORITE THINGS!
i grew up in virginia, not maine. [playful content]
i’ve been on a reading kick and can’t explain the range of books i have been loving. i am reminded i don’t have to!
once i started listening to britney spears’s memoir, read by michelle williams, i could not stop. it is everything you think it would be.
a beautiful biography of a seemingly ordinary 19th century japanese woman.
science! memoir! arcana! find out why fish don’t exist! thanks to friend/FOL listener aliee chan for the recommendation!!
the discourse around ron desantis’s boots is almost as weird as the boots themselves.
(one)(of the too many) robert e. lee statues got melted down. finally.
remember when the internet was like this?
UPCOMING SHOWS
Oct 14 - Nov 11 - Seattle WA
Miss You Like Hell at Strawberry Theatre
TICKETS
Nov 9 - Washington DC
performing as The Weather with Welcome to Night Vale
TICKETS
Nov 10 - Charlottesville VA
performing as The Weather with Welcome to Night Vale
TICKETS
Nov 11 - Richmond VA
performing as The Weather with Welcome to Night Vale
TICKETS
Nov 12 - Durham NC
performing as The Weather with Welcome to Night Vale
TICKETS
Nov 16 - Tampa FL
performing as The Weather with Welcome to Night Vale
TICKETS
Nov 17 - 19 - Tempe AZ
Miss You Like Hell at Arizona State University
TICKETS
Nov 17 - Ft Lauderdale FL
performing as The Weather with Welcome to Night Vale
TICKETS
Nov 18 - Ponte Vedra Beach FL
performing as The Weather with Welcome to Night Vale
TICKETS
Nov 19 - Atlanta GA
performing as The Weather with Welcome to Night Vale
TICKETS
March 8 -24, 2024 - Woodstock GA
Miss You Like Hell at Woodstock Arts
TICKETS
If you have further questions or concerns about COVID protocols, please contact the venues directly.
Reminder, Erin does not appear in productions of Miss You Like Hell
guitar/chance for sale