It’s that time again… it’s LETTERS FROM THE ROAD, our guest post series where we invite musicians we adore to take over and write whatever they like. 2 rules: it has to be in the form of a letter, it has to have something to do with music. This week’s LETTERS FROM THE ROAD guest author is a dear friend and wonderful singer-songwriter, Decker Sachse:
Dear Mr. T,
Not you “pity the fool”, super-badass, A-Team Mr. T…. I’m talking to the other Mr. T… .Mr. Townsend, my music teacher from Barnard Elementary. Not that you weren’t a bad-ass in your own right; you were equally as scary as the guy that beat up Rocky.
I know it was 1983 and you’ve heard plenty of struggling voices since then but maybe you’ll remember me. I was the kid in your choir with the chili-bowl haircut, who you liked to refer to as “a lost gosling in the high weeds.” I think that was a reference to the way I would streeeeeeetch my neck, trying to find my voice. The notes often escaped me and I thought that if I craned my head out, as high as possible, I might reach those notes, find my way out of the weeds, and maybe you wouldn’t tell me how I looked like a baby goose in front of twenty other 4th graders.
Music was the only class I struggled with back then. I could add things up, run a mile (I think I was pretty fast), write poems, even make an almost bowl-shaped ceramic bowl in art… but I think I gave up on looking for those notes for a while. In middle school, I wanted nothing to do with playing music. I want you know though, I didn’t give up completely. I always listened and when I was ready, I learned to play the guitar and went on to study music theory in high school. Finding my voice was the toughest part though. I’m still doing it. At some point, I started listening to Chet Baker’s vocal albums (Chet Baker Sings), which I think showed me that everybody has a voice and sometimes the quiet ones can hit you as hard as the bellowing ones that I was stretching my 4th grade neck out, but never quite reached.
So now, I’ve got a quiet voice and I recorded some things with it. If you look on iTunes this Tuesday, you can find me. I play under the name Mission to the Sea and will be releasing an album, called Tranquilo. If you listen to it, maybe you’ll hear nods to Chet, possibly Joao and Astrud (Gilberto), mixed with hints of Feist and The Sea and Cake (not sure if you’ve heard of them, but you should check them out too). Anyway, I just wanted to give you a heads up. HA! Baby goose … heads up … nevermind….
Decker Sachse
Mission to the Sea
Tranquilo is the first full length album by Mission to the Sea. You can get it on iTunes or here.
10/4/10 | Comments (0)Tags: Chet Baker, Decker Sachse, Letters to the Road, Mission to the Sea, Tranquilo —
