In tribute to Trevor Charles Rabin on his 59th birthday...you are ever an exquisite vintage, Maestro.
Author's note: this op-ed piece features artwork I commissioned from my wonderfully talented friend Elizabeth Frazier: musician, artisan, graphic artist. She and her husband Matt Frazier head the musical collective Of Shadow People and you can learn about her work at these sites:
Of Shadow People
Elizabeth's Eclectic Emporium
PS: this is controversial op-ed and if you have a dislike for such things then caveat lector.
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"That's one thing that's always, like, been a difference between, like, the performing arts, and being a painter, you know. A painter does a painting, and he paints it, and that's it, you know. He has the joy of creating it, it hangs on a wall, and somebody buys it, and maybe somebody buys it again, or maybe nobody buys it and it sits up in a loft somewhere until he dies. But he never, you know, nobody ever, nobody ever said to Van Gogh, 'Paint a Starry Night again, man!' You know? He painted it and that was it."
- Joni Mitchell, Miles of Aisles
For those who pursue a career in the performing arts, fandom expectation and the accompanying sense of entitlement is a Box. It is a box, a prison...a coffin, even. Don't believe me? Think about how many times you have longed for people to regard you not through the lens of their own expectations, but in acknowledgment of who you truly are. Now, at this moment, or any moment in time when you were attempting the task of authenticity.
Museum Piece
illustrations by Elizabeth Frazier
In Robert R. McCammon's 2011 novel The Five (which no less an authority than Stephen King has touted as his best novel yet) - about an Austin-based rock band which goes through an harrowing series of events which will test them all not only as musicians but as human beings - there is a section in Part Three which acknowledges a concept which I've been positing for years now as it relates to one Trevor Rabin. One of the characters (Terry, the keyboard player) is relating all the ways in which his father attempted to derail his musical aspirations as a young man, and the lead singer/guitarist (who goes by the sobriquet Nomad) then further muses on the notion:
"Hey maybe it wouldn't been good for me. Maybe I would've come to it myself, in time, but it wasn't what I wanted. But he was pressuring me day and night, cutting down my music, cutting me down...everything he could do to get me in the box."
The dreaded box, Nomad thought. For an artist, it was the worst thing. The safe, predictable thing that can lead a creative person to boredom, drugs, insanity and early death. Wasn't that the point of the box? To kill risk, which was the life and soul of creation?
Towards the end of the novel, when the band is meeting with their booking agent, the conversation leads Nomad back to the same considerations:
He had nothing against entertainment. Entertainment was fine. The Five's material was mostly party band stuff, feelgood rockers or ballads, but still...to be told they had a boundary, a line they were not supposed to cross, a box they were supposed to be happy and glad and pleased not to ever climb out of. That seemed like a kind of death, in itself. The death of experimenting, the death of the noble failure from reaching too high. The death of caring whether what you did was good or bad.
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One might even consider that McCammon - who debuted as a novelist back in the late 1970s as one of the new voices in the horror/splatterpunk boom of the mid-80s - is in a sense returning to that same box with this story. But although the novel contains obvious horrific and supernatural elements, it is less Horror and more Hard-Won Lessons Learned on the Battlefield of Life. But I digress...
Readers may note that I made mention of The Box in my essay "Fusion Furor" in regard to the way fans desire Trevor's musical identity to be presented, a version of him which no longer exists. Nostalgia not only for him as he was, but for the way we all were. Music often functions as a time capsule which recalls for listeners a specific time and place. Fans want reminders of the Glory Days not merely for the artist, but themselves. And I will say that such a desire is certainly seductive but also entirely selfish in regards to the career of the one who creates it.
No artist truly desires their creative expression to be defined or dictated by the external influences of others. No great art - or even great entertainment - was ever made by committee or focus groups or demographic studies. Creativity is wholly a personal construct and the best of it is engendered as the most singular output of the person or people involved. And therefore, even as it may be accused of being "indulgent," it must contain the essence of why we admire the artist otherwise that admiration has no point.
A few months ago I made a post at Yesfans regarding some of the popular response to Jacaranda because one particular opinion puzzled me a bit:
Yes, it's instrumental, indulgent etc. etc., but I don't care - his playing is a joy....and I thought, "So what makes an instrumental album from a guitarist who has been a film scorer for the past sixteen years indulgent, exactly?" Because I assume the use of "indulgent" is a pejorative despite the backhanded compliment ultimately rendered by the comment. Does it have to do with The Box? If Trevor doesn't climb back in The Box does that automatically make the effort indulgent?
(...)
Unless, that is, "indulgent" is defined by not having an agenda or demographic. If an artist creates solely for their own satisfaction and does not acknowledge the assumed audience, is it really an indulgence or is that the process as it should be?
For it is comments like these which quite clearly illustrate the confines of the existing expectation for a certain portion of the fanbase:
all this high end art and film scores is great for most fans but I just want to hear Trevor make another great solo album like he did in the 80's.
To say I love this album is an understatement, however, I was disappointed that he does not sing on any of the tracks. His voice is silky and smooth and pairs beautifully with his guitar.
However, I do miss his singing, as this is his first release since, I think, about 1989 or so. So it isn't like he is sitting around cranking out music. That is why I miss his singing so much, because it has been so long since we heard his voice.(There are so many things wrong with this last statement it would take too long to list them all.)
Now let's consider the actual timeline of these references...
Trevor released only two solo albums in the 1980s, literally bookending the decade: Wolf (1981) and Can't Look Away (1989). And the former is not regarded too highly among many Rabinites, so it all rests on the (padded, because it was the 80s after all) shoulders of the latter, an album that while a literal Holy Grail among fans today did not even crack the Billboard Top 100 when it was released. And that is despite the success of the first single "Something To Hold On To," (and repeated airings of the video which received a Grammy nomination), and the turnout at various public appearances (including the club tour). So whither the Rabid Rabinites of Yore who might have provided the Maestro with the success he required to finally legitimize his solo career and perhaps create another of those boxes they so longed for?
Because here's why there will never be another Can't Look Away...the first one was a commercial failure. The numbers don't lie. Even as it remains a perennial favorite among fans it did little in the larger picture to enhance or strengthen his overall appeal as a solo artist It performed only slightly better than the other three solo albums (although it's difficult to know how successful Beginnings was upon its original release in South Africa). And therein lies the tragedy because it is a great album, an album which comes closest to representing the depth and breadth of what Trevor is capable of as a singer-songwriter, arranger and producer. I say "commercial" failure because CLA is absolutely an artistic success within the context of Trevor's discography. Trevor is very proud of the album and rightly so.
When Trevor commented to fans in 1995 regarding leaving Yes one of the statements he made was:
"I'm pretty certain that I won't be hooking up with any AOR-oriented band."Note the emphasis, if you will. Leaving Yes would have provided an opportunity for Trevor to revive his solo career and continue in that same path but the simple truth - the truth which many fans seem unwilling to accept even now, nearly 20 years later - is that it was never going to happen. As has occurred several times throughout his career, Trevor chose instead to continue his journey into the unknown.
More puzzling to me is the opinion that Trevor wasted his career by becoming a film composer; and yet there are numerous examples of other rock musicians doing the exact same thing, most notably people like Randy Newman, Danny Elfman, Stewart Copeland, Clint Mansell and Trent Reznor. People who still desire to work as musicians but have decided to branch out from popular music into a field which is lucrative and creative and gives one the opportunity to be heard by potentially millions of people around the world in perpetuity (depending on the popularity of the film). How is that a waste?
Despite the weight of existent expectation (and known to Trevor), Jacaranda was never going to be a vocal project and it has been stated as such in recent interviews. To deliberately choose such a path and court fandom displeasure is an inherent risk, but one he was fully prepared to face, as he stated in my interview with him:
"If you’re a musician and you want to succeed, you want to get better, you'll have to take risks. There is simply no way you can grow without taking chances. Succeeding takes time and prolonged effort no matter what the odds are against you."
It seems Trevor has borne up under the weight of perceived disappointment in his career choices of late but he has made a few remarks which would appear to me to also originate from a place of frustration:
"There is a group of middle aged women who have followed my career; they keep in touch with my assistant. They keep asking him, 'When is he going to put an album out? He has not put an album out since 1989.' My God, I’ve put 17 albums out since then. They don’t consider my movie soundtracks music."
"I didn’t actually realize it until somewhere half through this period, because there were all of these scores released, but there were people who might have bought the last solo album and they didn’t see these records as the same thing. To me, the scores were very personal and intense work, and no less relevant than a solo album."
So as fans are discouraged that he won't just sing, he might also be discouraged that they won't just listen. But here's one thing I am certain of: Trevor Rabin is not climbing back in The Box, not now, not ever. Even in consideration of reviving his rock n'roll identity, he is literally not the same person now, so he cannot be that person whom people claim to miss so much. Do I desire to hear him sing again? Absolutely. But not if he doesn't want to, and his voice is not merely the one which issues from his larynx, but from every part of his being...and it's there to hear, loud and clear, as it has been all along.
Do you hear it? Because if you don't, you're missing out on something uniquely beautiful.
