Playing For Pizza

It’s always a strange feeling when you show up to a venue and someone who isn’t on the bill is playing. 

The venue was actually a pizza place, a long hallway behind a door in a brand new line of shops just to the north of the then-new music row roundabout. I parked in some parallel parking along the street and lugged my amp to the door, hugging it to my chest. I could hear a drummer and a woman singing inside. 

Opening the door to the pizzeria, the thick, warm smell of decadent pizza toppings hit me along with the full volume of the music, and the jangle of a guitar. 

Two employees behind the counter to the left in front of me greeted me and seeing my amplifier, pointed down the hall. I could almost see where the music was coming from. 

I nudged past a couple of empty round, small 2-seater tables and saw the two-person band in a narrow recession in the wall on one side of the long hallway. A five-foot-wide hallway widened to the left, making this section of the business a 9-foot-wide hallway. The ten-foot-long widened area to the left had been built up about 10 inches, making a 4 feet by 9 feet stage area. 

The drummer had a hodgepodge kit made up of drums from different drum kits and it was turned sort of diagonally, projecting up the hallway towards the front door. The guitarist, a blonde, was singing and playing straight to the wall in front of her. A few more small tables were strewn down the hallway. 

I set my amp down next to the stage and smiled at the band, nodding to them. I worried as they looked at my amp and me with some surprise and annoyance. They didn’t know about me and I didn’t know about them. 

I walked back to my car and grabbed my guitar and a bag containing my cables, a couple of pedals, and a lyric book. I locked my car with my keys and then again with the remote fob once I was about 20 feet from it, forgetting whether or not I’d locked it. On the way back in, I stopped and asked the woman at the counter about the band playing. “Did I get the day right?” “Adam?” “Yes.” “Yeah, you’re playing at 8 pm. You can actually get started whenever you want, as soon as these guys are done.” It was 6:45 pm by then, 15 minutes after I’d been told to load in. 

The band stopped and the handful of people watching them applauded loudly and shouted “woo!” It was heartwarming to hear such an enthusiastic response filling the room in Nashville, known for low-key, guarded audience responses most of the time. Playing to an audience of jaded musicians has its drawbacks. “Well!” The blonde singer laughed, catching her breath. “It sure has been fun playing for y’all.” It was a real southern accent, not an act, and I heard her history in her words. “I hope we’ve got time for one more...” I held two thumbs up enthusiastically up the hallway from them and she smiled and launched into the next tune.  

She and the drummer played their hearts out for the last number, an energetic boogie with a southern drawl and some pretty fancy guitar work. When they finished, I told them how much I enjoyed it and helped their drummer carry his equipment to his 70s SUV which basically looked like a big vintage truck that had a covered bed with windows. 

When I came back inside, I stopped at the counter again. “We never discussed pay when I was booking the gig but I guess...” “Oh, you get a free pizza. And a drink, depending on the drink.” “Oh great! Awesome.” 

I meant it. A pizza place up and over just a few streets called Guido’s routinely paid me and my friends Sarah Lichtman and Tom Stadler (later to be married) with ice-cold Guinness on tap and my own medium pepperoni pizza. 

Guido’s was dingy and dark, the smell of their tomato sauce always in the air. It had an upper dining area for about 10 people and then a short green staircase heading down into a small venue that could hold about 20 people plus a small stage opposite the stairs. 

Once I saw the unusual Finnish musical genius The Mattoid and his Israeli-born girlfriend Poppy Fields perform a show in that lower room at Guido’s and Poppy lit up a joint and smoked it while singing a song. I also saw Laurel Parton beat the shit out of a drum kit as I sat at a table with my favorite producer at the time, Brad Jones. He had walked in, recognized me, and sat down with me and we chatted as the band played. In hindsight, he probably didn’t see any way to get out of sitting with me once I spotted him but he did sit with me and I was floored. The pizza was great and I was drunk and sitting with one of my heroes while watching a kick-ass band, and I think we were the only people in the room. 

Music was always happening in Music City. For me and my friends, we performed anywhere and everywhere like we were scared to let some crevice of Nashville experience silence. Some of the best shows in those days happened to audiences of 3. A really, really well-attended show would have 30 people, but that wasn’t the point. The point was to make the music to push out the darkness: silence. 

Guido’s was always a good time, whether there were people or not. But the red door at Guido’s had been painted over with white, and the name was gone from the front of the building. Silent. 

I think I was asked by a friend of a friend if I would play at this new pizza place in a new building, at a new landmark in town with fresh concrete and ever-present locals honking at tourists who had never seen a roundabout before. I’d never been to this spot before, not since they’d torn down my old hangout Levan’s Guitar Repair shop to build it. If I’d been in there before, I probably wouldn’t have been so likely to play there. No vibe. But I probably said yes because they said “pizzeria” and I thought of Guido’s. I loved Guido’s. 

I set up and played electric guitar and sang about 20 songs I’d written and another 8-10 cover songs which probably included the Flaming Lips, The Kinks, T-Rex, and Wilco. Several of my friends actually showed up, I probably brought out seven people and the restaurant had another ten or so customers sit and watch and clap. I was actually pretty happy about this turnout, especially considering the small venue size; the place was “full”. I decided to take a quick break halfway through my set to use the restroom. After washing my hands, I went to the front counter and had to wait behind a customer to ask them a question. “Can I get that pizza when I’m done?” “Sure, babe. You said pepperoni?” “Yes ma’am.” I jogged back to the stage and performed my second set. Around 9:20 I finished my last song and the lights in the pizzeria brightened a little bit. I got a few hugs from my friends and talked to a couple of new fans. 

I hadn’t had anything to drink during the whole show because I forgot to ask — twice, and I was now powerfully looking forward to a soda and my pizza. “Our soda machine’s shut down, honey.” “Well, I guess I could just grab the pizza in a to-go box then.” “Oh, honey, the kitchen’s closed.” “But I am getting paid with the pizza that I *did* order.” “We don’t have any pizza leftover, I feel bad...” People were standing there to my right, waiting to say goodbye to me, and were now having to watch this painful conversation at point-blank range, unable to depart from it. I had just agreed to play not for money but for my dinner and they were very gently stuffing me. She turned around and back. “Here.” And the lady at the counter handed me a round wooden token the size of a silver dollar coin. It said “one free pizza” on it. I put it in my pocket and smiled and said goodbye to the last of my friends leaving. 

I walked outside onto the sidewalk bustling with Vanderbilt and Belmont students and looked up and down the street before crossing to my car. In one direction: the new statue in the center of a new roundabout capping music row. In the other direction: downtown Nashville, featuring the Batman Building. I dashed across to my car and U-turned around to park directly outside of the pizzeria. I placed the pizza token in the change tray, where it remained until I sold the car, and loaded my equipment out of the venue, which closed at some point in the next three months, so I never actually had pizza from this place. I went home, brought my equipment into my apartment, and put a Tombstone pizza in the oven.