"Steppin' Out" by Joe Jackson

Stardom as a side gig

“Now, the mist across the window hides the lines, but nothing hides the color of the lights that shine / Electricity so fine / Look and dry your eyes”

“Trev, why are you covering 100 songs this year?” (This is #45 by the way)

An artist needs to put their miles in. At some point, many years ago but still years too late, after making something like five albums and touring in a few different configurations, I realized I had a big gap in my musical education. I’d reached a point of diminishing returns. Despite having “gone to school” for cello, lived in Brazil, played a million bar gigs and sessions, written many songs… I lacked a working repertoire of classic songs.

I knew my own stuff, but I hadn’t put in the early miles in cover bands. I didn’t really know my stylistic lineage.

To remedy this, I mothballed my “artist” efforts and started a wedding band. I figured it to be the most efficient way to pay myself to learn a few hundred classic songs. But it was a boneheaded move for a couple of reasons. First, I alienated a whole segment of my audience, friends and collaborators who suddenly saw me as a sellout and wanted nothing to do with me. Second, it was completely exhausting.

After a couple of years doing weddings, I quit music completely for a while.

“We, so tired of all the darkness in our lives, with no more angry words to say can come alive / Get into a car and drive to the other side”

Obviously, I’m back at it. I’ve got more than enough new songs of my own for an album, but having this practice of covering songs I love in public, campfire style, helps program my body to know what it feels like to perform material that’s rock solid. This way, when I go back to my own material, the parts that need to be sanded down - or in some cases rewritten completely - become readily apparent. There are no shortcuts.

I’m listening to Joe Jackson’s earlier work as I write this.

Have you heard Beat Crazy or Jumpin’ Jive? When people reference Joe Jackson, they usually talk about two albums: Look Sharp! and Night and Day. Look Sharp! has the breakout “Is She Really Going Out With Him?” and Night And Day has today’s song, “Steppin’ Out”. Both albums are rock solid, and there’s a variety of genres represented on both. There was also a great “sophomore” follow up to Look Sharp! called I’m The Man that’s every bit as good.

But there were two other albums made in the same period which didn’t gain a fraction of the same traction. They’re kind of like tribute albums. Beat Crazy is all ska and reggae. Jumpin Jive covers a bunch of Louis Jordan and Cab Calloway tunes. You can hear the dues being paid in real time.

Joe is putting in his miles, even after having had radio hits. He’s still putting in those miles to this day, in fact. You might even say that pop stardom was a side gig for Joe Jackson.

“Me babe, steppin' out / Into the night, into the light / You babe, steppin' out / Into the night, into the light”

Joe Jackson has a monstrous body of work. The music is sophisticated, deeply arranged and produced. While rocking. He’s from that generation of musicians who ran with it: music was driving the culture. The jazz, the rock, the disco revolutions had already happened while the runaway economy of the 80s and 90s was just beginning. We look back now and try to abbreviate what was happening then into convenient labels like “Gen X” or “MTV Generation” but the reality is that the music of that time was incredibly diverse.

At the same time, musical exposure was rising. Technological revolutions were starting to pick up, but tech hadn’t yet fully dampened the impact of the music. Analog was still the only game in town. The CD was a few years away. The Matrix was still far off.

“We are young but getting old before our time / We'll leave the TV and the radio behind / Don't you wonder what we'll find / Steppin' out tonight”

As a kid I found all of this overwhelming.

I took refuge in jazz. But I didn’t practice jazz, I’m not a shredder like that. I learned a few tunes and played them over and over again. For me, the “jazz” experience was an immersion in the unknown. The fact that I didn’t understand the music helped me face the gnawing anxiety I felt, growing up in a world that I couldn’t understand. I feared the world but not the music.

And I couldn’t be away from it for very long. When I wasn’t playing, I was listening. Then I’d go back to playing. Sound was my cocoon. I hid there in an effort to hold the world at bay, since I couldn’t slow it down. Cello, piano, tapes, the radio… whatever. I just needed to be touching sound in some way.

“You can dress in pink and blue just like a child / And in a yellow taxi turn to me and smile / We'll be there in just a while if you follow me”

A journey into Joe Jackson’s music will show you more than you signed up for. The shiny pop songs are like postcards from a country that might be famous for its beaches, but in reality is a whole world in itself. Waiting to be discovered. Check out the early albums, then listen to Will Power. It’s a symphony. Joe is uncontainable.

Joe had the talent, the guidance and the timing to succeed. But so many others, before and since, have been much less fortunate. Joe is still at it, living in Berlin, working as hard as ever.

That’s what a musical life should be. Stardom is a side gig, at best. Artists are explorers, which is dangerous enough.

“Me babe, steppin' out / Into the night, into the light / You babe, steppin' out / Into the night, into the light”

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