Kristin Hersh. 7 p.m. Oct. 1. $15. 40 Watt Club, 285 W. Washington St., Athens. 706-549-7871, 40watt.com. 7 p.m. Oct. 2. Free. A Capella Books at Highland Inn Ballroom Lounge, 644 N. Highland Ave. N.E., Atlanta. 404-874-5756, acappellabooks.com/event/kristin-hersh-book-signing. 9 p.m. Oct. 3. $20 advance; $25 day of the show. Smith's Olde Bar, 1578 Piedmont Ave. N.E., Atlanta. 404-875-1522, smithsoldebar.com.
Anyone who ever encountered Athens singer-songwriter Vic Chesnutt or saw him perform knows he could be utterly charming, willfully unpredictable and sometimes downright ornery — all within a few minutes time.
Chesnutt lived most of his life as a quadriplegic and died of an overdose of muscle relaxants on Christmas Day, 2009. That he was able to turn his torments into starkly honest, often hilarious and forever heartrending music won him legions of fans — especially among fellow songwriters.
In her new memoir, “Don’t Suck, Don’t Die: Giving Up Vic Chesnutt” (University of Texas Press, $22.95), Kristin Hersh, a founding member of the bands Throwing Muses and 50 Foot Wave, offers an intimate, complicated portrait of the artist as road warrior.
The title is taken from the ongoing banter between Chesnutt and Hersh, as they toured together on and off for nearly a decade. The setting is an endless string of cheap motels, band vans and dressing rooms. But the real spark of human drama comes from the fact that Chesnutt’s wife and musical partner, Tina, and Hersh’s husband and manager, Billy O’Connell, were along, too.
Hersh, who was born in Atlanta, will be in Athens for a performance at the 40 Watt Club Thursday, and in Atlanta for a book event at the Highland Ballroom Friday and a performance at Smith’s Olde Bar Saturday.
She talked about “Don’t Suck, Don’t Die” during a phone conversation last week. Here’s some of what Hersh had to say.
Q: "Don't Suck, Don't Die" is a beautiful but often dark, heartbreaking read. How difficult was it to write it all down?
A: There's not much else to do at 4 o'clock in the morning, waking up, and it's just me and the dogs. People get mad at you if you practice guitar at 4 a.m. So it became a place to go. And, even if it reads dark, intensity is actually just raw.
Q: You certainly capture the life of a touring musician.
A: A musician's life is fairly repetitive. But, for some reason, it isn't boring. This is going to sound silly, but it feels important. To be exploring. To be meeting so many thousands of people. To be trapped with people you respect. And you either just sit in a room and stare at each other or you have a conversation that you never forget.
Q: So many of the scenes are not only evocative, but come off as pure reporting. Did you have journals or recordings to jog your memory?
A: I have mostly song notebooks and old calendars where I kept notes of where we were and things that happened. But, basically, what I did was lay photographs over each other of the same event that happened over and over, until I had a skeletal image of that event or that conversation or that song or that aspect of Vic's or Tina's or Billy's personality. I think that's how our memories work. And the fact that, when I talk it doesn't make a lot of sense, makes it read like prose poetry. [laughs]
Q: I kept thinking that some of the set pieces reminded me of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" in capturing the dynamics of two married couples.
A: My image of the book was like those old black and white movies from the '40s, where there are two couples, and the machinations of what it means to be friends and lovers and four people shoved together. In those movies, it happened on a stage. … That was sort what our life was. The stage was our show or our van or our dressing room.
Q: You write a lot about the sheer wonder of Vic's sneaky, fidgety physicality. It was a miracle that he could even play guitar, wasn't it?
A: I think I did him no favors for feeling that way. I think his limitations were overwhelming to him and invisible to me. That didn't make me a great friend. But he could do things that no one could do, or that was the impression he created. Even onstage, I would request a song from him, and I didn't know that one of his fingers wasn't working that day. I didn't know. I should have.
Q: I was surprised to read that, though you played with him, and heard and felt his music close up, you never really sat down and seriously listened to Vic's recordings until later on.
A: No, I didn't. I don't listen to much music, because good stuff moves me too hard and bad stuff is lousy. Also, I didn't always like the production. I liked the songs. I liked it when he was untouched and really raw. That's what I got from seeing him play live. How many times did he just play for one of my kids in a room? I remember him singing "New Town" a cappella in the San Francisco rain for my son Wyatt when he was 3, because it was his favorite song.
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