THE LIGHTS GO UP ON ADAM VOITH'S ERNIE BAXTER
by: Matthew Ralph

Multi-colored note cards in hand, a long-haired, bearded guy in a white T-shirt, blue jeans and running shoes steps to the microphone.

He doesn't look all that different than the solo musician who left the stage moments earlier, having packed up his pedals and electric guitar after hypnotizing the crowd in a church basement with his unique mix of soft and loud tunes that lull the listener into a daze one moment and shock their eardrums the next.

"Hi, I'm Adam Voith and I'm going to be reading you a few letters from Ernie Baxter and if you like them I'll read some from my new book Stand Up Ernie Baxter, You're Dead," he says.

Brushing aside a lock of hair in his face, he begins reading aloud from green note cards one of three letters written from the fictional character he created for his latest novel.

Though more than likely not accustomed to hearing an author read between sets of music at the hip Unitarian Church shows in Philadelphia or just about anywhere else indie-rock is played, the crowd lends a captive ear, just as they will to Damien Jurado's gentle strums of the electric guitar later in the evening.

Voith continues, reading Baxter's humorous letters addressed to GenerationChurch.com (which has been published in the literary zine Second Hand), Fred Rogers and a glass museum about a childhood friend who could turn people to glass.

Before long, he seems to take on the identity of this fictional character in his confined heaven, isolated from the people he misses and loves back on earth in the comedy clubs he may or may not have performed in Seattle and his home in Indiana.

For about 20 minutes, Adam Voith is Ernie Baxter, getting chuckles from the crowd as he describes the streets of heaven being paved with gold and how "bitchin" that is and still more laughs when he explains in his letter welcoming Fred Rogers to heaven a piece of innocence he lost watching Mr. Roger's Neighborhood as a youngster.

Over the course of the past couple months, this scene has been played out in venues all over the country as Voith has taken his turn between sets by Dave Fischoff and Jurado to share his prose, introducing fans to work that has been produced out of a small independent publishing house in Seattle.

Fresh off the release of his first novel and second book (his first, Bridges With Spirit, was a collection of fiction released three years ago) Voith took off on a journey not many writers take. A journey onto stages in bars, clubs, and venues where few have read fiction before.

And as Voith explained, an adventure with the traditional ups and downs of any touring act. Ask him about Pittsburgh and he'll describe a classy club that before hand seemed to be an ideal place for stand-up, but proved otherwise for Voith's literary routine.

"[Pittsburgh] was quite odd, especially since folks there didn't end up laughing all that much at my shit," Voith said. "I think I might have bummed 'em out with the letter welcoming Mister Rogers to heaven. After the show a very nice guy told me I shouldn't make jokes about Mister Rogers in Pittsburgh (home of Mister Rogers). He said something dramatic about how I'd ripped open old wounds."

Ask him about reading in Indiana, the home of the fictional character, and it's a different story.

"In Bloomington we did the show in an arts space that had been doing a play, and the background panels they had up were all blue sky and fluffy clouds," he continued. "Good setting for the heaven thing. So there were some moments, I guess, where I felt a little Baxter-esque. But in general, I felt like a guy trying to learn how to read to folks at a show about music. That was enough to tackle!"

Taking a different approach to publishing has been Voith's story since he started his publishing company in Oakland, Cal. in 1999 before relocating to Seattle and immersing himself in the music scene as a publicist and booking agent. Since then he has published his two books, three issues of the literary magazine Little Engines, and four other titles under the banner of TNI Books. One of those projects, a now out of print CD of found audio by Damien Jurado started the partnership with the musician. In that CD, Jurado stepped out of the traditional musician role to gather taped answering machine messages and letters found in thrift shops and yard sales, which fans of his early recycled tape recordings were previously familiar with.

Mixing mediums is after all, nothing new to Jurado, who to date has played in just about every style of band imaginable.

"It's just amazing that Damien has invited me along," Voith said. "He came to me several months ago after listening to lots of spoken word and comedy records (Lenny Bruce, in particular) and just felt like trying something with his tour that incorporated the world of independent publishing and writing. I couldn't have been more excited. He's the dude, for certain."

This arrangement worked particularly well for Fischoff, who had no previous experience performing any events with a literary component.

"Personally, I was really glad to have him read between me and Damien," Fischoff said. "A lot of times having three musical acts on a bill can get to be a bit much, but adding a literary element helped keep things fresh and interesting. Touring with a writer is also great because they don't have a lot of gear to take up precious space in the back of your vehicle. And I really can't think of any challenges I faced while I was touring with Adam, aside from always trying to say interesting stuff and do interesting things in hopes that I might someday end up a character in one of his books."

Perhaps Dave may end up inspiring a future character, but that wasn't the case with Baxter, who was developed from a short story in Voith's first book about a stand up comedian on his death bed. Still, Voith clearly drew from his experiences in the music scene as inspiration.

One character, rock and roller/mall clothing store associate Danny Instant, who Baxter mocks in a stand-up routine outlined on a laptop computer that his ex-girlfriend pages through after his death, seems plucked directly from "Anywhere, USA's" pretentious independent music world. Other elements of the underground spirit can be found in Baxter's routines on his strange diet and slacker video-game playing lifestyle, which are brought to life in the book by comic artist Mike Lowery.

As comical a character as Baxter is, especially in the letters Voith wrote mostly before the book was completed and reworked to read while on tour, the book has a haunting quality throughout. Whether it is the underlying questioning of mortality within or the tragic sense of loss those left behind experience as they try and piece together Baxter's life, the book is as serious as it is funny.

In doing so, Voith brings to mind John Updike's treatise on the fictional aging high school basketball star Rabbit in his series of books or Douglas Coupland's spiritual pondering in Life After God. Neither author, however, served as direct inspiration to Voith, who considers himself a newcomer to fiction.

"I've always drawn inspiration more from movies, music, my friends, etc. before other books, but that's not to say that I don't think about things like literary tradition," he said. "But I do still feel like a newcomer to writing and publishing, so it'd be hard to me to place what I'm doing or what TNI Books is doing in line with any type of current movement or school. It is what it is, I suppose."

And what it is, is a compelling story.

By hearing directly from the main character after he is dead (think American Beauty), the reader never challenges the notion that they are reading fiction, yet even in a created universe, universal questions on life and death abound.

But instead of presenting these questions through a mystical or religious setting, Voith chose to simplify. Baxter's heaven is one where he must cope with the life he has left behind, having died of cancer well before his prime. He can see everything being played out below him, but is limited to listening in on one conversation at a time and can never interfere. There is no floating on clouds or a halo on Baxter's head. He speaks in the same crass tone he did on earth.

"I really wanted to point out some of the sad aspects of heaven without being super heavy-handed," Voith said. "The humor in the book is pretty odd, and it all takes place on Earth, really. The joy of remembering Baxter happens on Earth. The stuff in heaven is more sad and somber than anything else, and I wanted to somehow capture that without it butting up against religion or ideology for sure."

Day in and day out reading both excerpts of the book and the accompanying letters has required Voith to further explore the writing himself and also delve into a world often unique to touring musicians, playing night in and night out at a different city with a different crowd, minus of course the setting up and tearing down, which for Voith only requires him to step up to the microphone with his multi-colored note cards and a music stand.

At that moment, it becomes a concentration on delivery and no longer a focus on crafting words together on paper or on a computer.

"The audience and their reaction have so much to do with the delivery, and it's amazing how much that varies from city to city," Voith said. "You have to be able to read a piece that you might find really funny even if folks aren't laughing, so you start to hear the piece, on those nights, in a less funny way -- you dig for what might be more serious in the piece. I don't think I've quite figured out the full dynamics of what happens while reading to an audience, but I learned a hell of a lot on this trip with Damien. Good nights, better nights, not as good nights... and you start to find ways to make the story, or the performance as a whole, still work no matter."

On a night in April in Philadelphia, as evidenced by the receptive crowd and the line of people buying books afterward, Voith's routine certainly worked, thus proving that literature and music can share the same stage after all.

posted 06.12.03

2003 White Elephant Productions