How/who/what tf am I? Chapter 4
In which I become Rachel Lark
Before you read any further, if you haven’t read it already, you might want to go back and check out Chapter 1, Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 of this series.
Time To Get A Day Job
In the Antioquia touring years we had all paid the very few bills we had by working odd jobs whenever we were back in the Bay Area between tours. For me, this was a combination of two incredibly humbling professions: backstage catering for artists at The Bill Graham Civic and substitute teaching. These gigs worked well for my touring lifestyle because you could just state your availability and only work those days, and then disappear for two months, no problem. Looking back, I wonder if there was also a little bit of cruel self-punishment going on in the decision to do backstage catering for massive artists, because it was brutal on the ego. After ending a tour where I had to drive our limping diesel van up 18 hours of mountain passes just to unload our own gear and argue with a venue owner to give us the free pizza he’d promised us for our $500, 3 hour gig, I’d come home and make sure that Sara Bareilles had the right kind of organic blueberries and insure that her humidifier was turned on no less than 3 hours before her arrival. Or that Bassnectar’s sandwich bar had a wide enough variety of cheese in the display. I’d serve these mega-artists their meals and take out their trash. I’d watch the show and masochistically focus on the plainly obvious truth that I would never be on a stage that big, never experience a backstage catering staff, never have a rider that specified the humidity reading of my green room. And I’d breathe in that truth and exhale a decision to be fine right where I was, and feel grateful that I had a life that included playing music as often as I did, and tell myself that that needed to be enough for me. It was a painful dutiful ritual that I believed at the time was building character.
Substitute teaching was humbling in other ways. Anyone who feels like they’re “good with kids” will be shocked to discover how useless that skill is for being a substitute teacher. Substitute teachers are not people to children. They are a testing ground for the concept of authority. Except for the kindergartners and first graders. Those kiddos still like their teachers and just want to sweetly tell you about all of the delightful rules that they’re proud to know about. By second to fourth grade, depending on the school, children are looking for weaknesses in their substitute teachers immediately, and if you try to be a “cool teacher” they’ll tear you apart.
The catering / substitute teacher life was tolerable because I didn’t think of them as my job. I thought of them as side gigs to my real job of playing music. When Antioquia broke up, I started substitute teaching full-time, and immediately realized that this would not fly as my daily life. If I was going to stay in one place and work for a while, I needed a job I liked.
Teacher Rachel
Luckily, a friend of mine worked for a company called Music Together and pitched me on becoming one of their teachers. It was billed as music classes for babies and toddlers. The idea seemed cute and the pay was better than substitute teaching, so I decided to give it a try. To become a Music Together teacher you had to attend a weekend long training and get certified, then you could work at one of their approved Music Together centers. This center also had us shadow some of the most popular teachers as part of our training process.
Expecting some pretty basic and silly musical activities, I was absolutely floored by what I saw at my first Music Together class. The curriculum was genius. Very complex musical concepts about theory, emotion, performance and collaboration were being communicated through… not a class exactly, more like a continuous musical ritual. The class started with singing and the music didn’t cease until the end. At no point does the instructor talk. Instead they sing instructions and show what needs to happen rather than tell. And the classes were not actually for the babies, as they were advertised, but rather for the parents, most of whom did not think of themselves as musical people. The beautiful idea behind Music Together was that babies and toddlers learn by modeling. If you want your kid to be musical, the best thing you can do is make music in front of them, and do it joyfully. And that’s what the experience was really about, getting a group of adults to joyfully make music together in front of their babies and toddlers. It was powerful stuff.
I loved being a Music Together teacher. And I quickly became one of the company’s most popular instructors. At my peak I had 18 classes a week. I adored the families, found the lesson planning fascinating and creatively fulfilling, and was proud of and moved by the powerful communal musical experiences I got to facilitate. I learned lessons from Music Together that still benefit me as a musician today. For instance, I use the emotional arc that the Music Together curriculum recommends for structuring the classes as the same guide for creating my set lists. Start with an easy-to-follow, happy song, then move to a “focus” song that forces everyone to pay attention, then offer up a challenge, then distract everyone with something fun to make them forget they just got challenged, then do something vulnerable and pretty, then surprise them, then a big blow out song where they expel the rest of their pent up energy, then a “lullaby” song, then a goodbye song. It’s a perfect arc.
Rachel Lark
Simultaneously, I was developing my next solo project. Antioquia had revived my desire to make music, and given me new ideas about what was artistically possible. So I started creating a new solo project that was different from anything I’d done before. At first, the idea was to build a one-woman band concept around a toy piano. I had this tiny toy baby grand that I put my microKorg XL on top of for bass lines, and then I played a toy drum kit with my feet, a kick drum behind one heel and a high hat behind the other. Sometimes I’d also play ukulele. The project was called “lark” which was a jumbling of my legal name’s initials. (Eventually I changed this to Rachel Lark because it felt weird to not introduce myself as Rachel.) I started creating performance opportunities to workshop my new sound.
After moving out of my apartment with Tomás, I had secured a dope and bizarre apartment above a dance studio in a storefront of Oakland’s chinatown. It wasn’t legal to live there, and there was no hot water, shower, or ventilation of any kind. BUT! It was only $400 a month and it was huge and I could throw shows and parties there and make music as late as I wanted.
One night, I invited some new friends I’d made at Harbin Hot Springs to one of my shows at my weird illegal apartment. They loved my set and since they lived nearby, we became buds. One night, their friend, Dixie De La Tour, the host of Bawdy Storytelling, called one of them to ask for support. The musical guest for her show had canceled, and she needed to find a replacement quick. Did they know of anyone?
And that’s how I got the call from Dixie that completely altered the course of my musical career. She asked if I had any songs about sex. “No,” I answered, which was true at the time. My solo project was weird and deep and dark and serious, god damn it. I didn’t have any stupid songs about sex. Except… “I’ve got this one song that’s a joke. I never play it live. I just play it for friends. It’s called ‘Fuck My Toe.’”
Dixie says “Perfect!” and that night I arrived at the Verdi Club to see about 400 people packed into the hall to listen to people tell sex stories onstage, and hear my stupid song, “Fuck My Toe.” And this, ladies and gentlemen, is my first ever performance at Bawdy Storytelling.
I fell in love with the concept of the show, and pitched Dixie on the idea of writing custom songs for monthly shows, which each had a different theme. I figured it could be a fun side gig and a cool creative exercise but it didn’t need to be part of my serious one-woman band toy piano thing. I’d keep the two separate. Serious music over at my Rachel Lark shows. Funny sex music for Bawdy.
But then something unexpected happen. Turns out I was really good at writing funny songs. And really good at writing songs about sex. I was making way more fans at Bawdy than I was doing my other stuff. Maybe they didn’t need to be separate?
One day, Dan Savage showed up at Bawdy Storytelling. He saw me play and he asked me for an album. I didn’t have one. He said, “Send me an album that I can show to my producer. I want to have you on my show!” I hadn’t considered making an album of my Bawdy songs yet. But suddenly, I had a reason. So I organized a live album recording show. I figured I could use the tickets to pay for the recording and I also thought that the live environment would be better for comedy songs, where you could hear the reactions of the crowd. It worked! And that’s how I made my first album, Lark After Dark.
By the time I was joining Bawdy Storytelling in Seattle, I had an album in hand, ready to give to Dan, who was supposed to perform in the show that night. He excitedly grabbed the album from me and promised to reach out soon. A week later, he messaged me on Twitter to invite me to perform at his live show in Vancouver in a couple of months. I was over the moon. The Savage Lovecast was one of the top podcasts in the country, and certainly the most popular podcast for sex-positive, non-monogamous people and kinky people, who I now knew were my core fan base.
So I reached out to my job to arrange for a sub to take over my Music Together classes while I was out of town for the gig, which was the protocol. But when I called them, my bosses had some stern words for me. I’d been requesting time off and finding subs more and more in order to play gigs, and they were concerned that the families in my classes were starting to get unhappy. They urged me to think seriously about which was more important, my Music Together job or my performing career, and they told me that I’d have to choose between keeping my job and playing this show with Dan Savage.
Whelp, you might be able to guess what happened next. I did think seriously about which was more important and decided that it was time to give this Rachel Lark thing my all and see what I could turn it into, and I quit the day job. I booked myself a tour out to Vancouver to perform with Dan Savage, and committed to making music full-time.
And that, my dear substack readers, is where I am going to leave this life story. At the birth of Rachel Lark, sex-positive singer/songwriter full-time artist person. That was 10 years ago. A lot has happened since. But in many ways I feel that I’m still in it. I don’t have the perspective yet to tell you about the road from that one Dan Savage gig to where I am now. I’ll keep sharing more personal essays from my past, but this is the end of what I feel to be the relevant chronology.
Thank you so much for going on this journey with me, and for allowing me to reflect on this wild ride.
In debaucherous camaraderie,
🪶Rachel Lark
What you can expect from The Larkstack
Every Monday, I’ll be sharing a weekly essays that will be free to everyone!
On Fridays, I’ll be sharing ✨Bonus Content✨ as a separate post. This ✨Bonus Content✨ is only available to paid subscribers and patreon supporters. It might be 📝 more writing, ✅ content recommendations, 🎙️a voice memo, or 🖼️ a piece of art I haven’t released anywhere else yet.
These posts are all thoughts in process. Expect my views to change and morph and solidify and stray and evolve.
I’ll also share announcements about life as an artist; things like show announcements, music releases and new merch.
Becoming a paid subscriber or supporting me on patreon is SO DOPE! It’s what allows me to not only keep writing these essays but also create all of the music, theater, film and experiences that I create. So if you’re not signed up yet, and you get value out of the stuff I put out in the world, just think about it :)
Announcements
I don’t have any shows or new music to share right now, but the genocide in Gaza is still unfolding, so I am continuing to share these two small ways that you can help.
1. My dear friend and amazing comedian, Kate Willett, is participating in a fundraiser called Pass The Hat! which pairs comedians with a big following with individual families who are trying to get out of Gaza. She has personally spoken to the mother of 6 who she is sponsoring and is currently trying to raise the money needed to get to Egypt. You can donate here.
2. Jewish Voice For Peace has a very straightforward call script to use when calling your reps and demanding that the U.S. stop arming Israel, which is truly the only thing that will end this violence.
Thank you all for being here!