Things That Matter

This is a confession: I know Mike Ball, of a local trio going by the tag Dr. Mike and the Sea Monkeys. I know Mike pretty darn well. I've watched fireworks from his back deck, cruised the lake in his boat, and I blush every time he tells people how fantastic I am. I've heard nearly all the songs he'll be playing tonight with the Sea Monkeys, Scott Clauser and Bert Franco.

He's the only person who has ever written a song for me. Well, sortof for me. Granted, it's called the Slushnugget Blues, and it's not about me at all—it's about the things you find when the snow melts. Like boxer shorts and lipsticked phone numbers. Still—I have my own song, and Mike promised to play it for me tonight.

So I might be a little bit biased when I say that Mike puts on a good gig. Here’s the trick, though—what I’m writing isn't about Dr. Mike and the Sea Monkeys being extraordinary musicians, or impossibly funny. It's not about Mike's column, 'What I've Learned So Far,' which inspired a number of his tunes.

It's about kids.

Incarcerated kids, actually, and a program called Lost Voices. Lost Voices takes roots music to incarcerated kids—kids who have done some truly horrendous things—and by having them examine what's on their minds and putting it to music—hey presto! we’ve got personal growth and healing. It’s not as simple as that, but changes in a body’s life and direction never are.

Mike’s telling the audience about Lost Voices as an introduction to a song that was written by the kids he’s worked with, a blues tune that turns his voice growly and broad. It’s a change from the light John Prine tune he started with—something about peaches and level-headed dancers. He’s moved into a unified vision of a what-happens-next world, where kids that have spent time lined up in yellow shirts are stepping out and thinking,

In and out of locked doors
Same old song and dance
This time’s gotta be different;
Ain’t gonna be another chance.

It’s a story—the story, maybe—that a lot of the incarcerated kids live. It’s scruffy and painful—it’s the story that should bring you to the Concert for Lost Voices next week on August 27th, because before the ending of a story can change, there has to be someone that sees another way out.

It’s a point Mike returns to throughout his concert—but not where he stays. With Bert Franco standing solidly on the bass line, and Scott Clauser on mandolin or second guitar, Mike works his way through classic tunes like ‘The Weight’ from The Band, and ‘Sweet Home Chicago’ from Muddy Waters. He throws in tunes he’s written, about still having most of his hair, or about dogs and husbands being there to stay. The favorite—or the most offensive—is a tune he wrote about getting a colonoscopy (“It’s a polyp, not a trollop!”). His voice switches between the gravely tone he took with the first Lost Voices tune and a clown-y, higher-hanging voice that twangs.

I’m laughing and clapping and mouthing along with the words (remember, I’ve heard these all before). That is, until Mike is saying, “Here’s the last tune, thanks for coming out tonight, I hope I’ll see you at the Concert for Lost Voices next Friday,” and he hasn’t played Slushnugget Blues for me. People are folding up their chairs and leaving, or shoving their pontoon boats away from the shoreline, and I’m still waiting for that song. I’m giving Mike a look that makes him reach for his guitar and sing me a song. Everything around us is being packed up, but Bert picks up a second guitar to slide out some chords behind Mike—we’re standing on our own square footage of music, and it’s being played just for me.