For Slim, aka Sean Scolnick, who turns 30 next month,finding a permanent place to live is a career milestone, a welcome sign ofachievement for a troubadour who has literally built a career from the groundup since leaving the small-town Pennsylvania home from which he adopted hisstage name a dozen years ago.
“I hate to be one of those typical musicians, but Iguess I am in a way,” Scolnick says. “I’ve lived on couches and have beenfortunate enough to have kind-enough girlfriends that would let meit wasn’tvery many girlfriends, very few, in factbut when I had no money I had a placeto stay.”
His new Portland home is some 2,500 miles away fromNew York City, where he made a name for himself playing cafes, comedy clubs andwhatever gigs he could find between tours with the quirky vaudevillian outfitthe Trachtenburg Family Slideshow, on his way to getting signed (then dropped)by V2 Records (White Stripes, Moby) and signed again to Kemado Records inBrooklyn. He released a self-titled LP in 2008 that put him on the nationalradar, followed by two tours of Europe. A daybefore embarking on a monthlong North American tour, Scolnick beams about hisnew locale.
“It seems a bit corny and it probably is when you sayit out loud, but [Portland]seems to be a real community of artists and musicians and all kinds of people,”he says. “So for me, it’s the closest thing that I found to where I want to be.That could change in three days too, but for now I’m sticking to that story.”
And that’s huge for a songwriter who pens lyrics like“I’m not yet dead but I don’t know where I belong” on his latest record. Hesays lyrics like that don’t necessarily relate to physical location so much ashis mind-set at any given point in time, but in light of Scolnick’s blossomingcareer, it’s a telling juxtaposition.
“I think Beck said one time, ‘I feel good in my pantstonight,’” Scolnick says. “I can really relate to that. I feel good in my pantsright now.”
That sort of relief doesn’t come cheap for a careermusician. Scolnick comes from a musical family that for whatever reasonhemuses about ideas on small-town trappings and pressures of finding a stableline of worknever pursued music beyond a form of recreation. Naturally, whenScolnick chose to attend the Conservatory of Music at PurchaseCollege in New York, his family was supportive though alittle edgy about his career choice.
“I freaked my family out a little bit,” he says. “Itried to assure them that it would be all right. So far so good, I think.”
That’s an understatement. Alongside the everyday grindof touring and recording, the songwriter got his first taste of making somereal money in the music business when Travelers Insurance picked up one of hissongs and used it in a commercial.
“When I was 17 and listening to Minor Threat, no, Ididn’t think I was going to sell songs to commercials,” he says. “I was alittle cynical about it, but then I saw it, and I saw some of the people thatthey had been working with … I was right that it seems to have been a muchbigger help than a hindrance.”
Balancing art and commerce is a reality of anysuccessful career musician, a necessary evil. But the life of a rising touringact has a way of muting the business end of the profession by supplying plentyof awe-inspiring moments. For Scolnick, the most recent came at the end of hislast tour, at a show in Asbury Park, N.J., the closest he would cometo his hometown. His mother had come out from Pennsylvania to watch the show, and in walksBruce Springsteen.
“To have Springsteen in the crowd buying my mom drinkswas just crazy,” Scolnick says. “It turned into some sort of magicalexperience.”
Langhorne Slimplays the Turner Hall Ballroom on Saturday, July 24, with Ha Ha Tonka at 8 p.m.
