The Black Jacket -How One Should React When Involved In A Low Speed Collision

The Black Jacket was magnetic

John’s songs just caught everyone’s ear, no matter what kind of crowd we played for. I was never there for the writing of the songs, we sometimes practiced for fifteen minutes before a show, and more than once new songs just appeared on the set list. I’d ask what key it was in and we would just go. I’m not a real musician, the songs were just dead simple. So we’d have this savage beat and John would take off into space like some sort of manic Pentecostal holy man, and the rest of us were just holding on, keeping it steady.

Then there would be these solemn moments, these songs with faint, fragile heartbeats that no one would dare disturb by even breathing too loud. We even had this bag of shakers we would pass around to everyone, which always seemed dorky, but went over really well. Shows what I know. Live Black Jacket shows were an anarchic celebration of everyone there. They were never the same. Something was always broken, but it didn’t matter. The lines between the band and the audience were blurry. You didn’t have to be good, you just had to be there. At the risk of sounding like a Sedona mom, I always felt like it was an open invitation to live life. And for a little bit, everyone felt free to do just that.

​-Mike Patterson