Rolling Rock
DAVID WAX MUSEUM HITS MAJOR MILESTONE ON ROAD
About five years ago, the David Wax Museum suspected it might be pulling up on its 500th show. The Boston-born band made up of husband and wife David Wax and Suz Slezak (and a rotating cast of contributors) thought they should do some accounting.
“We sat down and figured out when our 500th show was and then started keeping track, watching the number rise,” Wax said from Washington, D.C., where the pair was finishing a run of six house shows. “We hit 750, but didn't think it was worth doing anything. Then we began looking as show number 1,000 drew closer.”
Not coincidentally, Wax's current tour celebrates the band's 10th anniversary. The group's Lizard Lounge show tomorrow will be its 999th; the Parlor Room gig on Saturday in Northampton will be number 1,001. Between the two will be a surprise celebration.
“We really wanted to make it at a mystery location that we didn't reveal until the day of the show,” Wax said. “I will say this, it doesn't involve any crazy travel plans so it will be around here. Also, when talking about this milestone, we thought about going really big or really small and decided intimate was better for us.”
Wax does amazing with big: The Americana/Mexicana outfit marked a 2011 sold-out Club Oberon show with a marching band, an acrobat, a storm of glittering confetti and five percussionists pounding away on quijadas (donkey jawbones complete with teeth). But they also can find magic as a duo. As romantic, artistic and business partners, Wax and Slezak share a kind of musical telepathy that powers their harmony vocals and instrumental interplay.
“There is this complete integration of all parts of my life,” Wax said of his home and work life. “We live as a family on the road. I'm in a band with my wife. Everything I do is interconnected.”
Maybe this is why the David Wax Museum has made it to 1,000 shows.
“You see a lot of musicians struggling with marriages, trying to figure out how to be present as a parent, but that's not a problem for us,” he said. “Of course, we have a whole set of other problems. We need to have Suz's mom fly into Austin to take care of our daughter while we do seven shows in five days at South by Southwest. For two years, we basically had Suz's dad traveling with us as road nanny.”
But Wax and Slezak (and her parents) have figured it out over years and hundreds of concerts. Not that Wax knows how it will work over the band's second decade.
“I can't really see how, but I still think it will work,” he said. “Even though the past 10 years have gone so quickly, the next seem a long way off. I'm sure we'll figure it all out as we go.”