Documentary By New London Band Pocket Vinyl Captures Life On Road

Pull into a new city, just before sundown, and park the van.

Load in, play a gig for adoring fans, pocket a wad of cash from the smiling venue owner, grab a delicious meal, and sleep between clean sheets. The next day, wake up and relive the romance of the open highway.

Sounds great, right?

“Drive. Play. Sleep.” is a documentary by New London couple Eric Stevenson and Elizabeth Jancewicz, who perform together as the band Pocket Vinyl. The film captures the reality of life on the road: It’s exhausting, goofy, surreal, exhilarating, soul-crushing and occasionally life-threatening.

Conceptually, Pocket Vinyl is an unusual band. Stevenson croons big-hearted melodies and bangs out big piano chords. Jancewicz, a talented visual artist, paints one canvas per show, which the couple auctions off to keep the tour machine running. An undeniable, endearing chemistry holds it all together.

“We’d film everything we could,” Stevenson says. “We’d press play on the camera, interview people when we had the time and the chance, go through the footage and find the story, instead of thinking we were making a huge movie. Just the thought of it was overwhelming.”

For all of 2016, Stephenson and Jancewicz shot video of themselves waking up, driving, sleeping, eating bad food, dealing with car trouble, sleeping in the car, discovering weird stains in cheap hotel rooms (a luxury), and performing.

“Drive. Play. Sleep.” is currently available on DVD and Amazon streaming. The Telegraph, a record store in New London, hosts a screening on Nov. 16 at 7 p.m.

The initial spark for “Drive. Play. Sleep.” was a simple desire to try something new.

“We are always thinking about how to do more things that would get people’s attention,” Stevenson says. “Elizabeth has always been the type of person to say, ‘Let’s just do it.’ She’s always trying to figure out new avenues of expression. We just thought it would be fun and just break up the regular album cycle for fans.”

And although there are plenty of music documentaries, “I’ve never seen one that accurately depicts our lifestyles,” Stevenson adds.

Over seven years, Pocket Vinyl has released four albums; a fifth, “Uncomfortably Unsure” comes out in January. During that time, Stevenson explains, the couple has played more than 700 shows in 46 states.

“I’d assumed by our fourth album, we’d at least be playing for 300 people a night or something,” Stevenson says. “We felt like our last album was a bit of an event for our small little bubble of fans.”

That optimism informs the tour’s early stages. The couple encounters both enthusiastic crowds and apathetic ones. They consume cheap calories; a stranger donates a small trove of snacks. On several occasions, the car (recently purchased) craps out on them, forcing emergency dips into gig proceeds.

“One thing we realized we didn’t want to do is to make ‘Pocket Vinyl: The Movie,'” Stevenson says. “We thought maybe our fans would enjoy it, but unless you have a big name… We wanted it to be more than that.”

They interview other musicians (Connecticut music fans will recognize Daphne Lee Martin, Isaac Young and James Maple), local scenemakers, the couple’s own parents, and each other. The footage is grainy and lo-fi, and audio isn’t always clear. Once you start watching, you get sucked in; the technical imperfections vanish.

Some scenes — Stevenson’s and Jancewicz’s late-night confessions, or the vibe after Stevenson nearly drives off the road — are excruciating.

“We just had, like, the worst week of shows,” a hopeless, bleary-eyed Stevenson says at the outset of the film, foreshadowing what’s to come. “I don’t know what else to do.”

At a recent screening, a college-aged viewer told Stevenson, “That movie makes me never want to be a musician.”

“I’m very happy that we got that reaction,” Stevenson says.

The couple filmed most gigs; it’s a huge amount of performance footage. What the film doesn’t show: Stevenson and Jancewicz arguing, which definitely happened.

“Elizabeth and I never really fight in the film,” Stevenson says, “but there were plenty of fights throughout the year. In retrospect, we wish we had some of that footage in the movie.”

The musicians they spoke to, all of whom had to sign a waiver to appear in the final cut, were happy to participate.

“Everyone I interviewed, myself included: we’re all just artists desperate for attention. We’re all just trying to catch the ear of somebody.”

Stevenson is happy with the final cut, though he worries about its quality.

“It’s far from HD. It was filmed on 720 resolution. We’re afraid that might be a stumbling block. … It’s peeking behind the curtain of somebody’s life, and that’s what we wanted.”

DRIVE. PLAY. SLEEP. is shown at the Telegraph in New London on Nov. 16 at 7 p.m. Admission is free (BYOB). telegraphnl.com