I've got all these things, tools for fun. At 52 years of age, it's kind of ridiculous. Model flying helicopters in the living room. A pool table. The X-box for I-Wish-I-was-Racing. The website. And then, the grail, the recording studio. A heaping mound of sound making stuff, more than anybody in their right mind should have. The home owner's insurance people refused to cover the musical equipment. They said that anybody with that much equipment has gotta be a pro, and they don't cover equipment that's hauled around to gigs.
I've been fortunate in my life to be able to accumulate so much hardware, but it all just reflects my preferences. Much like y'all's hotrods. Hey if you like it, you gather it.
But I'm real concerned about keeping the day job that allows me to have such toys. It could go away any time. And it's hard to explain how much fun it is to make music. And music doesn't pay, except for a rare chosen few. And who decides that? Who "makes it?" It's a mystery to anybody who has played out.
Tonight before I go to bed, I am shuffling through some old songs, thinking about this versus that. It's weird to listen to your own stuff. You hear evey mistake, when everybody else just listens past it.
I thought long and hard...my buddy Chuck and I played a bunch of gigs, just me and the Dobro and him on acoustic guitar, in SC. One night a lady asked the stand-in harmonica player..."Are they GOOD?" She'd never heard the blues before, was really asking. We were playing to folks who literally didn't know what we were doing. But it was fun - they fed us supper, they gave us beer, they LET us play, and at the end of the evening, they handed us MONEY. Not a lot, but enough to make my sidekick Chuck say, "Is this a great country, or WHAT?"
So I'm really starting to wonder about a fallback. I don't think music is it. It doesn't pay. All that to say and display...if I have any talent or not, it doesn't really matter in the scheme of things. You have to be young and look good to "make it," the music is secondary. Or tertiary.
To pull my pants down right here, this studio song among all others is the best I can do. I can't play any better than this:
And I'm thinking on the day that we get a new HR manager and I have to explain to him or her what I do....I'm gonna be shopping. I work in a dying industry anyway. Not a good feeling overall.
I've been fortunate in my life to be able to accumulate so much hardware, but it all just reflects my preferences. Much like y'all's hotrods. Hey if you like it, you gather it.
But I'm real concerned about keeping the day job that allows me to have such toys. It could go away any time. And it's hard to explain how much fun it is to make music. And music doesn't pay, except for a rare chosen few. And who decides that? Who "makes it?" It's a mystery to anybody who has played out.
Tonight before I go to bed, I am shuffling through some old songs, thinking about this versus that. It's weird to listen to your own stuff. You hear evey mistake, when everybody else just listens past it.
I thought long and hard...my buddy Chuck and I played a bunch of gigs, just me and the Dobro and him on acoustic guitar, in SC. One night a lady asked the stand-in harmonica player..."Are they GOOD?" She'd never heard the blues before, was really asking. We were playing to folks who literally didn't know what we were doing. But it was fun - they fed us supper, they gave us beer, they LET us play, and at the end of the evening, they handed us MONEY. Not a lot, but enough to make my sidekick Chuck say, "Is this a great country, or WHAT?"
So I'm really starting to wonder about a fallback. I don't think music is it. It doesn't pay. All that to say and display...if I have any talent or not, it doesn't really matter in the scheme of things. You have to be young and look good to "make it," the music is secondary. Or tertiary.
To pull my pants down right here, this studio song among all others is the best I can do. I can't play any better than this:
And I'm thinking on the day that we get a new HR manager and I have to explain to him or her what I do....I'm gonna be shopping. I work in a dying industry anyway. Not a good feeling overall.
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