Update your blog babydoll. Your adoring masses are waiting.

Including me ;-D

Seriously. Who would have thought that playing an instrument on stage with 3 other people would be so difficult. In a minute I’ll outline what sucks about being in a band, but first let me go over what’s awesome.

Playing in a band, well, a successful band that does not suck, has a lot of benefits. First off when your set is going good and people are actively getting into your performance, there is no better feeling. Seeing people dance around, cheer after the song is done and come up to you afterward to tell you how good it sounded is the ultimate reward for me. It’s the sweet payoff after all the work that goes into playing live music is done. I like to entertain people, a lot, so being able to entertain 2-300 people in one fell swoop makes me happy big time.

Another cool thing about playing in a band is getting paid for it. We get taken care of pretty good where we play, and that extra money helps out big time every now and then. Not to mention when we play out we almost always drink for free, so there’s another benefit. But getting paid to play music is the ultimate dream. I’m not going to delude myself into thinking that we can make a sweet and comfortable living playing music just yet, but with a lot of hard work there is a chance, albeit a small one, that it could happen.

Another personal thing for me is seeing Tattoogirl sing on stage with us. Let me tell you, gentle readers, that she is absolutely fucking phenomenal. She sings way better than you are probably imagining right now, and being able to perform with her in front of people is just fucking awesome. When we first started dating, she told me she could sing. Initially I was dismissive. I mean, how many broads out there proclaim that they can sing? More than I can count. Tattoogirl is the first and only chick that not only delivered, but knocked my socks off in the process. So we built the entire band around her talents, and in doing so has paid off immensely. I love it when people come up and compliment her on her skill, because if I had my way everyone in the world would hear her sing.

Now onto the not-so-good things about being in a band.

Let me begin by sharing with you a very simple notion: musicians, regardless of age, are nothing but a group of big, whiny, arrogant fucking babies. It seems that the level of baby-ness scales proportionately with how they view themselves either by skill, appearance, or the cursed combination of both. In all my years of playing music I’ve never encountered a more self-absorbed, immature, back-stabbing lot of people than what we have here in the Brevard County music scene. Everyone’s trying to one up each other, people are stealing songs, talking more crap than a zoo full of elephants, and worst of all doing it with a fucking smile on their face. It makes me absolutely sick sometimes to see these people behave like this. They’re grown men and women for fucks sake, acting like 15 year olds. They seem to have lost sight that they are hired entertainment, being paid to entertain a crowd. Most of the places we play come with built-in audiences, aka it’s the cool place to be in town on a Friday and Saturday night and they’ll be there anyways. Some of the bands think that ALL of those people are there for them, when in fact maybe only 5-10% of the crowd is actually “their crowd’. But these wanna-be rockstars have themselves fully convinced that everyone in the crowd is there for them, and acts like it. The prance around making demands, talking shit to and about other bands, and are pushy with the bar staff- all because in their eyes THEY are the draw and without them there’d be no one in at the club. Well, fuck them and fuck that. We all have day jobs. We’re all normal people. I just wish they’d start acting like it.

Moving past that, we get to the club owners. Some of them, not all though, are complete and unrepentant assholes. They will lie to you, give you “advice” that’s better left in the era they’re stuck in, and worst of all try to rip you off. Some don’t even try to hide the fact that they’re douchebags. They don’t care, and honestly why should they? You’re in their house and you have to play by their rules or play somewhere else. It’s a terrible catch-22. We’re damned if we play there, and we’re certainly damned if we don’t. Fortunately we only really deal with one or two people like that and when we do we try to minimize whatever contact we have. The cool owners though? They are like a cool breeze on a hot summer day. The owners that treat you well, pay you well, and generally try to make things easy on you are absolutely some of the coolest people you will ever meet. We like these people.

All told, you really have to ask yourself one important question. After all the time spent practicing, hauling around some very heavy gear, dealing with pretentious fuckfaces and losing whole weekends of free time to play, in the end, is it worth it? Is it really worth all of the stupid, inanely childish drama, or the grief of having to be around some of the scummiest people on the planet?

Hell fucking yes. The payoff of knowing that we completely rocked a set and entertained a whole crowd of people makes if all completely and totally worth it, and I hope to continue this as long as possible. I love music. I love every aspect of it, everything. Music is my life, and I hope to one day make this a career. But for now, I’ll deal with the douchebags just so I can play music in front of people, and with my girlfriend. Because in the end, it is completely worth it.

Tonight I find myself sitting at work due to yet another scrubbed launch attempt, and good god am I tired. This is now day 2 of my fucked up sleep schedule, and while yesterday was fairly easy, today is much rougher. The major difference is a self imposed lack of caffeine. I drank a lot of caffeinated soda yesterday, to the extent that when I got home from work finally I was unable to go to sleep right away. Granted my body was tired but my mind would not shut off. Not wanting that to happen again, I’ve had exactly 2 cans of soda over the span of the 8 or so hours I’ll be here tonight, and the tired is doing interesting things to me. Nothing bad really, just a noticeable decline in my attention span and some issues with my fine motor skills (typing right now is a bit of a challenge.)

Oh well, 1.5 hours and I get to go home, curl up next to Tattoogirl, and sleep in a little bit. I don’t have to come back in tomorrow, so after I wake up it’ll be a normal day with the only major event of note being band practice. However, this launch schedule is beginning to be problematic. The band has a very important show at the Sport’s Edge, the best club to play at in town, on Saturday night, which as it stands now is slated to be a launch attempt day. If the launch does push out that far, I will be unable to play the show. Fortunately, Joe, the bass player for our new guitar player Josh’s other band might be able to fill in, and I’ll know more about that tomorrow. It does suck though to miss a fucking show. Gigs are why I’m in a band in the first place, and I thoroughly enjoy playing at that venue, and to have to miss it because of work is not going to be a very fun thing for me.

At least the paycheck is going to be nice.

There is an epic amount of WTF in this trailer for the upcoming movie Legion, but hey, looks cool to me.

-She has the libido of a starved hooker and has not turned down anything I’ve suggested in bed. Moreover, she’s suggested stuff I haven’t thought of.
-She could out drink you.
-She goes lingerie shopping and sends pics.
-She likes porn as much as I do.
-She has an extensive lingerie collection and is not afraid to use it.
-She tolerates the heaviest of death metal at awkward times.
-With the way she cuddles at night, I could sleep through a nuclear war and still be comfortably smiling and warm.
-She has read and enjoyed ‘I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell.”
-She loves her video games. Matter of fact, she has the Silent Hill theme as her ring tone…
-…On her iPhone. With a picture of us as her wallpaper, with her angelic smile complimenting my best war face.
-She is really good friends with my little sister. Read the rest of this entry »