The Reason I Got Out Of Bed

For someone who considers himself a writer, I don't really write that much. This bothers me a little bit. Well, more than a bit, I suppose. I know for a while I was busy, but that's really not much of an excuse. The thing that gets me the most is, I think about it all the time. My brain has been on fire recently. I'm getting ideas at work, getting ideas at home, getting ideas late at night, getting ideas early in the morning. The part that rings strange for me is that over the weekend, I was having a conversation with this person I know, a person I would almost put in the “friend” category, and he asked about my band. A couple of things were strange about this: 1) The night prior to our conversation, Susan and I, and a bunch of people we know, went to the Casbah for their 25^th Anniversary party. For years it has been the Mecca for local music. I used to hang out there all the time. We had some people we know playing that night, plus we ran into all kinds of people that we've known, and hadn't seen for a while. It felt like a reunion of sorts. It was an excellent show. We hadn't been to see a show in a long, long time. 2) I enjoyed the show, as I just said. But it was the first time, that I can remember, that I was not itching to get up on stage. Under most circumstances, up until this point, I have always wished to be on the stage, as opposed to being in the audience. It felt weird to be at a show and not really think about my band playing at all. Although my band mates were present, and I found time to talk about us with them, I still didn't really have the same overwhelming desire to play out, that a show usually causes in me.

Now, as I finished that last paragraph, I was reminded of something that I think needs clarifying, if not for you, then at least for myself. I have been thinking about my band a lot recently. But we're at some new level now, where I'm more interested in making good music than playing out. I'm more excited about the craft of writing and recording good songs, than about being part of a scene. I've listened to our rehearsal discs more in the past couple of weeks than I probably did all last year. It has reached a new level for me, I can see the songs we're working on now as different from our past musings. And I think that is a big part of it too, making some kind of separation from the silliness of old. I've always had a bit of a “tongue-in-cheek” style, which will probably never completely go away, but I'm thinking about it differently now. This I know. So of course, I had to talk to my band mates about it. But there was something specifically different about being at that show. And I think the thing is, and I only thought of this while I was writing, that the bands we saw were getting together for a reunion show, whereas my band is still ongoing. We have continuity. They may have been locally popular 25 years ago, but we still go at it pretty much every week. We are still getting better, we are not done. I don't really know what that means, except that we talk about the music, not just the show. That's important.

Okay, I got a little sidetracked, but I think there's still enough room to salvage this. I did not go into all that detail with the person who asked about my band. We were drinking, and sometimes it seems like if you're in something like a band, then that's all they have to talk to you about. I always believe in being honest, but sometimes you can't be sure if they're having honest intentions. So, I told him a little bit of what I just told you, about thinking more about making music, and less about playing music “out.” I ended up revealing to him the fact that I do miss being on stage. I do almost no entertaining now. That used to be all I thought about. I told him, as I'm telling you now, that I feel I'm in a weird place, because up to just a year or so ago, if someone had asked me what my dream is, I would have had an answer ready for them as they finished the question, without hesitation. But now I don't have any idea what I would say. I still want to be a better person, a better musician, a better writer, but the dream isn't really there. Or if it is I haven't necessarily discovered it yet. I didn't tell him the whole writing bit, I learned a while back when my process first started, that you have to be careful how much you let people know. But I can tell you. I woke up this morning at 7 am, unaided, thinking about writing. I started this by 8:30 am, after trying to convince myself to get a little more sleep. All I can think about is writing, or at least getting the ideas out of my head and on to paper. I'm not sure if that's the dream, but it's the reason I got out of bed.

Daughn