One voice silenced, another gets louder
I’ve been writing about local music since 1999. It has been a very rare opportunity to combine a great love of writing with a great love of music and I have never taken for granted how lucky I am to have that opportunity.
Whether my writing has ever been good or bad isn’t for me to say, but I have taken some pride in believing that I get to make some small contribution to the musical community by ceaselessly promoting the up-and-comers, the hometown heroes, the old guard, the new guard, the venues, and anyone who ever had the nerve to pick up an instrument or step up to a mic.
I’ve been a musician myself for over thirty years and I can tell you that it is a hard row to hoe. The odds are overwhelmingly against you, the gallery is filled to the rafters with naysayers and amateur sociopaths who take delight in the troubles and tribulations of anyone trying to do more than they themselves have done.
If they aren’t rooting for you to fail, they’re looking for a way to take advantage of you. Harsh, but it’s true, so yes, I DO take pride in rooting for the home team, in being an ally to a community that has all too few allies outside of itself.
I’ve written for a variety of publications, but the lion’s share has been for The Pulse and I am likewise proud of that. In terms of being a slick, well-made publication serving the artistic community, The Pulse has been one of the best I’ve been associated with and I admit, it is a sad day to know this paper may no longer grace my guitar-playing mangled fingertips.
I have no doubt something new will arise to fill the much-needed role The Pulse has played, but for now I want to take this final opportunity to share a few things learned from the stage.
It’s worth it.
It’s worth the aggravation, degradation, struggle, stress, headaches, and heartaches. It’s worth it. When you’re starting out or even if you’re on your tenth project, sometimes it doesn’t seem like it.
You almost assuredly won’t be rich or famous. Hell, you’ll be doing well to break even much of the time. But if it’s in you to play music (or paint, or write, or ANY creative endeavor) then you honestly don’t have much choice and you do it because you have to. Know that at the end of it all, it’s worth it.
When you see that sea of faces whether it’s twenty or two-thousand, smiling, laughing, and singing along with your happy tune, or sitting in stony silence with glistening eyes hanging on every word of the sad song, it’s worth it.
Life is a strange and beautiful thing, but it’s often hard, and when you can help a room full of people forget their troubles for a few hours, oh yes, it is worth every moment of blood, sweat, and tears you’ve poured in to your craft.
Cynical folks are too quick to miss the value of art, but human beings have been creating ever since the first proto-person banged out a rhythm on a rock or used ash and ocher to capture the image of a hunt on a cave wall.
Artistic expression has always been with us, and always will be, because we are more than simple machines requiring fuel to operate and there are some hungers that can only be slaked with words, or notes, or images.
It may rarely receive the appreciation it deserves, but music is important work. Art is important work. It matters, and so I would leave every budding musician or old timer, every painter, writer, sculptor, every actor and actress, and dancer with this admonition: Never give up.
Never succumb to the cynics. Do what you do because, I promise, there are people who need what you have to offer, there are people who will appreciate it, and in the end, for all the misery that can come with pursuing that life, it is worth it.
I’ll see you at the shows. With any luck, I’ll see you in print again. Whatever may come though, keep playing; the world needs you, now more than ever.
Oh, and kids…thank you.