Musical Harsh Reality for 2011

Being 2011, a new year again, I reflect on my miserable and wonderful life and wonder where I am going. I have to face some harsh things, strip myself naked and put it all out there for myself to look at. The ugly truth. And, being as I am chained to BareFoot MusicNews, this year I get to share it with the world, or at least with my fellow Barefooters. I am a musician. There is no question there. For good or bad, whether I play or not, I will be saddled with this horrible thing. Am I ever going to make my living playing? No. Of course not. And that terrible truth is heart rending, and then it’s OK. And I’ll tell you why!

Eric and I am are good on stage. We play raw and rough rock and blues. And, most importantly, the stuff is ours. And I give it my all. I bare my soul to the crowd for free. And why? I think a performer, to be able to perform, has to be dysfunctional. Oh, some talent has to be there – sometimes a lot and sometimes it is mostly performance, and they have to put the work in – but there has to be something lacking ego wise for the performer to push themselves out there. The performer has to be mentally sick to like and need the rush that comes from an audience. The performer has to want to give and take something from complete strangers. And I know, because I am lacking something too. I’m not telling what, because it is my secret, and I hardly understand it myself… but… um… Ok. I’ll tell.

Maybe the performer has an emptiness they need to fill but they think they can never fill that empty space in their soul. Maybe the performer feels like they are missing something. Maybe it’s the past. Maybe it’s the present. Maybe the performer was bullied a child, but they will never get revenge on those schoolyard bullies. Maybe the performer’s parents had expectations of them as children, but they will never satisfy their parents expectations as adults, because they have their own agendas now. But performers think they can fill their need by going on stage and getting total strangers to scream at them. Well, forget all that Freudian crap. Take it from me. Being on stage is a definite rush. The audience’s applause fills that empty space no problem.  It works.

I moved to Finland six years ago. I couldn’t speak the language and I found the culture and politics overwhelmingly invasive. Before I had come to Finland I had been always been involved in art and music and performance peripherally: piano, trumpet, choir, DJ, theater, film… so I formed the band The Blue Monsters so I could be doing something familiar and distracting. I formed the band to help maintain my sanity in a world I could not understand. It may or may not have worked. It is hard for me to tell from the inside. But the band came together in a strange way. Everybody I knew seemed to play something. This is probably because I was constantly asking people the question “Do you play?” and if they said no I immediately lost interest in them. But I jammed with a few people and eventually a bunch of us met in the basement of our building… and that is how the band started.

In the past six years The Blue Monsters has played music festivals and Christmas concerts and various bars. But, mostly, there is this one bar, and it is called The Back Room, and we play in the middle of the week for beer and a smattering of applause. And I drink a bit of beer and I yell at the crowd. And, if we do well, they hoot and holler back at us. And if we do badly they shout at us to shut up. And if we are lucky some fans will bring a little hypnotic light show which creates a psychic feedback loop which intensifies the whole experience. Wraps up my voice and arms and legs into this ball of unbearable white light and I feel like I have no control. And somehow it all works.

What a rush.

And I still wonder why I do it?

Have a Happy New Year and a wonderful 2011.