Where Do We Go from Here

On the 11th of December we did a Christmas concert. I mean, it was a wonderful concert.  Nobody booed. However, people were expecting “Jingle Bells” and what they got was a couple middle-aged rockers constrained by tight shoes and ties. You can’t blame the sweet old ladies in the audience as they tried to relate to “Sweet Jane.” In a few years we will be sweet old men and we will be singing “Sweet Jane” to our own sweet old ladies. And then what? So, what is it that defines us as a band?  Where do we, as a band, go from here?

Before I go on I have to add, in spite of the lack of response from the audience, that the night wasn’t a total loss. We did get some live footage for our “Revenge” video, and that is really what we came for.  Of course, a song about murder and retribution is not very Christmassy.  I haven’t had a chance to look at it yet, but I do have time right now to reflect on a few things.

Things like: “Where are we going with our music?” We left immediately after our set, danced off the stage with our equipment and through a dance floor suddenly full of people swaying and laughing to Latin music and Tango. After getting a complete lack of response to our own music to have to walk through that to get home does something to the ego. If we had learned to play something else and been able to please the Latin Tango crowd then would we be happier? No, I don’t think so. Eric and I have been building it up from scratch for about six years now. Here, in the band The Blue Monsters, we have two very distinct egos, and somehow our egos are able to come together to make some very good music… with the right audience.

I come from a darker place, a place I have struggled up from. Some straight-jacketed blackness and “bouncing off the walls” place from where a certain type of blues and rock was born. Of our songs, the song “Revenge” is about what would happen to a person’s life if that person got the revenge they desired; “The Tower” is about the dark monster that we lock up; and “Drinking Man Blues” is a pretty honest picture of my own drinking. But, you know, I think this darkness hides inside all of us, and we are scared of it, and we hide from it, too. I think we search for others to express our own darkness, either through music or just looking at someone else’s life.

So, what does this have to do with Christmas? I think Christmas, for many of us, can be a dark, lonely time. It’s simple, really. It all has to do with friends and family… and money. Because Christmas time is supposed to be this magical time when a person gets to be around friends and family and get lots of presents. And when that doesn’t happen… well… a person can end up in a very dark place.

And, to tell you the truth, I think there is something even more insidious going on here. I think the people who don’t walk through this darkness in some way – I think the people who have not faced it and defeated it within themselves – or at least consciously held it at bay – still have it inside themselves. They are singing “Joy To The World” but they really have no idea what is going on around them.

So, come to think about it, everybody else can “Deck the halls with boughs of holly…” if they want to. As for me? I think it is up to me to spend this time writing a “Dark Christmas Song“… much like this, but without the laugh track.