Lost Musicians Are A Sad Thing

It's amazing how quickly one can forget what they are.

While the Bastard Groove Orchestra is a recent creation of mine, I've been involved in this music thing for some thirteen years or so. Long time. Many nights making ridiculous noise into the night, of tearing other people's music asunder trying to discover the inner core of the holy music. Many days of scribbling angry words into notebooks and replaying songs over and over in my weary head. Yes sir, I've been at the game for some time.

So now it's serious. I've got a body of work to stand behind and defend. My days are no longer spent screaming into the world, "Someday I'm gonna be a great musician with an album of my own," like some bad after school special. That day is here. Now is the time to stand tall and revel in accomplishment.

Well, not really.

Apparently, now is the time to put in serious amounts of work. Only the world can make you great, and from where I stand the world really doesn't know I exist. Time to put the hammer down and inspire my peers on this big bulbous globe with the sounds of my passions.

Sound poetic? It's really not. But on days when getting out of bed is difficult, sometimes a little poetry is just the ticket.

So, I do what it takes to turn on the world to my works. In the past that meant sending e-mails and sounding positive. These days, it seems to take a bit more. I've had to learn HTML code to keep up appearances, get an understanding with the graphic arts just to stand out in the crowd. Not to mention writing in this damn thing day in and day out. Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy composing nonsense every day and ruining the purity of the written word with each sentence I complete. But, considering that I'm a guy who wanted to write music through his days, it's been quite the stretch to sit her now doing this.

So much of a stretch as a matter of fact, that I notice I don't actually make much music these days. Just the other day I picked up a guitar and it felt strangely foreign. I almost couldn't remember how to handle the thing anymore. And my callouses are gone for fucks sake! Pampered under too many soft keyboards and cutting boards. I suspect if I played an instrument for more than an hour, my fingertips would be in such agony, they'd try to rip themselves off from the knuckle.

Dear god, what if under all the pressure to show the world my music, I've forgotten how to play music? What if I can no longer play all these songs I've written and fought with? Well there'd be no quick end to it. After all the fuss I've made, I couldn't just skulk quietly into the night and reappear changing motor oil in some gas station years from now. People would talk. We can't have that.

Thankfully, investing so much time and energy into my craft has it's advantages. The feel, the flow, and the unbridled fury all came back to me. Like riding a bicycle, who'd have thought it?

Writing the remix for Dance Of The Dead turned out to be glorious therapy. I composed nonstop, bouncing take after take until things were perfect. Didn't even stop to consider all the happenings in the world. It was me and an idea. And we quarreled through day and night until I was satisfied.

And it felt good. Felt good to handle the strings, to think of arrangements that were pure magic, and force them into existence. I almost felt like a musician again, dear god.

I guess the moral is to never stray too far from where you're going. It's easy to get lost in the thick of things when the ultimate goal becomes hazy. Tossing in the towel is much easier than you think. So stick with it boys and girls, and hopefully the unbridled joy of doing what you do best will never leave you.