Comfort Zone

As the trip to Memphis approaches, Mitch and I are playing local shows to gain some more money for the trip. Last week we played at the Juneau County Economic Development Corporation's  annual banquet. When we were told that we would be playing there, we had only been practicing for half hour shows, which is what we thought this one would be but, when the flyer came out a few days before the show, it showed that we would be playing for a full hour and a half.

Mitch and I with Senator Dale Schultz

We went into this show pretty much only prepared for one third of the performance. We played for the full hour and a half and managed to not only impress ourselves, but everyone who attended the banquet. Senator Dale Schultz even requested a photo with us.

We ended the show for the raffles to begin, and… (que the flood of compliments) All the compliments we got that night were definitely a confidence boost, and really got me excited for the next show and making it better. Among all the good food and conversation, I think everyone had a great time. Last week's show made me realize something, Stepping out of your comfort zone can be the greatest learning experience one can have.

 

I became addicted to music purely by the grace of a single homeless man at a flea market.

    

  A few years back, in the summer of 2008, I went to the flea market with my mom. We were helping her friend move into one of the shops there. It was a hot, long day and I decided to go for a walk. About halfway through my walk I encountered an elderly man sitting on top of a hot pink hatchback car, he was playing some jazz on his saxophone. Naturally, I complimented his skill and asked what he was playing (I’ve previously been encased in a world where the only music was Led Zeppelin and The Who) He replied, “It’s just a bit of jazz son, haven’t you ever heard of jazz?” 

     I thought to myself “Jazz, what other worldly music is that?” I liked it though. In the back of his car, he had a small drum, he handed it to me and said “Can you do anything on this drum?” I said “sure” I pounded out a few beats as best as a nine year old can, and he started playing his saxophone to the beat I was playing, and in my perspective, it was magnificent. Just the sound and feeling of playing music and it actually sounding good was  like a natural high of its own, so in a way… Jazz was my gateway drug, if you think of that way, this old homeless man gave me drugs. We finished the song, and he asked “how’d you like it?” I said “that was great!” 

     During my three hour meet with him, he told many stories of when he was in jazz bands “back in the day” and how he got interested in jazz. Hours passed, I heard my mom calling in the distance, I said, “I better go.” He handed me a cd case and said “Listen to these, they were mine, I can’t use them.” I asked why he couldn’t use them anymore, He said his car stereo was busted and he was homeless and had no cd player. I thanked him for his time and for the cd’s, he thanked me for listening to him and restoring his faith in younger generations. 

     As I walked away he started playing his saxophone again, and that was the last I ever saw of him. Inside the cd case were CD’s of Clifford Brown, Glenn Miller, Louis Armstrong, and Artie Shaw. Because of this encounter, I joined the school band as soon as I could. I became aware of even more varieties of music including blues and swing and have a cool story to tell. 

      To this day, jazz makes up a lot of my life. Whether it being playing trumpet in my school's jazz band or listening to the majority of my iTunes playlist, and it’s one of those things that I will pass on to my friends and my family so they can enjoy it as I do.

When it all started

Hello all, this is the first blog post for “yours truly”. I don’t really know what to write about. I guess I’ll start when I first aspired to play the guitar and my first guitars. Lets back-track a few years, It’s around 2008(9), I’m sitting in my mom’s car going somewhere ,she’s a reporter for a local newspaper and always out and about around the county. We were flying down the road pretty fast, classic rock station blaring, and like a God sent angel, Over the Hills and Far Away by Led Zeppelin came on the radio. Something about the song struck a chord in me (Ha! see what I did there? Chord…. Get it?). It might have been Jimmy’s awesome acoustic intro, or it may have been the driving chords in the chorus that Led (Ha, I did it again….. Led, like the band…)...that led me to grow a desire to get a guitar and play like Jimmy did.

That didn't come quickly, flash forward about 3 years. We’re at my moms friends house. I decided to be a nosy little bugger and look around at all their stuff in the garage, among all the sports gear and tools there was an old beat up guitar case, inside was a Delta parlor style acoustic guitar. The guitar has definitely seen better days, but to me it was like a treasure chest. At this point I've been asking for a guitar adamantly for years, and I’ve never actually seen or used a real one in person before, and here is one, right in front of me in some ones garage in the country. I quickly ran inside with it, approached my mom and her friend and asked if I could have it or maybe just borrow it to learn. And the moment I’ve been waiting for since I found the death trap of a guitar, They both agreed to let me have it.

Within hours of having it home, I discovered a lot about the guitar, like, it was missing four of the bridge pins and, you can’t make guitar strings out of twine or fishing wire. I found some sticks in the yard for the bridge pins, and my friends dad had an extra pack of guitar strings that he gave me for it. I strung it up for the first time (failed), tried again, this time I succeeded. I didn’t know how to tune it yet, went back over to my friends house to have his dad tune it for me. And actually playing for the first time was the greatest feeling in the world to me. I never let the thing out of my hands, I kept it right next to my bed at night.

Within days of having it and learning to play some songs like Don’t Fear the Reaper by Blue Oyster Cult ,we went back over to her friends house, and I was playing Xbox with her sons, I glanced over into the closet and saw an electric guitar. My eyes grew big and my heart started going crazy… That is the thing I've always wanted -an electric guitar so I can sound like Jimmy Page and do crazy solos. And, like a broken record, the process repeated. I asked the same question, and of course, the same answer.

My first electric guitar -back in 2010

When I got back home, I realized something… I need an amplifier. I went to school the next day and talked to my friend Dylan (Who was a crazy good guitarist) about needing an amplifier, he said he had a small one and a cord in his locker that I could have. I came home with the amplifier and the cord, plugged it in and played, non stop, until my moms ears bled. I learned fairly quickly how to play a lot of stuff on it, mastered Smoke on the Water and went on to other things like Robert Johnson and Skip James, later going onto people like Eric Clapton and B.B. King- that kind of music just stuck with me since. With time I got better and better at it and played the guitar so much that now, I can’t imagine a life without a guitar. If all guitars just vanished from the Earth, It would be like losing a limb to me. Thank you all for reading, hope you enjoyed.

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Jamming Out

Last week my friend Mitch and I video taped Sweet Home Chicago for a project I am working on - while we had the school's auditorium pretty much to ourselves we decided to have a little jam session and give the maintenance guys something to listen to while they took a break. I had a little fun by switching things up ever so often and just as Mitch was starting to get going on the drums. Here is a sample of our jam session.