I was recently challenged by a longtime friend to explain why I’m still playing music after all these years. I play music because I love it. In fact, I’ve never understood why anyone would play for any other reason… the hours are terrible, the pay generally isn’t any good (unless you’re U2 or something), it’s stinky backbreaking work, while the crowd is going home you’re hauling gear to the van, and you will encounter some less-than-entirely-scrupulous individuals in the entertainment industry. Oh, and while you’re starving and investing every ounce of your energy into creating music, people will ask you when you going to get a “real job”, which is painfully demoralizing. So why do it at all? Why do anything at all? In truth, most people don’t actually “do” much with their lives and ultimately lament having never found or followed their dream. The reason to do music (or anything) is because it’s your *passion*. Yep, being an adult means you have to pay bills and color inside the lines and otherwise be a good citizen. But if your dream is legal, morally appropriate and doesn’t harm little rainforest critters, then it seems you may have found a powerful truth in your lives.
I love playing music as much now as I did when I was in high school. I also happen to really enjoy my day job, too. Approaching music with passion and dedication meant having to take control over the things that were most likely to thwart success. That led to learning about running a business, which led to understanding tax law and incorporation, which led to forming a record label and publishing company to administer copyright, which led to some actual real-world knowledge of how actual “real jobs” work, which led to getting some useful college degrees, which led to getting a job where creativity and business and technology all play nicely together. Nothing has changed about my love for playing music. But now when I hang out with the same people who asked me “when are you going to get a ‘real job’ “, I can ask them “when are you going to do something that you love?”
Last Saturday the Dudley Manlove Quartet took a quick road trip to Lake Chelan for a wedding reception performance. The road trip, as always, was full of crazy humor and musical chatter. We arrived in Lake Chelan early and were set up on site pretty quickly. Mack had been hired to play piano during the afternoon, from the time guests arrived, through the wedding ceremony and during dinner. So while he sat in the sun merrily playing away, the rest of us went back to the hotel and spent a few hours sipping bourbon and lounging by the pool.
The show went well and our set included several requests from the wedding couple. This was the first time we’ve played “Summer of 69” since I joined the band. We changed the key on the song, which meant several of the guitar licks – which involve open string runs – had to be refactored in the new key. As a result, it was quite a bit harder and required a few extra hours of woodshedding to get those parts to sound smooth. It went well and I’d expect to see it making an appearance in future sets.
The wedding reception was at “Karma”, a small winery near the lake. They made their wines available to us for sampling throughout the night, and they do a lovely blend (along with some nice single-grape wines). We performed our set in the underground wine cave. I’m always pretty happy to be out of the sun, especially on hot days like this one.
We’ll be busy this summer performing at private events, but there are lots of great public shows as well. Come join us on Saturday 7/10 for Redmond Derby Days, Friday 8/13 at the Tulalip Casino, and Saturday 8/14 at the Tractor Tavern.
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Music,
My Bands
I’m preparing a list of music equipment to sell, and in preparation I’m looking for some gizmos that will become my new rig. If anybody has a PedalTrain PT2 with hard case or a Line6 M9 they like to sell, give me a holler. I’m going to be selling my PedalTrain PT-Pro with hard case (that’s their big pedalboard setup) along with my Line6 Pod XTLive (with all model packs), and going to a smaller setup. Touch base if you’re selling either of the units in boldface.
A few weeks ago one of my guitar pedals suffered a sad injury at a gig. My “Way Huge Pork Loin” (which is as much fun to say as it is to stomp on) had one of its adjustment knobs broken. I snapped the shaft off the circuit board-mounted potentiometer, and the knob went with it, skittering across the floor to begin their solo career (and they haven’t been heard from since). The pedal still worked but couldn’t be adjusted since the shaft was broken flush with the top of the pedal. Fortunately, the setting was fairly usable and I managed to get through a couple of gigs including the 80s Prom.
I made a few quick calls to the company who makes these pedals and they agreed to send me the necessary parts to effect a repair. Last Saturday I paid a visit to Jeff Stone at Veltetone Amp Works, and he did the repair for me. By the way, Jeff is a great amp tech and I recommend him. So, I’m all fixed up and ready to hit the stage again. I’ll get a chance to test drive the newly repaired setup tonight at 1 Uppers rehearsal; we’re prepping material for our upcoming gig at the Little Red Hen on June 27.
