Thinking About A Rematch

[edwardofhuncote]

It's bluegrass silly-season... this is the about the time of year when at the last minute, everybody's jumping bands for the upcoming festival tour season. Bandleaders are scrambling trying to figure out who's going to be the best fit to fill what job, both musically and chemically, and it's important because you're about to spend an awful lot of time with these folks in your outfit. I'm still enough 'on the inside' to hear about a lot of these trades/hirings/firings before they happen, and I'm often amused, sometimes surprised by them.

Long story short; I miss the scene, and I'm getting itchy to get back in. It didn't take too long for word to get around I had retired last year, and two offers at bass jobs came in over this past Winter... I gracefully declined both. Getting my shop up and running has been the job, and it still is the priority. I'm still not where I want to be with it, but getting there. Still, it's just in my head that maybe I'm not done yet, and all I would really have to do to make a return to truly rehearsed performing a reality for say... next year, is put my name back out there as available. I would need to make a couple appearances at key places and put that message where it would do the most good, but it's definitely do-able. I also think it would be possible to manage a festival tour schedule and my shop workload, and that's a sticking point. I'd have to be at least a little selective about what gig I took... some of these folks go pretty hard. Some of them take it kinda' easy. I'd need to know what to expect upfront- time, travel, and money-wise, and what would commitment would be expected of me... it couldn't be some loose-y goose-y agreement. Those, by-the-way, are things that one-by-one unraveled my last go at a music career. (to be fair, mostly because of a management deal that went bust, and an agreement that grew increasingly loose-y goose-y after that...) Goes without saying, other than feeding my dreams and ego, this needs to be a revenue source too... like my buddy said one time, the best way to make a million bucks playing music is to start with two million.

I'm healthy, at least for the here and now. Not slingin' 600 lb drums and 50 lb bags around, working 60 hours a week for a livin' has probably contributed to my better life experience. Hell, I walked 8 miles yesterday, just because I felt like it... could have kept going. Still, this could all be gone in a few short years. For now though, osteoarthritis and spinal stenosis is sparing me... my hands are great. My brain still works well, at least musically. Do I want to waste that? It's bugging me that the ability is here, and time is going by awfully fast.

The other, more sensible part of me whispers; "hey dumbass, you ain't 26 anymore, you'll be 56 in a few minutes..." and seriously wonders if he ain't got any business on the road playin' bass again. It wasn't all good. I was joking with Joey the other day about being back down to my Nashville size. Not quite. I weighed a buck-forty-five when I got home from that crazy ride. That's just 20 lbs less than I carry now, and I was actually an inch or so taller back then. So I'd need to be very careful to eat right and live like I had some sense.

One more good run won't kill me... will it? 🤔

[jazzyvee]

Interesting read Greg, I hope you can find the right balance with your shop, health and music life.  I'm thinking of retiring soon but have to stay working for a while to fund some work on my house. Once that's done i will most likely hang my hat as far as working in the corporate world.

 I'm aiming to spread my wings on a few music projects that have been bugging me for years. I love the band thing personally but i seem to be a dinosaur in that respect, as most musicians I know are session play in numerous bands rather than having a core band. I've been looking for a place in a existing band where i can really explore who I am musically at this point in my life. I love reggae and that will always be part of what I do but I have a great bass and I want to find opportunities where i can open up the tone more than i am able to do with reggae. Something around the jazz vibe would be my preference but not exclusively. Good times to look forward to. I will watch your progress.

[BeenDown139]

well good luck is hwat i say.  i just turned 69 and my newly formed band is looking at playing spring/summer gigs when we break outta the basement.  at least i'm not the band's oldest guy this time nor do i have to move the keyboard palyer's piano around.  i'm questioning my sanity.  for playing shows i'm gonna go with the 11.5 lb MKD as my primary player until my shoulders and back cry uncle then it's the 6 lb headless.  not planning on playing sitting down.

but - i cannot stop playing.  this gig may be my last shot. did i say i just turned 69?  well, i did.  wtf am i doing?

[bigredbass]

56?

56?

I turn 70 this coming Tuesday (and as an aside, St. Pat's is the 17th, as if Italia care about the Irish, my birthday the 18th, and for all you serious Catholics like my mother and grandfather, St. Joseph's day is the 19th), so you're just a kid. 

It would have to be exceptional to throw my stuff under a bus again, big time, Uh-uh.  IF you wanted JW's opinion, your shop will come first, play some local gigs as they come, and really, who wants to go back to eating in truck stops?  Though I gotta admit, the best sleep I ever got was in my bus bunk.  But I don't miss it THAT bad.

[David Houck]

An interesting read indeed.

In the things I read and interviews I watch, one thing that I come across from time to time that I think is of value is the situation players talk about when they are in a band that is tight, where everyone is listening to each other, especially with music that is improvisational, like bluegrass can be, like jazz is, like the Grateful Dead, where there is an opportunity for everything else to fall away and you're in The Flow; that timeless place where the music just flows through you and you are that flow.  For many musicians, that's why they keep doing it; because they don't find that place anywhere else.

Art can take you to that place; and lutherie is an art.  It is perhaps a question for the heart; and the answer can appear if you meet the right group of people, or if you don't.

[peoplechipper]

If you can make it work out with a good group of folks them maybe it's worth doing, as long as you're not sleeping on floors; I'm getting my band up and running again soon (drummer recovering from double hernia) but I have no plans on touring since we are a kinda sludgy punky band like Killdozer, so touring would involve losing money and sleeping on floors; I've done it in the past and it was fun, but I'm 59 and that shit ain't fun at that age, feels more like desperation...

[cozmik_cowboy]

There are times I think I was lucky to get out while I still loved it, so I could miss it all these years (bailed to feed the kids at 28; 69 in 20 days).  I was lamenting to an old roommate & crewmate not long ago about my hearing loss, and how now I could never be anyone's soundman again even in my delusional fantasy world.
He stuck with it & retired a few years ago as head of sound at Ravinia Festival (you guys play there, Jimmy; you know Norm?) and said the he'd hated it for a while ("It's a game for someone in their 30s, not their 60s").

But if I was the sort to think I was put on Earth for a purpose (which I definitely am not), I'd have to say that purpose was to help talented people make music; I can't help but feel that I let myself and all of you who are talented down by wussing out just because I had kids, and the selfish little bastids wanted to do things like eat every day, and not bucking up and doing it for as long as I could.


I do know that after this long only doing an occasional hobby gig I would hesitate long & hard before subjecting what's left of my spine to that again (though if I did, I would make it a hard rule that there will be no more carrying spinets & B-3s up fire escapes to 2nd-floor venues.......)



Peter (who does, yes, even miss now & then sleeping on strangers' floors)