It's been a while, so if you're actually reading this, first of all thank you for reading this blog, and secondly thank you for your patience. By now you may be wondering what happened. The Stonewall Reception was in July 2006 and here is my first post since. What happened?
1.) My employer was put on the market and sold by its parent company after 36 years of ownership. Luckily, our new parent company has no overlap or redundancy with us in terms of market share, product offerings, or even physical locations. This so far has translated to almost no layoffs in the company. All the same, the transition has been quite time-consuming.
2.) As my employer has a generous tuition reimbursement benefit available, I have taken advantage of it to finally start grad school to obtain my Masters in Business Administration with Technology Management (MBA/TM). I had been considering a Masters degree for quite some time, but my night-time musical career was going so well. I wasn't ready yet to give up playing 2 -3 shows per week and touring to play shows in Chicago and Austin. I also needed a little more time to grow up. But in 2006 the opportunity arose, and I was ready for it.
3.) We bought a house. Enough said.
4.) We had baby #2. Enough said.
So... what happened at the Stonewall Reception? How did it go? It was the most fun I had sounding like crap. We rehearsed well going into it. On the day of show the mandolinist's wife (also a musician) wanted in on the act, as did my wife. They both wanted to sing harmonies in the same songs... without the other one there. No matter how I tried to divide what was available, neither were happy. So I told them that as the leader of my band, my project, my name on the bill, etc., that it would be my call as to who does what, and if they didn't like it, they didn't have to join us on the stage.
Oh, by the way, the mandolinist and his fuming wife are also running late as they have hit an extraordinary amount of traffic coming up the Maine Turnpike due to an accident. My time slot is quickly approaching, and they haven't arrived, so I make the call to have the next band go ahead and start playing if they wanted to (which they did). The mandolinist and his wife arrived before the following-turned-preceding act was done, and up we went onto the stage.
One thing I hadn't taken into account until it was to late was that the whole time we had been rehearsing sitting down, and I had figured that there would be chairs available on the acoustic stage as they were the previous year. I was in for a surprise. Normally this wouldn't bother me one bit, but the reason why it did this time was due to my inexperience playing the acoustic guitar. The angle of the instrument in my hands changes from sitting down to standing up, which threw me off where it counted the most. I missed chords, hit the wrong string at times, and grew more frustrated at how badly I felt I was falling apart. At the end, after making our way through 7 songs, I called it quits for the day despite protests from the mandolinist and violinist to do more.
Despite positive feedback from the audience, I felt like I bombed. The most objective feedback I would have appreciated would be a video recording, but the one video camcorder present that day had malfunctioned. Thinking back (way back), I recall bombing the first time I played drums in front of a live audience, and I really bombed. Same thing happened for the bass (each for the 5-string, the upright, and the fretless). Obviously I'm not discouraged. I just look back on that show as a learning experience with plenty from which to learn.
I have looked to play more shows on the acoustic guitar and keep the Newcomer Revue going forward, but the obstacle I have encountered is the same one encountered with contributing to this blog: scarcity of time. The Stonewall Reception itself came to an end after that show, concluding a 2-year run. My friends who planned and ran the festival on their 25-acre property in Dayton, ME, sold their house not too long afterward and moved to Haverhill, MA after they gave birth to their first baby only a month after the festival. They keep joking about how they're going to revive the Stonewall Reception at their new location, but I don't see that happening where they only have 2 acres to work with and are much closer to their neighbors. C'est la vie.
1.) My employer was put on the market and sold by its parent company after 36 years of ownership. Luckily, our new parent company has no overlap or redundancy with us in terms of market share, product offerings, or even physical locations. This so far has translated to almost no layoffs in the company. All the same, the transition has been quite time-consuming.
2.) As my employer has a generous tuition reimbursement benefit available, I have taken advantage of it to finally start grad school to obtain my Masters in Business Administration with Technology Management (MBA/TM). I had been considering a Masters degree for quite some time, but my night-time musical career was going so well. I wasn't ready yet to give up playing 2 -3 shows per week and touring to play shows in Chicago and Austin. I also needed a little more time to grow up. But in 2006 the opportunity arose, and I was ready for it.
3.) We bought a house. Enough said.
4.) We had baby #2. Enough said.
So... what happened at the Stonewall Reception? How did it go? It was the most fun I had sounding like crap. We rehearsed well going into it. On the day of show the mandolinist's wife (also a musician) wanted in on the act, as did my wife. They both wanted to sing harmonies in the same songs... without the other one there. No matter how I tried to divide what was available, neither were happy. So I told them that as the leader of my band, my project, my name on the bill, etc., that it would be my call as to who does what, and if they didn't like it, they didn't have to join us on the stage.
Oh, by the way, the mandolinist and his fuming wife are also running late as they have hit an extraordinary amount of traffic coming up the Maine Turnpike due to an accident. My time slot is quickly approaching, and they haven't arrived, so I make the call to have the next band go ahead and start playing if they wanted to (which they did). The mandolinist and his wife arrived before the following-turned-preceding act was done, and up we went onto the stage.
One thing I hadn't taken into account until it was to late was that the whole time we had been rehearsing sitting down, and I had figured that there would be chairs available on the acoustic stage as they were the previous year. I was in for a surprise. Normally this wouldn't bother me one bit, but the reason why it did this time was due to my inexperience playing the acoustic guitar. The angle of the instrument in my hands changes from sitting down to standing up, which threw me off where it counted the most. I missed chords, hit the wrong string at times, and grew more frustrated at how badly I felt I was falling apart. At the end, after making our way through 7 songs, I called it quits for the day despite protests from the mandolinist and violinist to do more.
Despite positive feedback from the audience, I felt like I bombed. The most objective feedback I would have appreciated would be a video recording, but the one video camcorder present that day had malfunctioned. Thinking back (way back), I recall bombing the first time I played drums in front of a live audience, and I really bombed. Same thing happened for the bass (each for the 5-string, the upright, and the fretless). Obviously I'm not discouraged. I just look back on that show as a learning experience with plenty from which to learn.
I have looked to play more shows on the acoustic guitar and keep the Newcomer Revue going forward, but the obstacle I have encountered is the same one encountered with contributing to this blog: scarcity of time. The Stonewall Reception itself came to an end after that show, concluding a 2-year run. My friends who planned and ran the festival on their 25-acre property in Dayton, ME, sold their house not too long afterward and moved to Haverhill, MA after they gave birth to their first baby only a month after the festival. They keep joking about how they're going to revive the Stonewall Reception at their new location, but I don't see that happening where they only have 2 acres to work with and are much closer to their neighbors. C'est la vie.
posted by John | 3:35 PM
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