Father update, and words on gigs
Mar. 20th, 2007 06:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
parasitegirlMy birthday gifts from dad arrived today, way ahead of schedule. His gifts usually arrive in Japan a month or so after the event they mark.
Included were DVDs (Freaks, Under Suspicion, and Robin Hood (Errol Flynn version) ) the first three Sue Grafton alphabet mysteries on CD, pictures of my thinner stepmother after the stomache stapling (done to help her better combat diabetes) and a large book about Katharine Hepburn and more.
Which reminded me that I had not posted the email he sent me about performing after he'd read about my MTVcafe night. I think my father is overjoyed about my dance because, unlike art and everything else I love, he feels he can connect to me as a performer...he can finally "get" part of me the way he's always felt he couldn't before.
So here it is:
It sounds as if your last gig was a somewhat hellish and disconcerting experience. Play dates can be like that.
Every once in a while, sitting around a jam or campfire, the musicians start to talk about their worst playing experiences. It usually moves to "who had the worst gig", with the stories becoming more and more horrendous (and embellished).
My worst gig was at a birthday party for Lisa Steeno (my former bass player) at the old Ken's Bar.
I changed my strings at the rear of a dark bar area and then went on stage. Unbeknownst to me, the second string had not seated in its groove on the bridge but beside it on the bridge---bringing the string closer to the first string. The tolerance was off...
When you play and practice with a certain distance between strings while playing with three fingers, you know where you are. I knew no longer where I was.
As I performed I couldn't hit the roll. At first I thought my timing was off....then I thought I might be very drunk ( though I had drunk only a little)...then I thought I was having some sort of stroke or mental lapse.
The stage, which had for years been a relaxing area, a place where I was at ease, now became a minefield of doubt and intimidation. It was if I was playing a totally unfamiliar instrument. The "deer in the headlight" look and feeling was upon me.
I got through the evening and the next day I discovered what the problem was.
They made a CD of the evening.....I have never listened to it and never will.
Just my way of saying that he physical problems of performing are sometimes out of your hands. You can put the odds in your favor by pre-planning (a skirt that lets in less light or changing strings in the light), but you can never plan for everything. You can only put all of the crap out of your mind (bad musical levels, small stages, disintersted audiences and drunken patrons) and just perform your art.
Included were DVDs (Freaks, Under Suspicion, and Robin Hood (Errol Flynn version) ) the first three Sue Grafton alphabet mysteries on CD, pictures of my thinner stepmother after the stomache stapling (done to help her better combat diabetes) and a large book about Katharine Hepburn and more.
Which reminded me that I had not posted the email he sent me about performing after he'd read about my MTVcafe night. I think my father is overjoyed about my dance because, unlike art and everything else I love, he feels he can connect to me as a performer...he can finally "get" part of me the way he's always felt he couldn't before.
So here it is:
It sounds as if your last gig was a somewhat hellish and disconcerting experience. Play dates can be like that.
Every once in a while, sitting around a jam or campfire, the musicians start to talk about their worst playing experiences. It usually moves to "who had the worst gig", with the stories becoming more and more horrendous (and embellished).
My worst gig was at a birthday party for Lisa Steeno (my former bass player) at the old Ken's Bar.
I changed my strings at the rear of a dark bar area and then went on stage. Unbeknownst to me, the second string had not seated in its groove on the bridge but beside it on the bridge---bringing the string closer to the first string. The tolerance was off...
When you play and practice with a certain distance between strings while playing with three fingers, you know where you are. I knew no longer where I was.
As I performed I couldn't hit the roll. At first I thought my timing was off....then I thought I might be very drunk ( though I had drunk only a little)...then I thought I was having some sort of stroke or mental lapse.
The stage, which had for years been a relaxing area, a place where I was at ease, now became a minefield of doubt and intimidation. It was if I was playing a totally unfamiliar instrument. The "deer in the headlight" look and feeling was upon me.
I got through the evening and the next day I discovered what the problem was.
They made a CD of the evening.....I have never listened to it and never will.
Just my way of saying that he physical problems of performing are sometimes out of your hands. You can put the odds in your favor by pre-planning (a skirt that lets in less light or changing strings in the light), but you can never plan for everything. You can only put all of the crap out of your mind (bad musical levels, small stages, disintersted audiences and drunken patrons) and just perform your art.
