A New Year, A New Day
I'm at work today ... since I am a temp employee if Steve don't work, Steve don't get paid. So I sit here with no one in the building but the guards and me.
I wonder if it is some omen to be alone most of the first day of the first year of the new decade? I would think that being with a group of friends in a warm cozy home watching parades and football on TV would be a good way to start a new year but then as I reflect, being alone for 10 or so hours is a good time for some introspection - not too much though, I don't want to overload.
I waste too much time. That's enough introspection - that one is heavy enough as it is. But really, I do. I will be approaching the last year of my 6th decade on this earth in the spring. I remember when I was processing out of the Navy almost 32 years ago I promised myself I would be heard on the rock and roll scene. I had picked up the guitar to learn in 1973 and found I could not only play well enough to accompany myself but was writing songs people around me requested I play and sing repeatedly.
Several months prior to leaving the Navy several sailors at the shore station I was assigned to wanted to start a band. We found an old house in Groton that was located on 15 acres. The landlady was one of two daughters of a prominent judge who built the house in 1897. The judge died, the daughters never married and apartment complexes eventually surrounded the old house and land. The daughters sought out one of our little band of sailors and asked him to move in and keep the house from being vandalized for very cheap rent. His one condition was that several of his friends move in with him since the house was so huge - 3 stories high, 8 bedrooms on the 2nd floor (5 of the bedrooms had fireplaces!), an attic apartment I stayed in during the summer.
Our commune grew to 6 regular sailors from different submarine commands on the base with irregulars drifting in and out as each season or patrol cycle changed throughout the year I lived there. Amazingly, out of that group of regulars was enough talent to put together a rough sounding band. Most of us were Southern boys, temporarily in a Northeastern seaboard town. We practiced in the living room - a huge room with 12 foot ceilings with a fireplace you could walk into on one side and a den area on the other side of the fireplace with it's own slightly smaller one where we kept a pool table. We could play as loud as we wished without disturbing the neighbors in the apartments - they were about 1/4 mile away. Some youngsters could hear us though and would come up and sit on the porch and listen to us play. We got better in a short time - I took control and set the song lists. We played a lot of Southern band music ... Marshall Tucker Band, Allman Brothers, Elvin Bishop, Charlie Daniels, as well as R&B tunes by Wilson Pickett and Solomon Burke. We played some English blues since it is so much akin to Southern rock and blues.
Someone got wind of our existence and asked us to cut a demo tape. We never did it - he came to the Living Room and listened for about a half hour and then offered us a slot on a Saturday night to play at a club in a small town up the river. We coolly agreed and when he left we jumped up and down and broke out a bottle of something. We practiced hard for about a week or so and then came the night.
We packed our gear and loaded it in several cars and headed upstate. It wasn't far - less than an hour's drive. Before we left I had to find the drummer and the lead guitarist - they decided to really get high and dropped some acid and then went up on the roof and started crowing like roosters. I packed there stuff and squeezed them into my car. By the time we got there they had mellowed out some. We arrived, unpacked equipment, set it up and did a very amateur sound check. We didn't have a P.A. - we had to borrow the house system.
We were the opening band for a to be announced headliner. We weren't savvy about the club scene in the area, so we got up and started the set with "Mustang Sally". The club was in the basement of an old hotel and could seat about 500 people. Evidently it was a popular place, so it was standing room only. The club manager said there was probably 750 people in there. The ceiling was barely 7 feet high and not covered so you could see all the pipes for the plumbing for the rooms up above. The smoke hung on like a London fog.
The crowd was very receptive. We launched into an Allman's tune - can't remember which one. After we finished that song the place erupted - clapping, whistling, stomping. The manager later told me they never had a "Southern band" play there - all the local bands were Boston or NYC cover bands playing songs from bands such as Aerosmith, Boston, the NYC Dolls or Lou Reed at the time. We played for an hour finishing up the set with "Dreams" by the Allmans. We got a request for encore so we launched into a song I wrote called "The USA is the Place to Be". After a standing ovation the announcer called for a break and we pushed our gear aside for the other band.
We went side-stage (no backstage) and were invited to go outside and "burn one" with the upcoming band. There I met Rick Derringer and Edgar Winter - awesome! Texas blues mixed with mid-western rock and roll. They were nice guys, friendly and autographed my electric guitar. It was stolen about a month later.
Thus two months or so later I made the promise I mentioned earlier. 32 years later I am okay with no fame or fortune. But I have songs I have wanted to submit somewhere. At the meeting with the good bishop and his friends I met an actor named Peter. He mentioned that when he came to the point where it was okay to make a fool of himself on stage then that released him to be able to act without inhibitions. I realized right then when he said that that I need to be that way in more areas in my life than just singing in front of people. I need to be that way and not be inhibited by timidity or fear of rejection in submitting my songs, stories, novels or poems to ... to somewhere for possible publication.
So, that is my resolution for the year - to pull one section together and submit it.
Now, the question is - which section first ... ?
I wonder if it is some omen to be alone most of the first day of the first year of the new decade? I would think that being with a group of friends in a warm cozy home watching parades and football on TV would be a good way to start a new year but then as I reflect, being alone for 10 or so hours is a good time for some introspection - not too much though, I don't want to overload.
I waste too much time. That's enough introspection - that one is heavy enough as it is. But really, I do. I will be approaching the last year of my 6th decade on this earth in the spring. I remember when I was processing out of the Navy almost 32 years ago I promised myself I would be heard on the rock and roll scene. I had picked up the guitar to learn in 1973 and found I could not only play well enough to accompany myself but was writing songs people around me requested I play and sing repeatedly.
Several months prior to leaving the Navy several sailors at the shore station I was assigned to wanted to start a band. We found an old house in Groton that was located on 15 acres. The landlady was one of two daughters of a prominent judge who built the house in 1897. The judge died, the daughters never married and apartment complexes eventually surrounded the old house and land. The daughters sought out one of our little band of sailors and asked him to move in and keep the house from being vandalized for very cheap rent. His one condition was that several of his friends move in with him since the house was so huge - 3 stories high, 8 bedrooms on the 2nd floor (5 of the bedrooms had fireplaces!), an attic apartment I stayed in during the summer.
Our commune grew to 6 regular sailors from different submarine commands on the base with irregulars drifting in and out as each season or patrol cycle changed throughout the year I lived there. Amazingly, out of that group of regulars was enough talent to put together a rough sounding band. Most of us were Southern boys, temporarily in a Northeastern seaboard town. We practiced in the living room - a huge room with 12 foot ceilings with a fireplace you could walk into on one side and a den area on the other side of the fireplace with it's own slightly smaller one where we kept a pool table. We could play as loud as we wished without disturbing the neighbors in the apartments - they were about 1/4 mile away. Some youngsters could hear us though and would come up and sit on the porch and listen to us play. We got better in a short time - I took control and set the song lists. We played a lot of Southern band music ... Marshall Tucker Band, Allman Brothers, Elvin Bishop, Charlie Daniels, as well as R&B tunes by Wilson Pickett and Solomon Burke. We played some English blues since it is so much akin to Southern rock and blues.
Someone got wind of our existence and asked us to cut a demo tape. We never did it - he came to the Living Room and listened for about a half hour and then offered us a slot on a Saturday night to play at a club in a small town up the river. We coolly agreed and when he left we jumped up and down and broke out a bottle of something. We practiced hard for about a week or so and then came the night.
We packed our gear and loaded it in several cars and headed upstate. It wasn't far - less than an hour's drive. Before we left I had to find the drummer and the lead guitarist - they decided to really get high and dropped some acid and then went up on the roof and started crowing like roosters. I packed there stuff and squeezed them into my car. By the time we got there they had mellowed out some. We arrived, unpacked equipment, set it up and did a very amateur sound check. We didn't have a P.A. - we had to borrow the house system.
We were the opening band for a to be announced headliner. We weren't savvy about the club scene in the area, so we got up and started the set with "Mustang Sally". The club was in the basement of an old hotel and could seat about 500 people. Evidently it was a popular place, so it was standing room only. The club manager said there was probably 750 people in there. The ceiling was barely 7 feet high and not covered so you could see all the pipes for the plumbing for the rooms up above. The smoke hung on like a London fog.
The crowd was very receptive. We launched into an Allman's tune - can't remember which one. After we finished that song the place erupted - clapping, whistling, stomping. The manager later told me they never had a "Southern band" play there - all the local bands were Boston or NYC cover bands playing songs from bands such as Aerosmith, Boston, the NYC Dolls or Lou Reed at the time. We played for an hour finishing up the set with "Dreams" by the Allmans. We got a request for encore so we launched into a song I wrote called "The USA is the Place to Be". After a standing ovation the announcer called for a break and we pushed our gear aside for the other band.
We went side-stage (no backstage) and were invited to go outside and "burn one" with the upcoming band. There I met Rick Derringer and Edgar Winter - awesome! Texas blues mixed with mid-western rock and roll. They were nice guys, friendly and autographed my electric guitar. It was stolen about a month later.
Thus two months or so later I made the promise I mentioned earlier. 32 years later I am okay with no fame or fortune. But I have songs I have wanted to submit somewhere. At the meeting with the good bishop and his friends I met an actor named Peter. He mentioned that when he came to the point where it was okay to make a fool of himself on stage then that released him to be able to act without inhibitions. I realized right then when he said that that I need to be that way in more areas in my life than just singing in front of people. I need to be that way and not be inhibited by timidity or fear of rejection in submitting my songs, stories, novels or poems to ... to somewhere for possible publication.
So, that is my resolution for the year - to pull one section together and submit it.
Now, the question is - which section first ... ?