It’s been a challenging year. Look I’m not going to bore you with the details of that. It’s bad copy and no one likes a whiner. The cherry on my year came two weeks ago when on my way to a gig I had a horrible car wreck. The car was totaled. Not exactly a “first” you ever want to happen.
The night of the accident I had a private party gig. I was going to sing to my own tracks from my CD for a birthday party at someone’s home. After the police, fire department and the tow trucks had been called, my mom arrived and took me to the gig. It was about an hour away. The gig could have been easily canceled but somehow we both knew I needed to do it, minor whiplash and all. The show must go on. Remember a few sentences ago when I said it’s been a challenging year? Well, stress from the “challenges” can leave your brain a bit…what is the word…if I wasn’t stressed I could probably find it.
It went off well I am told. I was in shock. The details are blurry and the birthday girl couldn’t believe I showed up at all. She sent me a note telling me I was the highlight of the party and included a nice tip. They also packed my gear up for me. I saw that the mic box was in a different compartment but was glad it got packed up so that was good. It was only me and that made it easier no one else to worry about.
The next gig on the calendar was proving to be a bit of a challenge to staff. It was out of town and three of my original musicians had to cancel. Two for very legit reasons, the other one I won’t bother asking again.
Here is a secret I shouldn’t share. Band leading can be a real bitch. (I should use a nicer word. . .or I could go for a redundancy record and say it’s “challenging.”) Between booking musicians, hunting down musicians, getting musicians to communicate in a timely manner, finding them after a break, it can feel more like teaching preschool than anything to do with music. And the biggest challenge of all, hustling the actual gigs that will pay everyone. Here is the other secret: musicians are my peeps and I love them. When it’s swinging on the bandstand and you all look at each other with a smile that is just gold.
For my out of town gig I wanted to take the coastal route up to Santa Barbara because I still had a convertible rental car which would go back the very next day. So I put on a head scarf and big glasses and got in the mustang convertible with the tiny trunk loaded with equipment and hit PCH and checked off a bucket list item. At this gig I will be doing my own sound. Because band leading sometimes means I need to run cables into big boxes with switches and knobs on them. (Thank God I had a good amount of Tech Theatre classes in college; that doesn’t mean I have any idea how to run a sound board but it means that I know it isn’t rocket science) However connecting those cords while sweating in a fancy outfit and false eyelashes is the word I have overused.
I get to the gig and realize I have left the bag with all the cables in my Mom’s car. Oh and that mic box that I had made sure was packed. It was empty.We had transferred everything from my wrecked car, into her car, then a day later into the rental car…except for one bag with my mic and every single cable I needed.
I felt like this was a bit of comeuppance.
There was a gig about a year ago where my keyboard player who has been gigging almost longer than I have been on the planet forgot the cord for his keyboard and we were stuck. He had a musician friend come and give him a whole other keyboard so he could play the gig. But I was amazed that anyone could do that and I have teased him since.
Guess who won’t be teasing anyone ever again. And I owe my namesake a mea culpa phone call.
So someone said I could use the portable mic they had at the venue. I was saved but not before I got my mom on the road to get me that bag that was still in her car. (My poor abused mother.)
In running around trying to put out that fire out I mislaid the key for the cute little convertible.
And those precious new cars don’t even need a key to start you just push a button and off you go if the key is near the car.
I had one of the musicians park behind me blocking me in safe in the knowledge that the car that I didn’t own could not be stolen while I played for swing dancers.
Key was finally found before we even hit the bandstand.
I said to my only regular band member, “We will have fun up there tonight or I will kill you.”
The three sets we played went off without a hitch. And thank God, because I was fresh out of hitches. The crowd was so enthusiastic about what they were hearing I even sold CDs. They filled the dance floor and clapped in great appreciations after each dance.
I had only one musician on that stage that I had worked with before. And that is for any vocalist…okay, time for a new word: arduous. The magnificent John Reynolds on guitar was my anchor. And for what it’s worth we had some really amazing moments musically speaking. I sang some things in a stronger more artful way than I have in the past. I am my own worst critic so to be content with something is rare. It was a hard day’s night no two ways about it.
It was over I was sweaty, exhausted, and my body hurt and as I was packing up someone said something very hurtful to me. It was the type of comment that you realize later comes from a place of pure malice and pain in their own life. The entire night was difficult but just as it was over and I felt good about how it all turned out this human (and I use the title with great reluctance) needed to make himself feel better at my expense. Now normally this would not be a shared story. It would be just filed away and privately dealt with but it really struck me as ironic because of how our country feels right now.
No matter where you stand on the political aisle the divisiveness is palpable. It may not last but right now it’s in the zeitgeist. The person that delivered this barb to me is in one of the marginalized groups that are discriminated against. The one thing that seems clear since the election is that kindness is in short supply. I didn’t reproduce so I don’t have a huge stake in the future. I just want to survive and make music that makes me and hopefully other people happy. The sad truth is that even with our opposable thumbs we have a long way to go.
