Valuable Lessons

I was thinking today on the way to work, that if I had any advice for a beginning performer, it would be MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A LIFE first. A community of musicians is absolutely essential, YES, but it is also very important to make sure you have a foundation outside the music world. It gets REALLY NUTS if you don't.

I feel very grateful for the opportunities I found in the scene I started out in. Some of the musicians I met there are still my friends, and still people who inspire me. It was an exceptionally vibrant place to start out. There were places to play and a lot of good music being created. However, it was also a place filled with competitiveness, raging insecurities, and people (me included) who were there to fill a void somehow. People who had power wielded it for good or ill. In the end, the very things about it that inspired me, dragged me down, and I didn't have anything to go on. When I left, I felt chewed up and spit out.

I'll never forget coming back almost two years later to play the club that had a lot of personal weight to me, not to mention "industry" weight. Since the last time I'd played there, I'd been blackballed for personal reasons, I'd quit music for awhile, and I'd basically had what you'd call a breakdown. It took a tremendous amount of guts for me to get up there and play, and I was shaky and scared. It went fine and I was just about to feel proud of myself, when I got off the stage, and was approached by one of the soundbooth guys, both whom I had known for years. The first words out of his mouth were: "Yeah, we were listening to you and M. said, 'Oh, is that a NEW song? Maybe it'll be ANOTHER ten years before she comes out with another album.'" It was meant to be funny, but it sent me REELING. The old machines started to kick in and I started to go to the BAD PLACE in my head, the one that said SEE? YOU'RE TERRIBLE AND THEY KNOW IT AND YOU DESERVE THIS AND WHAT IS THE POINT? But I had one thing in my pocket then that I didn't have before: Graham. I repeated this to Graham, about ready to pack in my guitar, and have a good cry, and his response was to be IRATE. "WHAT? I'm going to KILL that GUY. Who the hell does he think HE IS?"
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you, THE CORRECT RESPONSE IN THIS SITUATION.

When I told another friend about it later, his immediate response was, "Sounds like someone who never has written a song in their lives."

These are the responses I didn't have before. When all your friends are in the same small pond, they are all breathing the same air--sometimes inspirational and sometimes toxic. They aren't always able to mirror back to you REALITY, because they are so far down into their own worries and insecurities. After I talked to Graham and my friend, it was like a HUGE LIGHTBULB popping above my head. Those two guys at the club, whom I realized I had given so much power, live and breathe that atmosphere and often stir it up with their opinions, which are fueled by their OWN crap. In truth, they really DON'T KNOW DIDDLY of what it is to be an artist. It was the first in many moments that helped me start to recover and to truly take back my artistry.

I have a show tonight that I am excited about. Actually, I have a couple of shows in the next few days that I am excited about. This weekend I am heading to Massachusetts, my old stomping grounds, to do a radio show and then to follow it up with a two hour set in a coffeehouse I haven't been to in ages. Going to Boston is always a mixed bag for me. I lived there for seven years, and began my humble career as a musician there. It's a loaded place for me, because when I left, I felt like I was running from the hounds of hell. What I've learned since is that I was really running from myself and all the mistakes I felt I couldn't outlive. It's not as icky as it used to be. I am actually excited about going this time--not just to play, but to see friends, do business, and go to my favorite cafe. Things are better, because I am better. I've learned some valuable lessons in the last year alone. One of them is truly that I love my life and from that place A LOT of good can happen.