Breaking into the Scene

Songwriting, recording, playing open mics - rinse and repeat

The summer of 2006 was the time I got onto the rock and roll train ride with no intention of getting off. While at work, I opened up a Craigslist ad that was looking for a singer. The audition didn’t go well, but unlike after the punk bar experience in 1997, I was committed to make it work and try again. I started to understand that music was a lot more complex of a craft than it seemed. It requires the technical and production knowledge of setting up the gear, stage, and sound. You need to understand theatrics, public speaking, and performance. There is a strong requirement of understanding how to promote your music and work with marketing and networking strategies. You need a good sense of business management, and possess impeccable planning skills. You also need to be incredibly skillful in performing the music, obviously, not only as a good performer, but also a good composer with an understanding how to record songs properly. It takes a lot, and it seemed to be right up my line of interests.

I had plenty of creativity to dive into, and the job I was working at didn’t need a drop of it. I gave Shannon the news that I was going to be a musician. She was a little shocked and confused, not really understanding of the motivation, but she was fully supportive.

I decided to put all of my other endeavors, like television production, writing, and so on, to rest. I was interested in pouring all of my creativity into this medium of rock and roll. Bird, of KouseFly, had no idea what he was in for when he invited me over to kick off a band. I was like a firecracker, and the fuse was already lit, with me ready to explode into music. He quickly found that part of his role in our music partnership was to hold me back, like an excited dog going for a long-awaited walk. Bird knew how to correctly chart the course to recording and releasing our album.

I didn’t find anything odd in wanting to become a musician as an older person. I thought of the story of a friend of mine to help validate my reasoning and desire to rock the stage. The friend’s name is Chris and he loved to sing karaoke, hosted at Kayo’s next to the Riverhouse in Bend. He’d go in every week and sing his favorite funky tunes, including songs from James Brown, Earth Wind & Fire, and Prince. He’d get up on the mic and throw his whole body into the song. He really loved being a show-person.

One night, after finishing up with his evening fun, he was approached by a band who was playing at the Riverhouse.

The guitarist asked, “Hey man, you’re pretty good, are you in a band?” “Ah no, I’m just doing the karaoke for fun,” my friend Chris responded.

“We are looking for as singer, and can pay you good money if you are down for doing some touring,” the bassist standing next to him responded.

A month later I learned that Chris quit his job, and was playing all over the Northwest with the band. Though I was not anticipating announcing something like that to Shannon, with my new band KouseFly, the story of how Chris went from driving forklifts to running around stage in a purple jumpsuit made me think that anything was possible, and that there weren’t age limits to performing live music.

The first show I played with Bird was on the rooftop of a wine bar downtown Bend. The same place where I had faked a photo of me playing a show for my blog about six months earlier. Bird and I had a couple songs written, and we threw in a few cover songs. We are both fans of The Beatles and we wanted to commemorate their last performance, which was on Jan. 30, 1969, performed on the roof of their Apple Corps building in London. It seemed fitting to have our first performance in the same fashion.

Although, the show didn’t go that well for us at all. I was very nervous, had a fear of heights, then I broke a string; we didn’t set up the sound properly and it was pretty rough. I told Bird that maybe we should start playing at the local open mics to work out the kinks of my performances. So, we started going to M&J Tavern to hammer out weekly live performances after spending some time recording the album.

Meanwhile, life for Shannon and me would start to quickly have its ups and downs. The country was still suffering in a recession economy. The telecom company I was working for ended up selling to another telecom company and, unfortunately, the smooth-sailing job I had was eliminated.

It was really bad timing.