The Real You, the Real Me

 
There's no escaping some things. Death, taxes, meetings.  Even in rock and roll you have to go to meetings. I went to my band's (Le Strange) quarterly business meeting last night.  I'm excited!  We're doing a series of shows with an all girl Kinks tribute from SF. Our last show together was so bitchin' we're shopping the bill around.

Our youngest member is 48 and we play juvenile rock. Faces, Cheap Trick, Joan Jett, Judas Priest, Stones,Alice Cooper, Ramones, Mott the Hoople, Zeppelin etc. We play it with reckless abandon, glassy eyed zeal and tongue in cheek some of the time. We love this music. We believe in this music. In theory, we're a tough sell. In person, the music does the selling.

 Don't underestimate the power of Camaro and keg party rock when its played with a Pentecostal frenzy!  It unleashes your inner 19 year old. That's what happens to me anyway.

I even got paid last night.  Even after expenses, road crew, paying off the opening band, and 15 % off the top we gave to our charity, we did pretty good. An experience I'd have gladly paid to have. 

We made believers out of some skeptics.  Two of my daughters and their boyfriends came to see us. Even they admit they were impressed. Getting them to sign on anything I do is a miracle! Their boy friends know our songs from playing Guitar Hero. 

Rock never died, its just waiting for someone to pull the car cover off, turn the key, burn rubber, and run over a few mail boxes with it. The channels of distribution shifted their focus to dance tronic and rap, "nu metal" and country so people assumed rock was over 'cause they couldn't get the real thing anywhere. No one in our area plays straight ahead full throttle rock. There's a couple good metal and punk bands in town but nothing like us.

Local bands in our demographic are maintaining an image counter to everything rock stands for: Appropriate clothing, appropriate songs and behavior. That doesn't rock! You have to hurl yourself into this music or it won't work. We're idiotic and shameless. Rock is inherently ridiculous. Its supposed to be funny not serious.

I've been to our competitors "shows," they seem so tame and inoffensive.  You'd trust these bands to house sit for you, pick up your kids from school, or worse,  play your wedding reception. A little bit of "rock" a little blues, a little R & B. Proper and polite. Musicians that would never dream of making a pass at your wife or mother. 

 I used to rebel against school and my parents. Now I rebel against the classic rock establishment, my kids, and GQ magazine! You are never to old to rebel. I not only refusing to go quietly, I am going without a shred of dignity.

 The acts we pay tribute to almost never play the radio version live. They take it somewhere else. So do we. Rock shouldn't be stuffed and mounted in some kind of pose that mimics its previous life. We reinterpret the music every time we play. 

When I see a band where the guitarist "Sounds just like Stevie Ray!" I'm impressed for a bout 90 seconds. Then I think "What a waste of time." In a traditional "tribute band" you can never show up at practice with a new idea. We don't force ourselves to fit the songs, We make the songs fit us.

We're going to incorporate our own material. It turns out we've all been secretly writing. So a CD project is on the horizon.

I've played a lot of gigs since my first in high school. There were times I thought it was over. I've hung it up and quit.  I even stopped playing for a couple years at a time. I switched to acoustic instrumental for a couple years because I was "done with rock."

If you told me 20 years ago-

 "When you're 50, you'll be in eyeliner and leather standing onstage holding a howling Les Paul with one fist held overhead shouting "Lemme hear you say 'Rock on!'" and a grinding dance floor will shout back. "

 I'd have said you were out of your mind!  

What I mean is,  its important to be who you really are. To throw yourself into what you really love. Do it the way you believe it should be done.

You are always at your best when you are the most like yourself and the least like the artificial construction that peer pressure, the media and your own self conscious fear tries to force you to act like. Don't buy it. Look at yourself. Uncover the real you and let it out to play. Even if you haven't done so for years.

Will the "real you" shock and embarrass friends and family? Maybe. If they love you they'll come to love the true you and forgive the fake you for deceiving them all this time. You might even give them the courage to let their real self free. Let people say what they want. Haters, critics and gossips will never approve no matter what you do. .