The Strings of Misfortune

As musicians, we have all been blessed with the inspiration that comes with creativity, and in turn, we have all felt the sting of being held back by the unending obstacles that always seem ready to get in our way. I grew up in a family in which being creative was, if not pushed, then indeed nurtured, if that’s what we had in mind for ourselves. My mother’s brother is a guitar player, and he over anyone else was the initial inspiration for my looking at the guitar as something that I could contribute to instead of just take from. He grew up in the sixties and was a huge rock fan. He was often fond of telling me how when he got out of high school he had “my guitar in one hand, and my amp in the other,” and how it was the Vietnam War draft that kept him from pursuing it in earnest. He went for a biology degree instead so he could get his college deferment and avoid getting his balls blown off. And it’s a shame too, because he has a lot of talent, and he has since kept it almost exclusively to himself (along with his Gibson SG and Fender Twin Reverb – both seventies models, and both worth a mint). So I picked up the guitar for good when my family moved to the eternal swamp that is Houston, Texas. You have to picture the era: the wee hours of the 80′s. Bands like AC/DC, Boston, Styx, The Eagles, The Police, Aerosmith, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Billy Squier, and on and on, are all at the top of what kids my age, in my social universe are listening too. And no, there’s no detached sense of irony felt while tuning in. When my neighbor slapped on his copy of Montrose’s “Bad Motor Scooter,” he did so because he really thought that one day, he too would get on his bad motor scooter and ride. Of course, as it turns out, my old neighbor is still stuck in this era, and I have written on him, and his part in my life, in this blog.

It didn’t take long for me to sour on the whole concept of being a guy like Eddie Van Halen, or Joe Walsh, or any other nit-wit from that era, as far as guitar playing went. In fact, before long, the whole macho, testosterone-soaked hillbilly bullshit that was so popular in my school was beginning to get real old, real fast. And as for music, I started imagining that there must be more than just this. And thank god for the other neighbor that lived a few doors down in the other direction. Joe was a little kid. A skater and surfer who lived with his unimaginably fucked up parents, but somehow managed to turn out fairly normal. Joe was always one step ahead of me as far as music went. He could never play anything, try though he might, but his taste was always right where I wanted mine to be, and once I broke away from the “wolf Dawg,” the road lay open like the proverbial rose. Thanks to Joe, I got into guys like Peter Tosh, Squeeze, Split Enz, The Alarm, The Birthday Party, and most importantly, Minor Threat, and hardcore in general. It was Joe that accompanied me to my first hardcore show ever back in the summer of, don’t laugh, ’81. It was at a club that I think was called the Doomsday Warehouse, and on the bill that night were Pissed Youth (who went on to become Stark Raving Mad once they moved up to New York), The Anarchitects (featuring a one Mr. Scott Ayers of future Pain Teens fame on guitar), and a relatively unknown D.R.I., who we missed because they never showed up. I fit right in because that summer I had shaved my head in protest of being so incredibly bored with my life. I wasn’t really a hardcore fan at the time, but by the time I hit the show, I felt at home.

I guess all the debauched idiocy that was the core of the Clear Lake Schlong Weasel scene has rubbed off on me, because no matter what I do with music, I am always enamored of nontraditional uses for highly distorted electric guitar. Not to say that I don’t enjoy the obvious, or the approachable, because I really do. I guess my point is that for me, I was a kid thrust into a place that was virtually at odds with how I felt most comfortable. Playing the guitar was at first a way in, and eventually/ultimately a way out. Thanks to people like Joe, I was able to survive the death of humanity that Texas represented to me. I learned that no matter what I felt was in my way, it was only up to me to recognize a way out.

And no, I’m not good at handling being cornered, I simply know now that there is an option to being miserably entangled in a seemingly endless mire. The guitar was a way for me to take a tool of, well, tools, and use it to transcend the horrors of my depressingly dim future.

So did I manage to make a traditional life out of my musical abilities? Not exactly, no. But I did manage to use the guitar to create something else of the way I viewed myself; I was able to forge a new role in my own mind for what I could be. And I still use the guitar in this same way today. My job is menial, I am married and I have a kid, with another on the way, so the options for pissing off and hitting the road, and touring with other sweaty men, are quite frankly unwelcome vagaries in my mind. And huddled in the corner, always beckoning me is the acoustic that I almost exclusively play now. I don’t need it in the way that I used to, but it’s always there when I do need it.

So when I think about how lost I felt before I picked up music, it reminds me of how lost I’ve been feeling of late, and again, in turn, I look to the guitar as inspiration to pull me through the muck of my own making.

I’ve been accused of being many things, many of them misguided, but many more probably quite true. If you know me at all, then you know my propensity to function almost entirely within the confines of my head. So while I feel as though I am in a form of semi-retirement from the rigors of interactive performing, I can’t help but imagine that I will return at a later date and pick up where I left off, but with a renewed sense of purpose and focus. And I also hope to do so in the company of those who share some of the ideas I have about how to take the obvious instruments of the rock canon, and make them sound in a way that isn’t quite like anyone else. The free improvisers sometimes get it right. I’ve never heard another single recording as amazing as the Evan Parker track I once heard on KTRU. It was like this fucking Brit was channeling everything I wanted to say through the reed of his sax. I was in equal parts intrigued, inspired, and ready to wring his limey little bearded neck for getting there first. Steve Albini said that Big Black broke up because the all agreed to do so the moment they felt they weren’t totally killing on stage anymore. Anything else would be a disservice. I can relate to this theory, but I never had the resolve that Big Black did. I’m hoping I may one day find it in me.

One day I’ll meet Music in a dark alley. We’ll cross paths late one night. I’ll stop Music, turn it sharply about, and then beat the daylights out of it. I’ll swing with all the anger I can muster. Every lost minute I invested into Music will be pounded back in retribution. And when I’m done, when Music lies on the ground, bloodied, too weak to stand, I’ll help it up and take it out for coffee. Once we work things out, I think we’ll be cool. But until I give it the beating it deserves, we’re not getting along too well for now. Ah what the hell, we always hate the one’s we love.