O Rock 'N Roll, Where Art Thou?

I've been playing some sort musical instrument since the age of 12 or 13 when I played violin in middle school. At age 15 the next door neighbor brought over his new blood red Fender Stratocaster knock-off that his parents bought for him from Sears and showed me how to play the opening riff to Iron Maiden's Wasted Years and I was hooked. At that time I was firmly entrenched into the heavy-metal stage of my life, musically speaking, and seeing how easy it was to fumble around until I found the right notes facinated me to no end. Later that year I would talk my parents into buying me a shiny black Dean from the Sears mail-order catalog for Christmas.
Twenty-two years, a few guitars, and a couple of hack bands later I sometimes find myself feeling dour while wondering why I'm not as active in my one time passion as I used to be. Careers and relationships have taken over for the pseudo rock 'n roll lifestyle that I once craved and I now fight for those precious few moments when I can sit down, guitar in hand and stare glassy-eyed at the pen and blank piece of paper laying on the table in front of me. Inspiration is harder to come by too, my muse now has my ring on her finger (UPDATE: This is no longer the case.) and the things that used to get my creative juices flowing, anger, jealousy, heart break, are no longer there (UPDATE: Nope, all of that is back.) How do my musical heroes do it? I know they all have families now and some of them have other careers too but I still hear music coming from them, good music.

These days I would be perfectly content with a little garage band. We could practice a couple of nights a week at the house and play a gig at the local pub every once in a while. That would suit me just fine. But a career with many nights spent away from home hampers my efforts to form one right now but who knows, maybe soon. With the internet and my Mac I can at least get the full band experience without having a real band. So at least I can still dream. So what do I do now? All I know to do is to keep playing, take advantage of those rare occasions that a melody or lyric escapes from the old melon, and to rock on.

Below is another old song I laid down and dirty late one night 4 or 5 years ago. It's just me and the guitar and me on backing vocals. It's a really basic recording, the timing is off and so is my voice. It sounds like I was singing a bit out of my range. Who I was into at the time escapes me right now but I do remember that I was living in Memphis in an old house with a single upstairs room, literally, you walk up a flight of stairs and you're in the only room up there. I had my futon, my computer on an old drafting table, and my guitars. Good times.

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