stories from the Realm

I love music. I love playing music. I love listening to music. And yet, I hate going to concerts. Even when my favorite bands play, I hate their concerts. I know this probably makes no sense to any of you. That’s ok. See, I hate concerts because I’m a musician, and I always wish I could be on stage instead of in the audience.

But I’m not, because in high school, I struck a deal with my parents: Go to college and get a degree, they said. If you want to fuck around and try to get famous after that, we won’t care. Just get the degree first.

For every band that makes it big, or even achieves some degree of moderate success, there are at least 100 others that languish in obscurity forever. My dad was a member of one of those bands. He still plays the guitar — I grew up around it, and that’s why I play now — but I can always hear the wistful regret in his voice when he describes his days in LA, living in a house with his 3 bandmates, trying to get a record deal.

That never happened. A lot of people would say that represents a failure. It would be better to say that they simply moved on. They have families now, and kids.

Because of my father’s experiences, my view on fame and bands has always been tempered by realism. Not everyone gets to live the dream. Some people spend years chasing it — and for what? So instead of being on the road playing bass, I’m in college now, and I really like it. I’m learning a lot of cool things and I’ve made some awesome friends and I write for a great blog.

But still, every time I’m stuck in a sweaty crowd or a mosh pit, every time I see a live band that crackles with the electricity of music, all I can think is, “That should be me.“