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Archives
Looking back |
My friend Charles Lynn once observed that those who can, do, those who can't... buy equipment. Guilty as charged. I can't remember a time when I didn't own at least one musical instrument, and I can hardly play a note. Right now I keep an acoustic bass guitar, several harmonicas, a very nice set of bongos and a variety of ethnic hand drums near my desk. Every now and then I'll pick up a drum and bang on it, or tune the bass and pick out a few minutes of arrhythmic blues. If I'm feeling really confident I'll figure out the changes to a favorite song, in my uniquely clumsy manner. Like all kids that fall in love with rock and roll, I had a rock and roll fantasy. I wanted to play but it just wasn't in me. Still, I couldn't let it go. Sure, I did the air guitar thing through my teens, till the indignity caught up with me. At the age of 20 I decided to seek professional help. I went to a music store, bought a Fender Precision bass and began taking lessons. It took about six weeks to come to the realization that I lack the manual dexterity to pick fruit, let alone the bass lines. I'm not just a music fan, I'm a music buff . I'm unduly impressed with musical ability. I actually like musicians. I hang out with them and talk musician talk. They can be remarkably tolerant. One of my favorite things to do is to spend a few hours hanging out in a music store. I fondle the axes, ask about the keyboards and amplifiers. It's pathetic, especially when you consider that the musicians that hang out in music stores are mostly a bunch of pretenders, too. You can tell the difference between music store musicians and working musicians by spending 30 minutes in a music store. Working musicians come through the door and take care of business. The buy their strings, picks, sticks or check out an instrument, maybe talk through some deal and leave. Music store musicians are just hanging around. They're hanging around when you get there and they're still hanging around when you leave. They're not in any band and they seldom have much music in them. But boy, do they love guitars. You can see them hover as the latest offerings from Gibson and Fender are delivered by the U.P.S. driver, jockeying for advantage. Each one wanting the first go at that new Strat or Les Paul, after the staff, that is. When they get their chance, they demonstarte why they're music store musicians. They play like other people. They sound just like the record. They have nothing to communicate, nothing to reveal. Still, I envy them. They have the ability to pick up a guitar and amuse themselves. That's more than I can do. Music store musicians aren't without status. There's a pecking order. The regulars watch as young kids come in and plow through that one riff they think they play well enough to impress. They fool no one. The regulars chuckle to each other and mock them when they leave. But hey, they were once those kids. The princes among the music store musicians are the music store employees. Most of the staff at music stores started as music store musicians. Oh, a few of them once had a garage band or maybe even a bar band but they let that go for one reason or another and wound up hanging around in music stores. After a while they got onto a first-name basis with the staff, and later the boss. They joined the ranks of the select few trusted to handle the new arrivals. Eventually they'd begin to engage the customers when the staff was busy. Unschooled customers would mistake these guys for employees. Openings on the staff get filled from their ranks. If they've made it this far and the boss tolerates them, they'll get hired for demonstrating they're motivated by so pure a desire to spend their days just being near guitars, that they'll work cheap for the privilege. The music store musician who has truly arrived is the one guy that gets to travel with the boss to the NAMM show. Ah, off to the land of Eric Johnson, B.B. King and Joe Satriani! Get your picture taken with Remo Belli. Fondle gear so new it has no name! The returning NAMM pilgrim is the envy of his peers. No detail is too trivial. The faithful want to hear all. Did you really see Tom Scholz in the hotel bar? Now and again one of these gents, and yes, they're all gents, will get his thing together and become a working musician or maybe even a roadie. They become legends, spoken of alternately in hushed tones, and as the once and current best friend of all that knew him. In truth, they're traitors. They've broken ranks with the pretenders and made themselves a painful reminder of difference between music store musicians and working musicians. It matters little for they will all return to from whence they came, and the grizzled veteran accrues a status of his own. The humbled has-been, perhaps that's the source of the tolerance that benefits a fraud like me. Michael Newman writes music reviews for the Topeka Capital-Journal.
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