I want people to like me, I think that's the crux of the whole thing. Possibly because I'm a middle child...
I don't remember childhood all that well, and high school was a fairly pleasant blur where I had enough cool friends to also feel cool. University was fine, and I had some friends. But I always felt like I was just on the periphery of things, experiencing them but not really. Kind of in on the joke but there was something I was missing.
It wasn't until I started as a singer songwriter that I felt the true appeal of mass appeal. I sang at my brother's stag and doe party, and it was the first time I'd had the mic for more than just one song (I was never the lead the singer in my high school bands). The crowd ate my shit up, and could not stop telling me how great my show was afterwards. I was instantly hooked on the attention, and spent the next 15 years chasing the "trying to make strangers like me" dragon.
I plunged headlong into singer songwritering, hit the local open mic circuit, and when I felt confident enough in my act I sought out gigs. I was lucky enough to have been taken under the arm of a local legend, who helped me get gigs at his regular spot and I played there a bunch of times. I put a backing band together, we recorded a $100 demo and shopped it around to local bars for gigs.
I was very good at self-promotion, I figured out the trick to make the local newspaper write about your show: give the show a theme, even if the theme was bullshit. Just give them something to write about.
We built a mild local following, started seeing a lot more strangers than friends at our shows, started playing on the road a bit, tried and failed to organize a cross country tour. People really dug this band because we were different, in the sense that I was (in retrospect) playing country music wrong. Think "shitty acoustic guitar run through a shitty amp, with heavy metal drums"... but it seemed to work. We put out an album and pushed it really hard for a year or two, but I eventually broke up the band due to what became the theme of all my future bands: I felt like I was doing all the work and therefore didn't like it when my ideas were challenged by the band-mates who weren't pulling their weight. I know this is more of a "me" problem now...
Anyway, my next band was also a hit, with good local draws and a great live show. I had also started an indie festival/showcase that ran for 8 or 9 years all told. Between the two I was in the newspaper a lot, I was on TV a couple of times, I was DJing a show on college radio, people knew who was I was around town, it was great.
This was around the time when Internet 2.0 was just getting off the ground, and I thought "Hey this is my ticket out of just being local-famous". I couldn't figure out how to YouTube (still can't) so I took writing for a spin. "I'm so witty, my blog will be famous!"
It was not. I mean duh, no one's blog was famous, but this was the first time I could put hardcore numbers to my output and it was bleak. Why is no one reading my blog? Why is no one sharing my amazing blog posts on social media? It was kind of breaking me.
Around the same time, my band's draw was getting smaller and smaller at every show, including a couple where we barely had enough to pay the sound guy and opener. My festival was getting less popular, based on how often I struggled to pay the bands what I thought they deserved. I had a stroke of "luck" because I accidentally shot my mouth off on my blog and got sued by a very childish person. The lawsuit was settled for literally 1% of what he initially sued for, but in the meantime I got a huge bump in the press and on the socials... I was in the spotlight again! Me me me! But the rush didn't last and I ended up folding the festival because I just couldn't anymore.
Not long after I was singing in my third band, and we were having fun and playing loud and fast and it was great. We played a few road shows, got some good feedback, but at this point I was wholly obsessed with turnout. Why are the numbers getting so small so quickly? Why does no one like this band? It came to a head right before our last gig ever. We were booked to headline the local cool club for the first time, and I was overcome with anxiety for weeks leading up to the show, all I could think about was that it would be dead like our previous show was, and we'd have blown our chance at ever getting re-booked. It was dreadful.
The show came and went and it was actually a great turnout, but I wouldn't allow myself any credit because one of openers, from Toronto, had lots of friends and family in the area, so fully half the crowd was there for them.
The realization that I was back to playing for friends and family was accompanied by the fact that my friends and family were old and didn't want to go out anymore. Heck, I didn't want to go out anymore. I was tired all the time. Then my drummer fell off a ladder and we had to take a 3 month break while he healed. It was during that time that I made up my mind that I was going to break up the band. The relief of not having to deal with the stress was my new addiction. So I told them the band news and that was that. It was a shitty thing to do but I couldn't band-lead anymore. I had hit my wall and I was done.
Funny thing, at the time I was pumping out some of my best work. My now-soon-to-be-wife was my biggest fan, whenever I came up with a new song I'd sing it for her and she'd hang off my every word and then I'd catch her singing the song the next day and she'd curse me out for getting the song stuck in her head. I realized that, while it's nice to have a room full of strangers screaming for more, I was happy to settle for an audience of one very appreciative superfan.
I've struck a happy medium now, I'm back to open mic night, which is a very low-pressure "gig" - show up, sing my three songs, receive applause and handshakes, rinse repeat. I dig it. I'd like to play full sets at a concert again, don't get me wrong, but I kinda only want to do it as an opener. There's still some pressure to fill seats, but it's not nearly as high, hence the shitty pay.
So who is the blog for? Sorry for the abrupt about-face, imaginary reader who I hope doesn't exist... I started writing again for me, to help unscramble my brain. I don't know if journaling is exactly write for me, but I did always enjoy writing my blog back in the day, so after several years away I'm back. This time I'm not sharing the blog on socials, and I do not give a single shit if anyone reads it. I don't want anyone to read it. I'm still publishing it, and I don't know why. Whatever.
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