Monday marked the kickoff of what I'm calling The Guild - the convention of a mess of local musicians, engineers and anyone else who "does" music. Past and future Backthird recording artists scarfed drinks and crackers alongside a representative from the City of Aurora, Chuck Berry's former bass player, half of a kind-of-jam band and the composer of songs about zombies and birth control. As someone put it to me later in the evening, "it's just good to be around people who don't think you're crazy."
More than two dozen of us defied the cold to be here. We mingled most of the night, but put the partying on hold just long enough for a short group discussion about the concept of musical environment. What's the context in which you make the music that you make? Our answers took us from church to classroom to the bar, and from the local playhouse to the World Wide Web.
Naturally, we also debated the meaning of the word "hippie."
If you couldn't join us, you missed a good time - but you're not alone. The response to my e-mailed invitation, coupled with the comments in the studio guestbook Monday night, is confirmation enough for me that this is something worth continuing. I'll throw a date out now for our next get-together: February 18. Mark your calendar, then watch this space for details.
If you're not on the studio mailing list, sign up using the box to the right. To see more photos from Monday's gathering, click the picture above.
That was an interesting meeting, thanks for hosting it. As I seem to have run out of business cards (in 1978), and my real , non mySpace website was down the last two weeks (hacked into by ultra right wing morons), I'd like to post my little blog/site address, which is still just getting back on its feet..you'll be able to get a list of what I've done besides playing a few gigs with Chuck..
www.johnpazdan.com
thanks, and see you at the next one.
Posted by: John | February 05, 2008 at 07:11 AM
Thanks for getting me to think about the question of "who you play for". It would be ideal to be able to play for others and for "yourself"...As a singer and a painter I get asked to sing and paint things that I would not choose on my own.
I recently painted a picture for someone who just lost his dad this past fall. As he described the vision he wanted me to paint, of a very moving moment he experienced at the gravesite (sounds creepy, but it wasn't) I thought he wanted way too many elements in the painting. He said, "do what you I would be best", but at the same time, I knew he wanted every thing in the painting the way he saw in his vision. I had to work harder to make it what he wanted, as well as, something I would want to put my signature on.
As it turned out, I would have done the painting much differently for "myself", but he loved the painting. He said that he and his mom looked at it and cried for hours the night he brought it home to show her.
Now that the painting is out of my house, I'm glad it's exactly what he wanted. I had to "get out of the way" to allow the art to do some healing in at least two lives. What could be more important than that?
Posted by: Julie Vogt | February 13, 2008 at 10:15 PM