WHEN "BAND" BECOMES "DISBAND"...

Our band is playing what will probably be its LAST JOB next Monday.

For the 4th of July, we will play at the community stadium from 7-10 p.m., and it looks like I will be SINGING THE NATIONAL ANTHEM after our show and before the local fireworks show starts. That has me much more nervous than playing rock and roll music in front of the crowd.

Then, we will end our band's life in a horrifically anticlimactic and mundane way by playing at a local chiropractor's birthday party for a couple of hours on Monday the 9th. That sounds like something that would happen in a shitcom or a humorous short story, eh! If you're laughing out loud, I don't blame you. I'm sure it will be fun, but it doesn't really seem like we will be "going out with a bang"...

After the Chiropractor's Birthday Gig, both our guitarists are leaving. Mark is moving to Austin, TX to go to a recording school, and Steve is pretty much just hanging it up, or "retiring". I don't know how anxious I will be for Joel the drummer and Mike the bassist and me to try and replace both guitarists right away, if at all. I view the hiatus from practicing, with goals in mind, as a chance to concentrate more on some home recording. Continuing to play music with the drummer and bass player might give me a chance to get off of the keyboard at times, and to get out the guitar and try some bad-sounding primitive stuff in a trio format, and that might be fun... although me on guitar wouldn't be something we would do with a view toward taking it out in public... hehehehe..

Anyway, I really want to take some time to sit down with my 8-track digital recorder and, well... play with myself. Heh. If I end up playing in another local group, or if the remaining three of us keep things going and recruit a new band member or two, I'll keep you posted. And once I get some of my own songs done here at home, I'll see about getting them posted on this blog for you to hear.

All good things come to an end, including Standard Deviation as a band. We now finish things up on good terms, and it's very likely we will all continue to hang out together and that we'll stay in touch with Mark once he has moved. The friendship and camaraderie have always been the most important thing about our band. That is what made it an ideal situation, really, no matter how good or bad we sounded at times. For me, it's all about playing music with friends, nothing more. Once it becomes more than that, it becomes a job, and thankfully, being in this band never felt like a job.

Now it's time to look for other activities that don't feel like jobs, and hopefully I'll find some that involve music!