Chapter 4: “It’s Time to Grow Up”: Compromise Is a Beautiful Thing

Posted by admin on March 2nd, 2010 | 2 Comments »

My friend Arthur said this to me yesterday.  Not the “it’s time to grow up part,” I put that in there myself,  but the “compromise is a beautiful thing” part.  He was referring to a general mentality that I’ve had towards music, probably for the past 7 years, which is that I should not only be able to do “everything,”  but that I also should do everything if I am going to keep peoples interest.

What I mean by “everything” is that, in some way, I have believed that my music should have enough of each genre: rock, folk, country, R&B, jazz, easy listenting etc. to please most people.  I hear an amazing folk song, so I need to either write a similar song or cover that song, I hear Beyonce sing “Halo,” and I know that it’s a really hot song right now so I need to do a cover of it.  I hear from a friend that I need to check out a song he loves, and I know that he is coming to my next show, so I need to cover that song. I see somebody play some awesome rockabilly solo on the guitar and I have to go practice it, and find some way to intergrate a rockabilly guitar solo into my set list.

It’s always been “the next best thing” with me.  My mentality has always been this stoner-hippy mentality of “mistakes are okay, it’s all music man…, it’s about the energy” and I’ve believed it so much that I even convinced myself that if I was truly a great artist, I should be able to do all this stuff on the fly; that I should be able to write out a setlist 5 minutes before a set time, and just get on stage and wing it and “flow with the energy” and deliever a great show. I even convinced myself that if I didn’t play my songs differently every night, with new songs and covers added to each new show in addition to my old songs being played different, that I would lose fans, and that people, including the musicians who played with me, would get bored.

The results have always been a ton of shit, mixed in with one to three great magical moments per show, (that probably are only as magical as they sound because they are sandwiched next to a bunch of shit.)  My friends usually gives me the same feedback as well: “Zach, you are so ridiculously talented but you need to get clear on who you are!” In other words, I can’t go from playing my original songs, to a jazz arragment of a lady gaga song, to a rock and roll scatting version of an old jazz standard, to an old American spiritual about Jesus and expect that people will either get it, that it will be any good, or that even if it is good…that anybody should give a flying fuck in the first place!

My mentality has been that of a narcissist protecting his insecurity.  By being afraid of not pleasing people, I’ve tried to please everybody and in turn, have ended up pleasing nobody.

My next post will be about how I am replacing this old mentality with a new, more empowering one.

Stay tuned…

Chapter 3: “I Wanted to See You Smile”

Posted by admin on February 26th, 2010 | No Comments »

“I wanted to see you smile.”

That’s what my friend said to me after my gig this past Wednesday.  It was my first gig in a couple months and I was nervous for a number of reasons, and apparently I didn’t smile onstage.

Here is why I was nervous:

1) It was my first gig with my new friend Arthur, a truly remarkable bassist and music business veteran.  He said to me before the gig that we had not rehearsed enough (we had played together twice) and suggested I play the stint solo so that we could have more time to practice before getting in front of an audience.  I asked him to play anyway, saying it would be fun, loose and casual.  He is a nice guy so he acquiesced even though he knew that it would be sub-par.  He was right.  In my next post I will discuss what I learned regarding my attitude to things being “fun, loose and casual,” but more on that later.

2) I was nervous because the venue, a college dive-bar in the west village booked me on the basis that I would bring 15 people to the gig because they didn’t have a built in crowd.  Give or take, I had around that many people confirm with me beforehand, and almost all of them canceled last minute.  Showing up “empty handed” so to speak was relatively embarrassing and added to my anxiety.

So why didn’t I smile? My friend said he wanted to see me smile, he wanted to feel me more and that the few times I got into it were the best parts of the show.  I was playing music, my favorite thing to do on the planet and I didn’t allow myself to open up because I had convinced myself that in order to protect myself from “looking bad” or “being embarrassed”  by the small turnout, I had to just “play it cool.”  The bullshit I made up in my head was that if I was to really get into it for an audience of just 5 people at a dirty bar then I would look like a loser, AND I would make my 5 friends uncomfortable.  In reality, I deprived my true gifts from the people who wanted to come to see me at my best and missed an opportunity to show the strangers that were there how truly powerful my music can be, like it or not.

In the war against my Ego and my Highest Self, unfortunately my sheepish ego got the best of me this time.  This won’t last for long though.  I promise.

Zach