~ ESSAYS, INTERVIEWS, THOUGHTS ~
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DON'T QUIT YOUR DAY JOB
It took me months to recover from the post-partem blues of coming down from playing at the 2000 American Mavericks Festival. The psychology goes something like this: There I was, soloist in a virtuoso electric guitar concerto, that I composed, conducted by one of the great conductors of our time, in my favorite city in the world. A full audience which included members of the international press and old friends from High school that I have not seen since "back in the day." I was prepared, the orchestra was enthusiastic, and the conductor knew the score inside and out. The performance went great – what had been a tremendous challenge a month before at the premiere was now just plain fun. This was clearly the pinnacle of my career! It is possible that I may have moments that come close to that but given the quirkiness of my music – its "maverickhood" – I know that I am not going to be embraced by the masses, tour Letterman and Leno, be honored by the classical music establishment with a lifetime achievement awards ceremony hosted by the President. The American mavericks festival had corralled most of the members of my demographic – iconoclastic musical omnivores – and filled Davies Hall with them.
Knowing that this was it, did I want to continue and risk that the rest of my life would merely be pale reiterations of those 33 minutes on stage? Or, perhaps, I should enter another field entirely and get a "real" job. Luckily when the adrenaline levels sunk to their default levels I realized, an epiphany really, that I don’t live for those rarefied moments. It is the thrill of possibly discovering a tune and some chords that say something that has not been said before that really gets me out of bed in the morning. Whew . . . good thing I didn’t get a day job!
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