BEING A RED-HEADED STEP-CHILD IN THE MARIETTA MUSIC SCENE Someone remarked to me the other day after playing for a standing room only house at Good ol Days Irish Pub and Grill. They said I should be move to Cumming because they love me there and they hate me in Marietta. Then I harken back to what a regular (listener) at open mics in Marietta said. After seeing me perform with the Casanovas drummer and bass player, he came up and shared with me. He said after hearing me so many timed before, he had no idea how good I was. But he was insightful and explained to me that he never heard me with good musicians. He pointed out that at all the jams, I always got set up with chumps who could never rise to what I was trying to do. Curious that. I played for years with the Florida legend Willie Green. And I did not join Willies band, he joined mine. I opened for mosts of the national acts that came through town before and after. Up here, my Hendrix tribute band has a nice reputation with 4 and 5 figure YouTube videos. I recorded with Dave LaRue. I had songs in the top 10 at mp3 and CDBaby. My current group, the Big Pappy Hinds Band, is killing every show we do. I expected to be treated as chopped liver when I got here. A big city with a collection of amazingly talented musicians is not going to roll out the roll carpet for likes of me. But I have been here 15 years. I have played venues like the Mableton Amphitheatre and Center Stage. Yet I still go to jams, jams where the audience yells louder for me than most, where many audience members tell me I am their favorite, the one the show up hoping to see, and I have sit around and wait to play with chumps. I see the others come through door sometime and hour or two after me, and then boom, they are on stage with the best musicians in the house. An hour later, splat I am up there with a drummer who cant so much as play Texas Shuffle or Little Wing. Or with a bass player struggling to walk a three chord blues. I not been able to perform half the tunes on my song list because I am rarely put with anyone who can do them. So either two things are at play around Marietta. Either everyone else is just so far above me that I cant compete, or the crap hurts me. How? Those folks who get put up with musicians who can play shine, their set sound tight and the get to do the songs that will blow folks away. No one in Marietta has EVER seen me do Come On. Other musicians pay attention and so do the club owners. Just like this one guy who say me play for year before he saw me get to shine, I do in fact shine. And I appreciate the few times when someone showed me respect and put up in the prime time with the best players. That is how I got my following at Darwins and Niks. So maybe the folks in Cumming are just less sophisticated than the Marietta folks because they show up in just as big numbers when I play at Good Ol Days as the other bands who play there...and more than some of those who are big time in Marietta. I dont want to live in Cumming. I want to stay right where I am. I just want the respect that I deserve when I come out. 15 years is long enough standing on outside looking in.
Posted on: Wed, 04 Dec 2013 20:11:31 +0000
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