Ive received a few messages from friends, both acquaintances and close, about whether they could get used to calling me by another name, asking where my stage name came from to begin with, and why Im changing it.... again. Well... if you feel like reading, I dont mind talking about it. Im really not worried about what any of you call me when you see or talk to me... even if its something not very complimentary, which probably happens more than I know. If you know me as Raven, then I dont care if you call me that. I just got a little tired of calling MYSELF that... and in fact, began feeling a bit silly about it. Who cares? Just get on with it... Well... when I sit down to write, its never brief. Im already four paragraphs in, and Ive barely gotten to the point. Some people have expressed that they enjoy my writing enough to put up with it. Hopefully, thats the case here. If so... read on. Besides, after almost three decades as a musician, I have discovered that a few people here and there actually know who the hell I am and seem to enjoy what I do. That humbles me more than words can express, and I would like to keep them around. So writing about it may save them thinking I just disappeared... or even.... (choke) retired from music. >:o That will never happen. Im rocking til death. Forever the free-spirited musician. But Ill reiterate a couple points of my previous post... if you have known me a long time, you likely know that Lee Spencer is actually the first and middle of my REAL name. When I started playing with my first band, Crystal Tears (which a current Horseman, Kevin Tutaj, was in), it became my stage name. I dropped my last name, Hoover... thinking it would better for politics than rock and roll... and having heard every joke in existence about either the dam or the damn vacuum. It was a couple years before I adopted the wayward-80s-shredder stage-name Raven Storm, ...a combination of a nickname I acquired for dying my hair black, and a Steven Seagal movie character. It occurred at a time when I basically was... a wayward 80s-style shredder... stuck in the 90s because I came on a little late. That left me with demonstrating at NAMM and occasional clinics or free solo performances as the only gigs I could get, as everything around me turned to grunge. Of course, the difficulties tied to that led to my adventures through Europe a few times, getting to perform, record, and become close friends with some amazing people... so I cant complain. Ive gotten to the point that I definitely no longer identify with my wayward-80s stage name. Further, the perspective of living a couple decades living with a different name, I was able to recognize that my old name really isnt that bad. Im still a pretty young, free-spirited musician, and that will never change... much to the frustration of many of the women in my life... but I want to be that as MYSELF from now on, and so far I have found it incredibly reinvigorating. So... finally the point: Call me whatever you know me as when you see me, which will hopefully be more often because Im really trying to get out more. Right now, Im getting out to rehearsal for a gig that came up next month...
Posted on: Sat, 22 Mar 2014 02:06:23 +0000
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