Post by Pony on Jun 22, 2013 12:04:29 GMT -5
Music: before and after 1980
From the time I was a child music always held a special place in my heart. My father was an obsessive musician, playing saxophone and flute constantly, and his father played a little guitar and mandolin. So, it was only natural that I felt a close relationship with music even before I could play any instrument.
This is the story of my relationship with music; before and after a car accident that changed everything, including my love affair with music.
My dad bought me a drum kit when I was around 9 or 10 years old, and man, did I love it. I played constantly to records and occasionally with my dad’s band. However, it wasn’t a good time in my family, and my mother and father soon divorced. Money was needed, and my drum kit was sold. My time around my father was very limited after the break up, until no relationship with him for some years. However, my love of music was growing inside me like a tree throughout my teens, and I watered that tree every chance I got by playing on instruments anytime I was around them. It was the late 60s and early 70s, and there was so much great music being created and delivered via radio, and I was surely hooked on the feeling music offered to a mixed up kid.
It was a piano class in high school that gave me renewed interest in playing an instrument and creating little things that I called songs, but were really just progressions. But I seemed to have an instinct for where songs should go and when they should change feel. The class gave me the tools to playing by teaching me how to place my hands, play scales, chords and taught me a small amount of theory. I remember almost failing that class because I only wanted to play and create my little songs, not study. I soon bought myself a small electric piano, and I was free to experiment for hours on my own. One of my friends had a beautiful Baby Grand piano in his house that his mother played, so I’d hang around and play it whenever I had the chance.
Somewhere in my teens I’d picked up a cheap guitar, and learned enough chords and some finger picking to, again, create these progressions that begged for structure and lyrics. However, I never took it serious enough to work on composition of a real song, complete with lyrics. I liked singing, but never felt I could hang with the singers in popular rock bands that I admired so much in the day, so I never looked at singing as a viable instrument for me.
It was February 22, 1980 when the world, as I knew it, changed - not just musically, but for every part of my life. You see, after leaving a bowling ally in Odenton, Maryland, where I’d been drinking with my coworkers I ran off the road, directly into a tree. The accident was bad, breaking bones and splitting the top of my heap open. However, it was the dislocation of my neck, bruising my Spinal Cord beyond repair, that proved to being the most devastating to my life, as the injury rendered me paralyzed from chest down, along with limited use of arms and hands. Technically I’m a quadriplegic since all four limbs are involved in paralysis, although I push my chair, drive and generally use my arms almost normal.
My love for music remained, but the ability to play any instrument wasn’t possible without any finger movement, and while that was hard to handle, I had moved on, and had accepted my fate. However, I had recurring fantasies about playing music, even singing in an acoustic setting with a guitar player.
A few years later, my dad, who I’d gotten in contact with after my injury, gave me a very small keyboard – really a toy with very limited functions and a few different sound settings. At first, I considered it a gift that I couldn’t really use, considering my hands not working, but later started playing with it out of sheer boredom, realizing I could create simple progressions by playing simply with two knuckles, similar to what I did before my accident, only minus the harmony keys that normally fill the sound out so much more than I was producing with knuckles.
Sometime later, I bought a 4-track recorder so I could record one track, then a separate track over top of the original, then two more times for vocals and such. After a while of producing some very rough recordings, I bought a better keyboard and started experimenting with more song writing, and better sound. When I look back the songs were ideas I’d rip off from other popular artists at the time: Bon Jovi, Sting, Survivor, etc. But it was a learning curve for singing and song structure. As the singing went, it was difficult finding my range of what I could do, and not do. There were some things I could pull off, and some things I sounded really bad trying. There was one more thing; my level of paralysis was high enough to render much of my breathing, or more specific, exhaling muscles useless. In other words, my singing was very limited, and I wasn’t sure if I could really sing more than a song without getting too worn out to hit the right notes, or lose quality of voice.
Somewhere around this time my dad came up from Miami to visit, and he brought a small recorder that had a built in drum machine and bass line features, so we recorded a few songs I wrote. It was a revelation to me at that moment that I had a voice that didn’t sound too bad – not great, but something I could work with. It’s a funny thing when you hear yourself with music on record for the first time. You just hear yourself in a different way, almost like watching yourself on video, which I always have a hard time with even today. But I found myself surprised at the quality of my voice, which sounded pretty decent – not a voice that was polished, or brilliant, but just an easy voice with inflection. I thought to myself, ‘wow, I can do something with this!’
It was 1991, and I was graduated college from the University of South Florida with a B.A. in Mass Communications, but my interest in writing about music for local music magazines was at it’s peak. I wrote CD and performance reviews, and, at times, had feature articles published on homegrown bands that made good. The local scene in those days was hot and rich with talented groups that had religious-like followings that would pack clubs, like Rocket-It Club, M.L. Chasers, Club 19, Gasoline Alley and Boomerangs. It was at this time I was continuing to act as A & R Rep, or talent scout, for Capitol Records through an internship that I had been picked for in college. My responsibilities included going out finding interesting musical acts, listening to their recordings, interviewing them and reporting back to the real A & R Representative for Capitol in New York City. Every week we’d have a conference call with all the reps around the country that were doing the same thing. It was a great way for Capitol to keep it’s fingertip on the pulse of music scenes in different areas that all hoped to pop the next big band. I came close to getting Capitol serious about a few acts, but nothing significant happened. However, Capitol asked me to go check out a hotshot kid guitar player they’d been hearing about. The kid was Derek Trucks, nephew of Butch Trucks, the drummer of the Allman Brothers Band. Of course Derek has gone on to become a Grammy Award winning songwriter/guitarist/record producer, but at the time I checked him out he was a regular looking 13-year-old kid who could make that oversized Gibson SG talk like nobody I’d ever seen. Despite his youthful age, I could see clearly this kid was a rare talent. He literally caused Goosebumps on my back as he played slide guitar with such perfection that I thought I just might be in the presence of Duane Allman’s reincarnate. For those that don’t know, Duane died in a motorcycle accident in 1971, but played slide guitar like nobody in rock before, or since. As I watched Derek ripping licks off with the casualness of a kid playing a video game, I realized that Derek was blessed with the same genetics for making the slide guitar sing notes with that same beauty that Duane did 20 years earlier. I reported back with a glowing review, and Capitol went on to finance a demo recording deal with Derek.
Yup, I’d entered the music world via the backdoor by writing about it and representing a major record company, however, I was only half satisfied, as I still held my own ambition to do SOMETHING with my own music. I wasn’t sure exactly what, but I knew I wanted to prove that I was indeed a musician, not just a dude in wheelchair writing about it.
At some point I came in contact with Panda Recording Studio in Clearwater, Fl, probably because they were one of the top studios recording many local acts. I rented studio time, and brought my raw song ideas with the goal of recording something I could be proud of. I entered this endeavor totally unsure of myself, and kind of intimidated, even a little embarrassed that I might be viewed as some disabled dude that possessed some unrealistic dream to be a star. But it wasn’t that at all. I had set a few goals for myself as a musician, and one was to record some of my original songs in a very professional way with me providing the singing and lyrics. With the help and direction of Florida notable producer/guitarist, George Harris, we managed to take my musical ideas and flesh them out into full-blown rock guitar-driven songs. It may have been my starting idea, but George definitely was a co-writer and seemed to enjoy the challenge. To this day, I’m unsure why he decided to take me on as a project because George was a very sought after producer from many well-established and popular Florida bands, along with some national acts. While days stretched into weeks and weeks into months, eventually we completed four songs with George playing most instruments, but sometimes bringing in a few musicians to add drums, backing vocals and even flute for one song.
In the end, a diverse four-song EP was completed, called Under No Flag. The mini-album was as good as any other production I’d heard on any level, and I quickly became proud of all the time, energy, work, love and money I’d sunk into this.
A few months later I submitted Under No Flag to the Arts Council of the county for consideration for an art grant to finance production of copies created for distribution, and much to my surprise, I was awarded the grant money.
My next step was to get people to listen to Under No Flag, so I set up a website in the very early days of the World Wide Web and personal computers. My site was actually connected to a bevy of artists/musicians trying to get their work known, too. I had hundreds of cassettes of Under No Flag made up with the grant money, and after receiving ZERO bites on selling them, I decided to just give them away. Besides, it was more important to get the music heard than recouped a very small portion of money it took to record/produce copies. Interestingly, I got requests for Under No Flag from all over the world – not in massive numbers, mind you, but exotic places like Moscow, South America, Asia, Europe, etc. These days it’s a common thing to have people listen to your music via Internet, but back then it was nearly unheard of since PCs just weren’t powerful enough to handle the memory strain. I loved the idea of someone in another part of the world listening to MY music. I even got positive emails back, and sometimes reviews from online music critics.
No doubt about it, the Internet has been the biggest blessing musicians, writers and other artists have ever received.
Somewhere in that time period of mid-90s I was asked to do two different radio programs on Tampa’s community supported station WMNF 88.5 FM. The first show interviewed me in between playing tracks from Under No Flag, while the other asked me to play live on a morning program. I was so excited, but there was one problem, I’d never played these songs live – no band to play them! Plus, I wasn’t even sure my singing was strong enough to get through singing song after song. What if I weakened out and couldn’t get through the song? What if I missed higher notes because I’d weakened out? What if I forgot lyrics? Those questions, and more, ran though my head over and over. However, I was determined to take advantage off this opportunity, so I asked a guitarist friend, Sal Beloise, if he’d play with me. Then I asked a violinist, Amanda Gerttula, I’d know for sometime if she’d accompany Sal and I. We worked out a few cover songs, and I’d obtained the studio recordings a few songs I was recording at another studio at the time.
The show was a great success – no problems with singing, thanks to the vocal-Gods! I did almost miss the start of the show, as I never thought to ask if the radio station was wheelchair accessible. It wasn’t! I had some guy passing by pull me up three stairs to get in the front door. Not exactly the rock star entrance, huh?
After the radio shows I was starting to gain some confidence in my voice, and with throwing myself into these odd situations. So, I decided to start doing coffeehouses, even if I had to do them a cappella, or singing to recorded music. I did this for a little while before finding an acoustic guitarist via a musician search ad. Greg was a self-taught acoustic guitarist with some limitations, but he was brilliant at figuring out how to play songs with medium degree of difficulty. What he had was a great work ethic, determination that pushed me beyond what I thought I could do and his own vision of where he wanted to g with playing.
On our first meeting Greg came out to my house, and as soon as we played a few songs together, he gave me a tape of songs to learn, and we practiced twice a week until we had 20 songs down. Greg never seemed to care about me being n a wheelchair, and I’d really appreciated that, since I’d had a few rejections based on chair. I understood that it would be a barrier to some people, and frankly, it hurt a little. But I’d decided a long time ago to not get in my own way, and that meant not holding myself back from uncomfortable situations, or rejections. After all, I had a great recording of original songs and a few radio shows under my belt, so I felt (somewhat) valid. Having a great recording had to be respected, as most musicians never reach that level, but I had on more goal on my ‘wish list,’ and that was to play live for money. That happened to be Greg’s goal, too. After impressing his friends with his guitar skills, but not being able to sing them, he had this inner dream to play live in a public venue.
Greg was an interesting guy, in that this was his baby! He wanted to run the show, pick the songs, design a logo, pick the band name, etc. He was very detail oriented, and could be very picky, if not down right pushy. But I’m an easy person to work with, and I could see he needed the reins in his hands, or there would be friction. Besides, he was very organized and good at keeping us on same page.
Greg named us Wheelin n Dealin. I guess you can figure out who was Wheelin! Well, Greg went all out, designing an old racing slick tire with our namesake lettered on the side. He even bought a fog machine for the Bon Jovi song Wanted: Dead or Alive, and of course we had to where our badass Clint Eastwood western hats. All this for one song!! But hey, we had fun with it, and we poked fun of it when we played out.
Well, I’ve run ahead of myself, but we did eventually play out – in a redneck-filled bar called Beer Bellies. It definitely lived up to it’s name, as a fight broke out near the pool table, and one intoxicated fella offered his critique of our performance by slurring You SUCK!
In the beginning of this relationship I wasn’t sure I could ever play out because of my weakness in singing difficult songs for an extended time, but I had learned through our rehearsals how to rest my voice at points in songs. Still, the idea of playing out terrified me, knowing there was no going back once Greg set things up, hauled equipment, set up, etc. Well, if Greg had any reservations, he kept them hidden well. He was hell-bent on us playing out somewhere so his beer-swilling fun-loving friends could come out and see us, which just added to my personal pressure. After the Beer Bellies gig, we were feeling pretty damn good. I’d proved to myself I could do three sets of music, although near the end, my voice was really waning. And the next day I was near voiceless. However, we made around $100 in tips, as Greg’s friends, and my buddies, too, were quite generous.
We went on to play others bar gigs and private parties. We even picked up a bass player, named Lenny, who was pretty talented and sang back up much better than Greg could. Greg and Lenny would argue at times over silly things, and after a gig in a dirty bar, where they had words, Greg announced That’s it, and we were done as a band.
I’d hated seeing it end, as I was just finding my groove, and we were getting some good gigs, but I did go on to find other players to play with in even more satisfying situations.
Through the local weekly newspaper, which had a Musician’s Exchange section, I found Ian vom Saal, an excellent guitarist, but didn’t really know many rock cover songs, however, we worked up a few and went to a popular coffeehouse near the college to try them out. Ian had the skills I wanted, but almost better than that he possessed the sweetest acoustic guitar in the world, a Taylor. I don’t want to sound like a commercial, because hell, I’m not getting any money, but the sound of this guitar simply makes me sing better. And of course, Ian really knows how to use the dynamics of this guitar. I purposely switched to ‘present tense’ because I do still play with Ian occasionally for open mics.
Soon after meeting Ian, I met another very talented guitarist, named Aaron Frohna. Aaron was a self-taught player who’d mastered many songs from rock, blues and even duplicating great jazz guitar pieces by Joe Pass and Django Reinhardt, which isn’t easy music to play. The three of us quickly added 30 songs to our repertoire and played every Wednesday night at the Java Junction. We had fun, drank imported beers, listened to other players, met friends and became such regulars that we were practically the house band, at times. It was a great place to cut our teeth, and the more I played, the better I got at singing, and performing, which isn’t really the same. The performing part was how I set the tone, how I talked in between songs and my sense of humor that grew with confidence. I understood it was my job to lubricate the situation of getting people comfortable with a guy in a wheelchair, and I may have faked it well, but I never showed fear or intimidation. I knew if I was comfortable and loose, then the crowd would jump onboard. Honestly, we were usually the best players to play, but every now and then a player would come in and just blow me away. Sometimes it was competitive, but mostly, I enjoyed watching really good acts. No doubt, there were some atrocious ones, too. We’d just laugh, but applaud nevertheless.
After a year of rocking the coffeehouse some drama between Ian an Aaron split the trio, and I went with Aaron as a duo. We eventually found Christer Saarikko, a violin player that seemed to fit perfectly into what we had, and we all three quickly became friends, having memorable practices sessions at Aaron’s mobile home that involved great food, drinking beers and playing music. I was designated as gig finder, so I hit the phones trying to land us a gig. To my surprise, I was quite capable of getting our band, now called Free Spirit, gigs that paid, which had been one of my goals from the beginning. You see, I’d only had a few milestones I wanted to pass as I entered playing music, one being to record something I was proud of, and the other was to play for money. The money was only important because it meant I’d reached a level that someone was willing to put money out to entertain their patrons with our band.
I found Free Spirit gigs all over the area from the beaches to pizza joints to smoky bars, but our most unique gig was entertaining the bar poolside at Paradise Lakes, a nudist resort. Yup, it was strange at first, considering there were hundreds of naked people of all shapes and sizes, but really, I have to say it was one of the best gigs we ever played. The people were fun, and somehow their ‘nudeness’ made me feel comfortable with my own body and situation of wheelchair. It became clear to me that a body is just a vehicle that we have to ride in. Most of this body is genetically passed on, while you can improve on, or damage, parts along the journey. Obviously mine is damaged because of that tiny injury on my Spinal Cord, but somehow people without their clothing made me feel more like just another body.
Sometimes interesting things happen when playing music in public, and I’ll surely never forget the hottest naked girl at Paradise Lakes dancing slowly in front of me while I struggled to remember lyrics. At that moment I realized I could never reach a higher level of success as a musician, so I relaxed, sang my heart out, and soaked it in. After all, it’s the ultimate dream of every Rock Star-wannabe.
As the years slide by, I’ve played less and less, but still like to play an open mic now and then for the pure fun of bringing to life a song in front of people. I’ll never forget the great times I’ve had and really cool people I’ve met playing music. Nor will I ever take for granted the second chance I got to play music with my voice after a wreck that I thought had ended all musical aspirations.
One thing’s for sure, music has been a healer to my soul, and continues to heal me. Let it heal you, too!
From the time I was a child music always held a special place in my heart. My father was an obsessive musician, playing saxophone and flute constantly, and his father played a little guitar and mandolin. So, it was only natural that I felt a close relationship with music even before I could play any instrument.
This is the story of my relationship with music; before and after a car accident that changed everything, including my love affair with music.
My dad bought me a drum kit when I was around 9 or 10 years old, and man, did I love it. I played constantly to records and occasionally with my dad’s band. However, it wasn’t a good time in my family, and my mother and father soon divorced. Money was needed, and my drum kit was sold. My time around my father was very limited after the break up, until no relationship with him for some years. However, my love of music was growing inside me like a tree throughout my teens, and I watered that tree every chance I got by playing on instruments anytime I was around them. It was the late 60s and early 70s, and there was so much great music being created and delivered via radio, and I was surely hooked on the feeling music offered to a mixed up kid.
It was a piano class in high school that gave me renewed interest in playing an instrument and creating little things that I called songs, but were really just progressions. But I seemed to have an instinct for where songs should go and when they should change feel. The class gave me the tools to playing by teaching me how to place my hands, play scales, chords and taught me a small amount of theory. I remember almost failing that class because I only wanted to play and create my little songs, not study. I soon bought myself a small electric piano, and I was free to experiment for hours on my own. One of my friends had a beautiful Baby Grand piano in his house that his mother played, so I’d hang around and play it whenever I had the chance.
Somewhere in my teens I’d picked up a cheap guitar, and learned enough chords and some finger picking to, again, create these progressions that begged for structure and lyrics. However, I never took it serious enough to work on composition of a real song, complete with lyrics. I liked singing, but never felt I could hang with the singers in popular rock bands that I admired so much in the day, so I never looked at singing as a viable instrument for me.
It was February 22, 1980 when the world, as I knew it, changed - not just musically, but for every part of my life. You see, after leaving a bowling ally in Odenton, Maryland, where I’d been drinking with my coworkers I ran off the road, directly into a tree. The accident was bad, breaking bones and splitting the top of my heap open. However, it was the dislocation of my neck, bruising my Spinal Cord beyond repair, that proved to being the most devastating to my life, as the injury rendered me paralyzed from chest down, along with limited use of arms and hands. Technically I’m a quadriplegic since all four limbs are involved in paralysis, although I push my chair, drive and generally use my arms almost normal.
My love for music remained, but the ability to play any instrument wasn’t possible without any finger movement, and while that was hard to handle, I had moved on, and had accepted my fate. However, I had recurring fantasies about playing music, even singing in an acoustic setting with a guitar player.
A few years later, my dad, who I’d gotten in contact with after my injury, gave me a very small keyboard – really a toy with very limited functions and a few different sound settings. At first, I considered it a gift that I couldn’t really use, considering my hands not working, but later started playing with it out of sheer boredom, realizing I could create simple progressions by playing simply with two knuckles, similar to what I did before my accident, only minus the harmony keys that normally fill the sound out so much more than I was producing with knuckles.
Sometime later, I bought a 4-track recorder so I could record one track, then a separate track over top of the original, then two more times for vocals and such. After a while of producing some very rough recordings, I bought a better keyboard and started experimenting with more song writing, and better sound. When I look back the songs were ideas I’d rip off from other popular artists at the time: Bon Jovi, Sting, Survivor, etc. But it was a learning curve for singing and song structure. As the singing went, it was difficult finding my range of what I could do, and not do. There were some things I could pull off, and some things I sounded really bad trying. There was one more thing; my level of paralysis was high enough to render much of my breathing, or more specific, exhaling muscles useless. In other words, my singing was very limited, and I wasn’t sure if I could really sing more than a song without getting too worn out to hit the right notes, or lose quality of voice.
Somewhere around this time my dad came up from Miami to visit, and he brought a small recorder that had a built in drum machine and bass line features, so we recorded a few songs I wrote. It was a revelation to me at that moment that I had a voice that didn’t sound too bad – not great, but something I could work with. It’s a funny thing when you hear yourself with music on record for the first time. You just hear yourself in a different way, almost like watching yourself on video, which I always have a hard time with even today. But I found myself surprised at the quality of my voice, which sounded pretty decent – not a voice that was polished, or brilliant, but just an easy voice with inflection. I thought to myself, ‘wow, I can do something with this!’
It was 1991, and I was graduated college from the University of South Florida with a B.A. in Mass Communications, but my interest in writing about music for local music magazines was at it’s peak. I wrote CD and performance reviews, and, at times, had feature articles published on homegrown bands that made good. The local scene in those days was hot and rich with talented groups that had religious-like followings that would pack clubs, like Rocket-It Club, M.L. Chasers, Club 19, Gasoline Alley and Boomerangs. It was at this time I was continuing to act as A & R Rep, or talent scout, for Capitol Records through an internship that I had been picked for in college. My responsibilities included going out finding interesting musical acts, listening to their recordings, interviewing them and reporting back to the real A & R Representative for Capitol in New York City. Every week we’d have a conference call with all the reps around the country that were doing the same thing. It was a great way for Capitol to keep it’s fingertip on the pulse of music scenes in different areas that all hoped to pop the next big band. I came close to getting Capitol serious about a few acts, but nothing significant happened. However, Capitol asked me to go check out a hotshot kid guitar player they’d been hearing about. The kid was Derek Trucks, nephew of Butch Trucks, the drummer of the Allman Brothers Band. Of course Derek has gone on to become a Grammy Award winning songwriter/guitarist/record producer, but at the time I checked him out he was a regular looking 13-year-old kid who could make that oversized Gibson SG talk like nobody I’d ever seen. Despite his youthful age, I could see clearly this kid was a rare talent. He literally caused Goosebumps on my back as he played slide guitar with such perfection that I thought I just might be in the presence of Duane Allman’s reincarnate. For those that don’t know, Duane died in a motorcycle accident in 1971, but played slide guitar like nobody in rock before, or since. As I watched Derek ripping licks off with the casualness of a kid playing a video game, I realized that Derek was blessed with the same genetics for making the slide guitar sing notes with that same beauty that Duane did 20 years earlier. I reported back with a glowing review, and Capitol went on to finance a demo recording deal with Derek.
Yup, I’d entered the music world via the backdoor by writing about it and representing a major record company, however, I was only half satisfied, as I still held my own ambition to do SOMETHING with my own music. I wasn’t sure exactly what, but I knew I wanted to prove that I was indeed a musician, not just a dude in wheelchair writing about it.
At some point I came in contact with Panda Recording Studio in Clearwater, Fl, probably because they were one of the top studios recording many local acts. I rented studio time, and brought my raw song ideas with the goal of recording something I could be proud of. I entered this endeavor totally unsure of myself, and kind of intimidated, even a little embarrassed that I might be viewed as some disabled dude that possessed some unrealistic dream to be a star. But it wasn’t that at all. I had set a few goals for myself as a musician, and one was to record some of my original songs in a very professional way with me providing the singing and lyrics. With the help and direction of Florida notable producer/guitarist, George Harris, we managed to take my musical ideas and flesh them out into full-blown rock guitar-driven songs. It may have been my starting idea, but George definitely was a co-writer and seemed to enjoy the challenge. To this day, I’m unsure why he decided to take me on as a project because George was a very sought after producer from many well-established and popular Florida bands, along with some national acts. While days stretched into weeks and weeks into months, eventually we completed four songs with George playing most instruments, but sometimes bringing in a few musicians to add drums, backing vocals and even flute for one song.
In the end, a diverse four-song EP was completed, called Under No Flag. The mini-album was as good as any other production I’d heard on any level, and I quickly became proud of all the time, energy, work, love and money I’d sunk into this.
A few months later I submitted Under No Flag to the Arts Council of the county for consideration for an art grant to finance production of copies created for distribution, and much to my surprise, I was awarded the grant money.
My next step was to get people to listen to Under No Flag, so I set up a website in the very early days of the World Wide Web and personal computers. My site was actually connected to a bevy of artists/musicians trying to get their work known, too. I had hundreds of cassettes of Under No Flag made up with the grant money, and after receiving ZERO bites on selling them, I decided to just give them away. Besides, it was more important to get the music heard than recouped a very small portion of money it took to record/produce copies. Interestingly, I got requests for Under No Flag from all over the world – not in massive numbers, mind you, but exotic places like Moscow, South America, Asia, Europe, etc. These days it’s a common thing to have people listen to your music via Internet, but back then it was nearly unheard of since PCs just weren’t powerful enough to handle the memory strain. I loved the idea of someone in another part of the world listening to MY music. I even got positive emails back, and sometimes reviews from online music critics.
No doubt about it, the Internet has been the biggest blessing musicians, writers and other artists have ever received.
Somewhere in that time period of mid-90s I was asked to do two different radio programs on Tampa’s community supported station WMNF 88.5 FM. The first show interviewed me in between playing tracks from Under No Flag, while the other asked me to play live on a morning program. I was so excited, but there was one problem, I’d never played these songs live – no band to play them! Plus, I wasn’t even sure my singing was strong enough to get through singing song after song. What if I weakened out and couldn’t get through the song? What if I missed higher notes because I’d weakened out? What if I forgot lyrics? Those questions, and more, ran though my head over and over. However, I was determined to take advantage off this opportunity, so I asked a guitarist friend, Sal Beloise, if he’d play with me. Then I asked a violinist, Amanda Gerttula, I’d know for sometime if she’d accompany Sal and I. We worked out a few cover songs, and I’d obtained the studio recordings a few songs I was recording at another studio at the time.
The show was a great success – no problems with singing, thanks to the vocal-Gods! I did almost miss the start of the show, as I never thought to ask if the radio station was wheelchair accessible. It wasn’t! I had some guy passing by pull me up three stairs to get in the front door. Not exactly the rock star entrance, huh?
After the radio shows I was starting to gain some confidence in my voice, and with throwing myself into these odd situations. So, I decided to start doing coffeehouses, even if I had to do them a cappella, or singing to recorded music. I did this for a little while before finding an acoustic guitarist via a musician search ad. Greg was a self-taught acoustic guitarist with some limitations, but he was brilliant at figuring out how to play songs with medium degree of difficulty. What he had was a great work ethic, determination that pushed me beyond what I thought I could do and his own vision of where he wanted to g with playing.
On our first meeting Greg came out to my house, and as soon as we played a few songs together, he gave me a tape of songs to learn, and we practiced twice a week until we had 20 songs down. Greg never seemed to care about me being n a wheelchair, and I’d really appreciated that, since I’d had a few rejections based on chair. I understood that it would be a barrier to some people, and frankly, it hurt a little. But I’d decided a long time ago to not get in my own way, and that meant not holding myself back from uncomfortable situations, or rejections. After all, I had a great recording of original songs and a few radio shows under my belt, so I felt (somewhat) valid. Having a great recording had to be respected, as most musicians never reach that level, but I had on more goal on my ‘wish list,’ and that was to play live for money. That happened to be Greg’s goal, too. After impressing his friends with his guitar skills, but not being able to sing them, he had this inner dream to play live in a public venue.
Greg was an interesting guy, in that this was his baby! He wanted to run the show, pick the songs, design a logo, pick the band name, etc. He was very detail oriented, and could be very picky, if not down right pushy. But I’m an easy person to work with, and I could see he needed the reins in his hands, or there would be friction. Besides, he was very organized and good at keeping us on same page.
Greg named us Wheelin n Dealin. I guess you can figure out who was Wheelin! Well, Greg went all out, designing an old racing slick tire with our namesake lettered on the side. He even bought a fog machine for the Bon Jovi song Wanted: Dead or Alive, and of course we had to where our badass Clint Eastwood western hats. All this for one song!! But hey, we had fun with it, and we poked fun of it when we played out.
Well, I’ve run ahead of myself, but we did eventually play out – in a redneck-filled bar called Beer Bellies. It definitely lived up to it’s name, as a fight broke out near the pool table, and one intoxicated fella offered his critique of our performance by slurring You SUCK!
In the beginning of this relationship I wasn’t sure I could ever play out because of my weakness in singing difficult songs for an extended time, but I had learned through our rehearsals how to rest my voice at points in songs. Still, the idea of playing out terrified me, knowing there was no going back once Greg set things up, hauled equipment, set up, etc. Well, if Greg had any reservations, he kept them hidden well. He was hell-bent on us playing out somewhere so his beer-swilling fun-loving friends could come out and see us, which just added to my personal pressure. After the Beer Bellies gig, we were feeling pretty damn good. I’d proved to myself I could do three sets of music, although near the end, my voice was really waning. And the next day I was near voiceless. However, we made around $100 in tips, as Greg’s friends, and my buddies, too, were quite generous.
We went on to play others bar gigs and private parties. We even picked up a bass player, named Lenny, who was pretty talented and sang back up much better than Greg could. Greg and Lenny would argue at times over silly things, and after a gig in a dirty bar, where they had words, Greg announced That’s it, and we were done as a band.
I’d hated seeing it end, as I was just finding my groove, and we were getting some good gigs, but I did go on to find other players to play with in even more satisfying situations.
Through the local weekly newspaper, which had a Musician’s Exchange section, I found Ian vom Saal, an excellent guitarist, but didn’t really know many rock cover songs, however, we worked up a few and went to a popular coffeehouse near the college to try them out. Ian had the skills I wanted, but almost better than that he possessed the sweetest acoustic guitar in the world, a Taylor. I don’t want to sound like a commercial, because hell, I’m not getting any money, but the sound of this guitar simply makes me sing better. And of course, Ian really knows how to use the dynamics of this guitar. I purposely switched to ‘present tense’ because I do still play with Ian occasionally for open mics.
Soon after meeting Ian, I met another very talented guitarist, named Aaron Frohna. Aaron was a self-taught player who’d mastered many songs from rock, blues and even duplicating great jazz guitar pieces by Joe Pass and Django Reinhardt, which isn’t easy music to play. The three of us quickly added 30 songs to our repertoire and played every Wednesday night at the Java Junction. We had fun, drank imported beers, listened to other players, met friends and became such regulars that we were practically the house band, at times. It was a great place to cut our teeth, and the more I played, the better I got at singing, and performing, which isn’t really the same. The performing part was how I set the tone, how I talked in between songs and my sense of humor that grew with confidence. I understood it was my job to lubricate the situation of getting people comfortable with a guy in a wheelchair, and I may have faked it well, but I never showed fear or intimidation. I knew if I was comfortable and loose, then the crowd would jump onboard. Honestly, we were usually the best players to play, but every now and then a player would come in and just blow me away. Sometimes it was competitive, but mostly, I enjoyed watching really good acts. No doubt, there were some atrocious ones, too. We’d just laugh, but applaud nevertheless.
After a year of rocking the coffeehouse some drama between Ian an Aaron split the trio, and I went with Aaron as a duo. We eventually found Christer Saarikko, a violin player that seemed to fit perfectly into what we had, and we all three quickly became friends, having memorable practices sessions at Aaron’s mobile home that involved great food, drinking beers and playing music. I was designated as gig finder, so I hit the phones trying to land us a gig. To my surprise, I was quite capable of getting our band, now called Free Spirit, gigs that paid, which had been one of my goals from the beginning. You see, I’d only had a few milestones I wanted to pass as I entered playing music, one being to record something I was proud of, and the other was to play for money. The money was only important because it meant I’d reached a level that someone was willing to put money out to entertain their patrons with our band.
I found Free Spirit gigs all over the area from the beaches to pizza joints to smoky bars, but our most unique gig was entertaining the bar poolside at Paradise Lakes, a nudist resort. Yup, it was strange at first, considering there were hundreds of naked people of all shapes and sizes, but really, I have to say it was one of the best gigs we ever played. The people were fun, and somehow their ‘nudeness’ made me feel comfortable with my own body and situation of wheelchair. It became clear to me that a body is just a vehicle that we have to ride in. Most of this body is genetically passed on, while you can improve on, or damage, parts along the journey. Obviously mine is damaged because of that tiny injury on my Spinal Cord, but somehow people without their clothing made me feel more like just another body.
Sometimes interesting things happen when playing music in public, and I’ll surely never forget the hottest naked girl at Paradise Lakes dancing slowly in front of me while I struggled to remember lyrics. At that moment I realized I could never reach a higher level of success as a musician, so I relaxed, sang my heart out, and soaked it in. After all, it’s the ultimate dream of every Rock Star-wannabe.
As the years slide by, I’ve played less and less, but still like to play an open mic now and then for the pure fun of bringing to life a song in front of people. I’ll never forget the great times I’ve had and really cool people I’ve met playing music. Nor will I ever take for granted the second chance I got to play music with my voice after a wreck that I thought had ended all musical aspirations.
One thing’s for sure, music has been a healer to my soul, and continues to heal me. Let it heal you, too!
