I've been away from blogging for just over a year now. I know that blogs are less fashionable than other social media these days, but I'm Facebook averse and I'm way too verbose for Twitter. I'm seriously thinking of returning to this blog in a much more regular way. I have several projects in the hopper and I hope that I can use this spot to promote some of them. I'd love to hear from anyone still visiting so I know that the effort will be worth it. Please drop a line or a comment to let me know that this blog still has life and posting is going to have at least a small audience!
Nothing earth-shattering this post, but stay tuned!
Most of the visitors here will be vaguely aware that before I became a blog keeper, at one time I satisfied my need for attention by singing in public. For most of my twenties (that's the last decade of the 20th Century, in case you were wondering - man, I'm old.) I made my living by singing for several different cover bands in bars, lounges, taverns and even the occasional arena or park.
I wasn't relevant, I wasn't famous and I made very little money. My how nothing has changed...
It was fun though. It was a great way to spend the best decade of my life. It was also a long, long time ago.
I am often asked if I miss it. I don't. I don't miss worrying about whether or not the van will make it to the next gig, lugging endless amounts of gear, herding reluctant musicians (myself included) into rehearsal, dealing with agents, drunks, egotistical musicians and the other million things that used to make the job tougher in some ways than any other I've ever had.
I do, occasionally, miss the singing. I often say that I used to get paid to book gigs, drive a truck, set up gear and keep my band out of jail - the singing I did for free. It was the fun part and if that's all I ever had to do I'd probably still be doing it, regardless of the pay.
I don't sing much these days. Too busy making a living, too tired in the evenings to go out, and too far removed from the old days to know anyone to jam with anymore. I've found other things to fill my time and keep me out of trouble.
But.
Every so often I get the old urge. The pipes may be rusty but the water still wants to flow sometimes. I even posted a couple of original songs here a long time ago.
A while back, I took a test drive at the karaoke site "SingSnap" and recorded a few tunes under an assumed name (just in case things went horribly, horribly wrong I didn't use "Greybishop"), just for my own amusement. I promptly forgot about the recordings and moved on with real life. The other day I got one of those periodical updates that websites send to remind you that you haven't visited in a while and today I was a little bored, so I went back. My recordings are still there, so I took a listen.
Recorded with a cheap, crappy headset in my living room, synced to plinky-dinky sounding karaoke tracks, no reverb, no processing, no polish whatsoever. And not as horrible as I expected. Either my standards have lowered (likely they have!) or these silly little recordings are actually tolerably listenable.
A free account only gives one limited song selections, so I had a hard time finding music that I wanted to sing, but eventually a handful of songs got recorded. I'm posting a few to see if the blog implodes.
Even before I was being paid to sing in front of audiences, I used to go to karaoke regularly. Eventually I wound up singing in my very first band. We were awful. I still cringe when I think of the two gigs we actually did in public. One of SingSnap's free songs was one that we did back then, probably one of the only songs we didn't slaughter mercilessly...
My first paid gig was with a band called "Mask". We used to dress up and it was lots of silly fun. Not one song from those days was in the free section, so I've got nothing from then to share. My next band was a sort of revue. We did a little bit of everything from rock to country and all points in between. The only song in the freebie section was one that one of my bandmates sang but I thought I could have...
Pretty much everything else in the freebie section was either stuff I'd only ever sung for fun at a karaoke or in the shower. Some I'd never even tried and recorded just...because.
Thinking back, this is one that we should have done in Mask. The costume would have been fantastic...
This one came along at the end of my singing days. We would have covered it for sure, but I'd retired by then...
I've got a few more in the account but I'll wait and see if this is a popular post or if people run screaming the other way before I post any more.
Oh and if you've read this far, you get the bonus prize. Very, very soon there will be some big news here related to LOST and the endeavour that started all this silly blog stuff oh, so long ago. Stay tuned!
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