Do you remember your first gig? Remember the first time you set up your kit, and you were actually going to play in front of real live people? My first gig was almost 32 years ago, but I remember it like it was only yesterday. My friend Steve Elmer, called me up and said, "Hey, do you want to play at a party. I know this girl, and she's having this party. They'll even give us FREE PIZZA!!!"
If playing the drums should be anything,
How could I resist . . . ? "Play music, and free Pizza. . . ? Count me in. What time do I show up?" Now, at the tender age of eleven years old, playing before a live audience really meant nothing to me. In fact, playing in a band really meant nothing to me either. I do, however, remember the first time some friends and I managed to get a drum set, a bass guitar and an amplifier in the same room. Of course we didn't know how to do anything but make some noise, but it was a true accomplishment.
it should be fun.
Several kids that I knew had been taking guitar lessons from a guy named L.A "Jack" Francis. He was an old retired studio session player from Los Angeles that had moved up to Oregon to spend his golden years. He could sit down and write out a chart, and play all the parts, harmony, everything, faster than I could find the "B" string. Jack was so wired, and moved so fast, his energy was frightening, and inspiring. The students that stayed with him really learned something, because he really knew his stuff, music theory, advanced harmony, all the inversions, everything.
Now I decided after several lessons, sitting there with sweat covered finger tips, that what I really wanted to do was play the drums. Jack had set up another Jam Session and another kid I knew was playing drums. I was there as the singer. After that session I knew I could play drums better than any of the other kids who were trying to play. So, drums became my main instrument, and the rest is . . . shall we say, "history."
We spent hours and hours working things out in that basement studio, and several of Jack's students and myself evolved into what became my actual first band, but back to the story of that first gig. We didn't really know any songs together, but we all had an idea of what a song was supposed to sound like. We must have sounded awful, but the kids thought it was great. After we had played for I don't know how long . . . we took a break, loaded as much pizza and as many bottles of pop as we could fit into the back of an amplifier and hit the road. Success, our heads were swelling, we were true musicians, rock stars, we were on our way.
