I was just lying in bed this afternoon wondering what happened to my life as I normally do after my wife freaks out and accuses me of ruining her life, when my mind drifted back to another time, a time without a wife and when I had another life possibly just beginning. I remembered when I was an 18 years old wannabe rock star in a heavy rock band (the phrase heavy metal hadn't been coined yet in 1970) called Anvil (no, not the Canadian Anvil) and we were playing a gig in some pub-hall somewhere in South london, South Norwood probably. During the sets I always did this solo number where the others went offstage for a smoke or piss or whatever and I was left to indulge to my own devices. The solo usually started pretty quietly as I played some quasi flamenco type stuff and gradually built up, got louder and suddenly exploded into some real Hendrixesque 'psychedelic' pyrotechnics as the guitar sound rushed through my Watkins Copicat, Crybaby wah and Tonebender fuzzbox to spew out of my Elgen 100 watt stack all over the audience. In those days, sounds like that were very rare on a pub stage coming from an unknown and there were in fact only half a handful of guitarists that used effects the way I did, so every time I played, the reaction was usually one of great interest and wonder. Anyway, I'm doing the number and sounds of screaming seagulls are intermingling with hard chords and lightning fast bluesy rock runs rising up out of a swell pedal and the audience is amazed. They are so amazed that many of them are standing on tables and chairs trying to get a better look at this fuzzy haired git, I mean, kid who has the audacity to sound like Jimi Hendrix and Jimmy page and someone else jamming, on their pub stage in fucking South Norwood. In 1970. I look up and now almost everybody is standing and sort of dancing on the tables while the others are beginning to throw chairs at the ones on the tables because they can't see me. The chairs are caught and hurled back and that's all I can see now, chairs whizzing through the air being hurled back and forth as the guys on the tables stamp their boots on the tabletops in time with my beat and wave their arms about like charmed cobras. The next thing I know is everything falls silent as the plug is pulled, the lights come on and the pub management is in there in their riot mode. They tell the audience to piss off, tell us to piss off and ban us from ever playing another gig in their pub in South Norwood, ever again! Surreal.
You're almost ten years younger than I and this sounds like a textbook case of "mid-life crisis." My wife led a pretty bohemian life when we got married and I expected her to give up on the rat race and encourage me to devote my life to music while she wrote the Great American Novel. Instead we both became managers, bought real estate and got a Mercedes. I continued on and off to play in bands that rarely got gigs and she has several stories that she is still working on. Today, with our 30th anniversary coming up, we have a 3,000 square foot house on five acres of redwood forest, eleven dogs, and a relatively new Mercedes SUV in addition to the two old diesel war horses, including that first one that is now 30 years old and has almost 200,000 miles. I'm a modestly well-respected guru in the field of I.T. management consulting and she manages several rental properties. I still regret not having tried my hand in the music business, but I have to admit that I probably don't have the temperament for it. I dusted off my old Mos-Rite bass and got back in practice and have been looking for a band. She is still working on her stories, and fortunately writing is a field in which wiser, more mature people actually have a chance of breaking in. She doesn't regret giving up the bohemian trip. We're both happy that we did the things we did when we were young, both together and before we met. I rode a motorocycle across Europe and won a couple of trophies in enduros (grueling off-road rallyes). She lived on a kibbutz and learned to ski in the Alps. We went to Hawaii when it was still the way it was. (Anyone who's reading this: Go to Hawaii this year. Everyone who's ever gone back a second time says they're glad they saw it the first time.) We spent five weeks driving through Mexico and climbed around several ruins. Went to the Reggae Sunsplash in Jamaica. Went camping every year for many years in the region we eventually moved into. Bred parrots and hand-fed the babies. Ran a teddy bear collectors' club. Saw Pink Floyd do The Wall from the 16th row. Saw both Metallica and Guns'n'Roses when they were still warming up headliners, then saw them co-headline the Rose Bowl. Yeah we both love rock and roll, it was our mutual love for David Bowie that brought us together. We still have fights and one time we almost separated, but we're both glad we didn't. Hang in there, we all go through this. Pick up your axe and find a band. If the UK is anything like the USA, people are crowding into bars on weekends to listen to us old guys play the songs of the 60s, 70s, and 80s. My best friends' band had to play "Kashmir" twice in their last gig. People who heard it called their friends and when they arrived they begged them to do it again.
It's not my mid-life crisis, it's hers. I had mine 10 years ago. Anyway, this will blow over, just like all the others, but that wasn't the point of the thread. It's just that thinking back, I remembered that particular situation when I caused a riot and it made me laugh. Made me think, (in the words of Marlon Brando) I coulda been a contender. When I retired from my business I spent 12 hours a day for 15 years in my home studio doing nothing but my own original electro music...for me and no one else. I don't miss being in a band, the thought of it is nice sometimes, but I know that the other guys are just going to piss me off, what with their ego trips and not turning up for rehearsals and one thing after another, so no, I don't miss it at all.
I was in a group called "Funikoshi's Dog". We didn't get together to play music. We got together to screw around. Sometimes we'd actually record something on an old 4 track ("Louie Louie" with vocals from some guys from Alcoholics Anonymous, not a band but the actual support group! and the total destruction of Silverchair's (I think) "Pure Massacre". It was purely massacred, trust me.) We got together at the drummer's house because he kept his kit all set up and stored all the amps for us. I'd show up with an old '54 Kay Stratotone, everyone else would lug their gear along and we'd just jam, or not. It was great fun, and sometimes we'd get an audience because we apparently weren't half-bad.
