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What Is Your Claim To Fame?


garybrun

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Oh yeah,

Early days I played in a band with Burleigh Drummond (before he joined Ambrosia) and I played in a band with Chas Sandford before he became a producer of Chicago and Stevie Nicks among others.

I turned down the opportunity to audition for the reforming Uriah Heep, and then foolishly a fledgling act called Hall and Oats.

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1 hour ago, Bapu said:

Oh yeah,

Early days I played in a band with Burleigh Drummond (before he joined Ambrosia) and I played in a band with Chas Sandford before he became a producer of Chicago and Stevie Nicks among others.

I turned down the opportunity to audition for the reforming Uriah Heep, and then foolishly a fledgling act called Hall and Oats.

So what did you end up doing for a living and when did you stop live performing or do you still perform live (okay, except for the last year when no one plays live anymore)? I opted for a suit and the business world.  I'll never forget when  I was young on an interview, I told the hiring manager that I was a rock musician, and he was fascinated but no longer took me serious as a job candidate. Consequently, I took those references off my resume and never spoke of my being a musician again during a job interview. 

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7 minutes ago, PavlovsCat said:

So what did you end up doing for a living and when did you stop live performing

I was already in the workforce in the field of materials management which led to computer programming ultimately. Still doing that today 45 years later.

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18 minutes ago, PavlovsCat said:

when did you stop live performing

About 40 years ago. In 2009 I had a reunion jam with the band in our high school era. My ex-wife (high school girlfriend) stopped by to see the guys. That's about a 'live' as it gets. I much more prefer the recording approach, especially virtually.

Live playing was never much fun for me. You know the old joke: loads up thou$and$ in gear to drive 50 miles to make $50 (or less).

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I stopped playing publicly in the 90s due to severe tendinitis -- it was a deal killer when you're a drummer. I still continued to write music, as I did since I was like 4 years old, but after my DAW PC's main hard drive took a dive around a decade ago and I lost a ton of music I never backed up, I stopped. I figured, what's the point. I don't play out anymore. My tendinitis stops me from playing drums or keyboards well anymore -- I'd sometimes play for a few minutes, have excruciating pain and then stop completely. Then last year, my teenage son asked me for a gaming PC for Christmas and he said he wanted to learn to play keyboards. So I started showing him how to play Beatles, Coldplay, etc. and realized that I could play keyboards for up to an hour without pain and now I'm awaiting a friend building me a custom PC for my next DAW so I can go back to recording music that nobody really cares to hear, with musical chops gone after decades of no practice, and yet I can't stop my desire to keep making music. I take it that it is common among this group, but then I hear some of the music people are sharing -- like maybe it was you, Bapu who recently shared a Steely Dan cover with amusing forum-related lyrics and it was really good. I think my reality is that my playing skills are now very pedestrian, where I was once a talented musician and I'm nowhere near my hypercritical standards,  and yet I still am compelled to record anyway! Maybe I'm my worst critic,  but I'm not wrong. 

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12 minutes ago, Bapu said:

About 40 years ago. In 2009 I had a reunion jam with the band in our high school era. My ex-wife (high school girlfriend) stopped by to see the guys. That's about a 'live' as it gets. I much more prefer the recording approach, especially virtually.

Live playing was never much fun for me. You know the old joke: loads up thou$and$ in gear to drive 50 miles to make $50 (or less).

I lived for playing in front of audiences. My last gig with my most popular band I played with was at a big college in the Midwest and unannounced to me, the leader of the band surprised me with having a completely pre-recorded show. He told me that if he would have told me before the gig I wouldn't have agreed to it, so I found out when I got there. My last gig with my most popular band. What was the point if we weren't actually playing live and lip syncing. We weren't on television. We were playing at a college. But yeah, I totally miss live performance. 

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59 minutes ago, PavlovsCat said:

Consequently, I took those references off my resume and never spoke of my being a musician again during a job interview. 

Not sure what type of work you were applying for, but might have been a missed opportunity.

https://www.baunovus.com/insight-music

The link is to an article  regarding the early days of programming and an example of looking beyond stereotypes. 

And for a few degrees of separation, ran into Uriah Heep's (original) bassist when he was working for IBM in Scotland.  Wonder what his hiring manager was thinking. Or what he put on his resume. ?

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53 minutes ago, jackson white said:

Not sure what type of work you were applying for, but might have been a missed opportunity.

https://www.baunovus.com/insight-music

The link is to an article  regarding the early days of programming and an example of looking beyond stereotypes. 

And for a few degrees of separation, ran into Uriah Heep's (original) bassist when he was working for IBM in Scotland.  Wonder what his hiring manager was thinking. Or what he put on his resume. ?

I actually don't even remember what the job was. I'm pretty sure it was something in marketing or advertising, which did become my career. I just recall the guy asking me all sorts of questions that showed that he didn't take me as a job candidate but was kind of fascinated with me as a musician asking me questions about drug use (nope), groupies, tattoos, earings, etc. I quickly realized there was no way to get the guy out of the rabbit hole we went down no matter how hard I tried, so I was friendly and polite and realized I had no shot and quickly did receive a rejection letter. It's okay, everything worked out just fine once I took musician off my resume. Truth be told, that experience was the reason I never got a tattoo or earring even though I really wanted an earring, I suspected that getting one would cause prospective day job hiring managers to make all sorts of negative assumptions about me (mainly, drug use based on the prevalent stereotypes of the day of musicians). 

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2 hours ago, PavlovsCat said:

I lived for playing in front of audiences. My last gig with my most popular band I played with was at a big college in the Midwest and unannounced to me, the leader of the band surprised me with having a completely pre-recorded show. He told me that if he would have told me before the gig I wouldn't have agreed to it, so I found out when I got there. My last gig with my most popular band. What was the point if we weren't actually playing live and lip syncing. We weren't on television. We were playing at a college. But yeah, I totally miss live performance. 

Was the leader named Milli or Vanilli? ?

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I travelled to the gig with the lead singer -- the owner of the band name -- offered our road crew  like $150 to leave me stranded at the gig. But they refused the money. Even more, even we were on the way back the lead singer's van was caught off the highway in a ditch and I swear I pleaded with our road crew to pull over to see if he needed help and they refused. Fortunately, he and my band mates were okay. But man, I really learned how much our road crew despised the guy and fortunately liked me even though they always complained when I got carried away jamming with the guitarist during sound checks.

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22 hours ago, jackson white said:

My things have changed. IME, they're almost a requisite if you were to apply for a digital/social media anything job these days.  

Got ink? 


I read a pretty convincing piece that tattoos compromise your immune system.

First of all, a couple of colors of ink used in the USA are banned in Europe as probable carcinogens.

More important than that, the ink lodges in your lymph nodes which are major immune system components. When full of ink, the notes turn black, become hard as a rock, and no longer work as the filters, which is their primary function.

I'm glad I never got a tattoo.

Personally, I don't really find them attractive anyway. But to each his/her own.

Notes ♫

 

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I had a small earring in my left ear when I joined a band, but that filled in decades ago.  I've never had a tattoo (I personally think they're graffiti and almost everyone I've seen with them would look better without - JMO!) but, if I were to get one, I already know what it would be:  The keyboard keys Ctrl, Alt & Del (probably on the back of my neck)!  ?

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1 hour ago, craigb said:

I had a small earring in my left ear when I joined a band, but that filled in decades ago.  I've never had a tattoo (I personally think they're graffiti and almost everyone I've seen with them would look better without - JMO!) but, if I were to get one, I already know what it would be:  The keyboard keys Ctrl, Alt & Del (probably on the back of my neck)!  ?

I have a copy of an old tintype photo of my Great (x4 or 5) Grandmother. She was a full blooded Mohawk. I always wanted to get that tattooed on my arm up high enough so a shirt would cover it. I imagine something realistic looking would be expensive.

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On 3/10/2021 at 8:58 PM, jackson white said:

My things have changed. IME, they're almost a requisite if you were to apply for a digital/social media anything job these days.  

Got ink? 

I've often thought that the residents of future old age care homes are going to be a very strange looking bunch with all their wrinkly tattoos and surgical "enhancements"

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