What a week!

I’m dog tired, and sick, and I have to wake up early to travel to the Interior for a wedding (which I am looking forward to, it will just not help the tiredness).

“Why are you so tired?” you say in an inquisitive and mildly concerned tone.

Well… the main reason I’m tired is because of kids.  About 40 of them to be specific.  This week I helped out with a kids camp called VBS.  It was a blast, but it drained me.  I spent hours upon hours running around, chasing kids, lifting kids, being attacked by kids, singing, jumping, yelling, dancing, playing “grounders” and other games, etc.  For a relatively-out-of-shape-non-athlete like me, this is pretty intense.  Oh yeah, I also had to wake up at 6:30AM everyday, which is also intense for a mostly-self-employed-rockstar-wannabe like me.

Crazy kids and no sleeping in would be managealbe by itself, but this was also busy week with music.  I was burning the candle from both ends (is that how the saying goes?)

Here’s what I’ve been doing:

- finding students and writing curriculum for guitar lessons
- finding musicians and starting auditions for a cover band
- playing shows (I had two this week)
- playing on a radio station

Yesterday, I met Julie Lee.  She is an amazing violinist and we got along really well.  She was so good that I invited her to play with me at my show that night (which Julia Spitale hosted so wonderfully).  We performed some songs that she had never even heard before and no one in the audience would have known - she’s that good (it’s like playing with Brielle, for those of you who saw her play with me).

The radio appearance was really cool.  It was at Simon Fraser University’s CJSF 90.1 FM station, on a show called Melodies in Mind, hosted by Ryan Fletcher.  There were three other performers - Aidan Mayes, Dana Marie, and Day Cart (four if you include both guys of  Day Cart - whose name is a reference to philosopher Rene Decarte) and we did a song circle.  We traded songs back and fourth.  All of them were really talented.  In fact one of Dana Marie’s songs almost made me cry.  It was a great show in general.  You can hear a few of the songs at http://www.myspace.com/melodiesinmind

Or download the full show here in two sections: one and two

Anyway, it’s been a hectic week!  I feel wrecked.  But what keeps me going is that I absolutely love everything I am doing.

I got a call from Adam late one night,

“Jeff, me and Tony are coming over tomorrow morning at 9:30. Don’t shower or eat breakfast. We’re going to make a stop-motion music video for ‘Shame on Me’. It will be a day in the life of Fawker [his “clever” nickname for me… I don’t really mind it]. We’ve worked out the storyboard and everything.”

“Well… okay,” I said, knowing that I didn’t really have a say in the matter. I was actually pretty excited even though I had no idea what the plan was.

Adam and Tony came barreling in a half hour late and likely running on pure caffeine. My roommate and his fiancé sacrificed their quiet Saturday morning for our crazy antics (I guess I probably still owe them for that). We started shooting right away. Adam told me to climb into bed and slowly reach for the alarm clock. He shot at rapid-fire speed to get the stop-motion effect. We proceeded to shoot scenes all day. Most of the music video actually involved what I needed to do that day: eat breakfast, brush my teeth, practice music, etc.

There was one scene that is allusive and artsy where I am just standing completely still at the bus stop. We actually completely lucked out with this beam of light shining where I was standing. If we shot that even half an hour later, that light would have been gone.

The annoying part of making the music video was the editing process. For the longest time we struggled with the math of how long each of the 669 pictures should last for the 3 minute song. Then once we figured out the equation, the computer program wouldn’t work properly. So we gave up for the night and just poured drinks and shared stories.

A few days later we tried editing on a different computer with different software but the computer kept crashing. So we tried a third computer with yet another program. It ended up being Windows Movie Maker (a bottom of the barrel, free program) that worked in the end. It took three different computers and three different programs to get this short video to work. Editing engineers in the film industry have my sympathy.

Check out the video here or on my Media page.

The CD release concert last night was awesome!  There was a great turn out and I had so much fun.  The opening band, Oats, was fantastic too.  Check them out at http://www.myspace.com/oatscollective

At first I was a little unsure of my performance since I forgot the lyrics a couple times, but I think I need to keep remembering that perfection doesn’t match up with my style of music.  I’m a bit rough around the edges and maybe that’s a good thing.  Plus a lot of people encouraged me and said they really enjoyed the show.  Anyway, I love music and there’s no stopping now…

At the age of twelve I wrote my first song. Finally now – 10 years later – I’ve started to release my music to the public. I think there were four main things stopping me before:

1) I was convinced that I was unprepared

2) I was afraid of rejection (if I was unprepared, no one would listen to my music)

3) I lacked the finances to record

4) I was too lazy to put in the hard work

All of these obstacles continued to haunt me even through the recording of “Dark Before Dawn”, but I found ways around them. I think the ultimate reason I got off my lazy ass and decided to give my music a shot was because my friends and family challenged me and encouraged me. In fact, one of my friends confronted me with some tough love, saying, “If you don’t get started with your music now, you’re never going to do it.” Almost immediately after hearing this, I set some goals, made a plan, and started working – just to prove my friend wrong. I guess his reverse psychology worked on me.

Everything seemed to fall into place once I decided to just go for it. Somehow I had the finances. Somehow I became more motivated and more confident.

A saying comes to mind: “If you want something in life, you have to reach out and grab it.” This is cliché and lame, but I think it applies to my situation. I needed to stop dreaming about being a singer/songwriter and start doing what it takes to be one. It was a simple but profound lesson for me.