It's About Time

It's been so long since I've blogged, and life has taken sole rough turns, but I'm back and beginning a new chapter. This blog is mostly about my musical journey, which began when I started playing music again in 2006. Yes, that was 5 years ago, and a lot has happened since then, but the best part is taking up playing the violin again. Though I had distracted myself in my 20's with playing guitar, I was never really all that great at it, never really "got" the B string thing, and playing all those bar chords gave me immense wrist pain. So I hung it up when I went back to school. After graduating with my law degree and failing at my Mrs. degree (i.e. getting divorced) I reaches for the only part of my soul which had not been destroyed in the process...my love of playing music.

I first took up playing bass. I was inspired by Steve (the sax player for Los Lobos) who let me play his Baby Rickenbacher bass, and I was hooked. I bought a bass and started fooling around. I had planned on returning to my home town to take lessons from my old friend Erik Klevin; however, he met with his untimely demise in August 2006, and is now one of my musical angels (when he has the time, he is an awfully busy angel). While I was attending the funeral, I stopped into Skip's Music, and to make a very long story short, ended up coming out of there with my mandolin.

I returned back to Los Angeles, and started learning to play. I knew only a G and a C chord, and knew I needed a D to make a song. So one night at the Lava Lounge when Ryan Bingham was playing, I asked Corby Schaub how to make a D. And there I began feeling like I could write and play some songs...at least in G.

A month later, I was out at Pappy & Harriet's in Joshua Tree for the Camper Van Beethoven/Cracker campout, and ended up meeting Johnny Hickman. It's actually a funny story. I was walking back to my tent after the show, and saw an old man on a rocking chair tuning his guitar, and a younger man with his back to me tuning a mandolin. In my usual naive but curious fashion, I approached them and asked, "Hey, are y'all going to jam? Do you mind if I join you even though I've only had my mandolin for a month?" Johnny turned around and said, "absolutely, bring it on over" (or something to that effect). So I did, and then realized into the night I was jamming with some of the most amazing musicians I've had the pleasure to know. That experience has fueled my passion for music, and the friendships I formed that weekend have kept me going through the darkest of times.