Anyone here ever stopped, had an epiphany, and said to themselves "fuckit, I'm not working anymore, I'm going to just play some music til I fall into the void"??

Cos that's exactly what I feel like doing.

If you ain't got nothing, you got nothin to lose.

My "epiphany" took place pretty much just as I met my first wife, who was a full-time student. After that I never had the balls to face the financial uncertainty, and now I am in a career I can't imagine not doing.

some assclown and his traveling kid compadre hit me up for change the other day. playing his acoustic guitar, getting in my face with a box of dollars in his mouth.

i did not give them money.

those who don't take chances...


something, something...


success.

windowlicker wrote:Anyone here ever stopped, had an epiphany, and said to themselves "fuckit, I'm not working anymore, I'm going to just play some music til I fall into the void"??

Cos that's exactly what I feel like doing.

If you ain't got nothing, you got nothin to lose.

don't play some, play lots.

i had this epiphany as regards music school. i dropped out two times (with a number of years in between), after a year each, once doing classical percussion, once doing drumset. i just decided that it was time to do my own music...i wasn't gonna wait three years to do it. it's worked out really well & i don't regret it at all.

still, don't have (too many) illusions about escaping dayjobs. i'm still dependant on 'em, but very thankful for the chance they give me to do my thing.

i play with some folks who are kinda supported by their parents. if
something like this is the case & you have their support, then use it for all it's worth to make something worthwhile.

good luck!

Thanks for the encouragement Jimmy.

The old man reckons I should give it a shot, which surprises me.

In terms of financial support, my parents are retired and cant offer any (not that I want it) but there is literally nothing else I would rather do.

Hopefully after another year of working/saving I'll be able to dedicate myself to it.

I'm sure most of the forum probably had (or will have) the opposite of such an epiphany, the one where you realise you should just keep the day job. I can't imagine that there are many good bands that don't have at least something to compensate their thin musician's income, wheather it's music-related or not. There are jobs out there that will allow you to tour extensively and then jump back in when you're home. You just have to find them.

JDanger wrote:There are jobs out there that will allow you to tour extensively and then jump back in when you're home. You just have to find them.

yea this is what i've been doing. over the past couple years i've slowly been getting into touring live sound. i've been really lucky to get hooked up with great bands/people/pay/etc. but it's taken time, and in between tours i've been able to keep the same job. i don't like it or anything, but it's better than having zero income when i get home.

i know the thead was started about playing music. i guess my epiphany was that if i was going to be a musician AND a sound person, the latter was a more realistic means of making a living. after that, the key was to get in good with the ones who do make a living from playing, and be THEIR sound person.

As a cube-dweller in my early 30s, I've pondered the full-time-rawk escape hatch myself a few times. The fact is, musicians' gig pay really hasn't changed over the past 15-20 years. The best you can do is tour as a duo, but past that, you'll still have to jam econo on a level that makes a Minutemen tour look like a Stones tour.

Going full-time is no guarantee that one more warm body is going to show up at your gigs. How does giving up nearly a decade of 401(k)s, health insurance, ability to pay rent, and being a viable adult relationship prospect to women for living in a van, sleeping on floors, bumming food and gas money, and beeing too much of a creepy old dude to hook up nightly seem worth it?

There seem to be two viable options:

1. Keep the day job, put out self-aware non-careerist records focusing solely on quality. Lather, rinse, repeat until one of your records catches the right ear. Tour on your vacation time. Become a cult indie-rock legend. Become solvent enough to quit your day job. Works for Bob Pollard…

2. Cruise ship gig.

The cube doesn't seem to bad looking at it that way...

tim wrote:

JDanger wrote:There are jobs out there that will allow you to tour extensively and then jump back in when you're home. You just have to find them.

yea this is what i've been doing. over the past couple years i've slowly been getting into touring live sound. i've been really lucky to get hooked up with great bands/people/pay/etc. but it's taken time, and in between tours i've been able to keep the same job. i don't like it or anything, but it's better than having zero income when i get home.

i know the thead was started about playing music. i guess my epiphany was that if i was going to be a musician AND a sound person, the latter was a more realistic means of making a living. after that, the key was to get in good with the ones who do make a living from playing, and be THEIR sound person.

I do know a guy who has managed to make a living as a theater tech, running sound and lights. It's a paycheck-to-paycheck living, and it helps that his wife is starting out as an RN, but it's a living.

What worked for him was taking contract jobs at festivals here and there, being a quick study, having a can-do attitude, and eventually he started getting flooded with work. He works 50-60 hour weeks now.

A mutual friend of his and mine came up under him as a theater tech, and he does do the proverbial cruise ship gig now, as a lighting tech. Another mutual friend from way back is doing the same thing, but is enough of a slackass that he still lives in his mom's basement. He's 30.