Where does it all end?

howdy guys - bill here.

i'm in key west at the moment...making friends....and making money playing the guitar.

(the money and the experience come in handy...)

so, i figured the first two nights of my 4 night run would be boring. just me and a guitar entertaining fat cruise ship peeps that swing in for a frozen drink (with little to no alcohol) and a 40 dollar hat..... i mean - souvenir.

instead, on my first night on stage, an old friend comes up and says hey. his name is randy and he is a local drummer. an awesome drummer. (not as awesome as chuck now mind you). just an all around good guy. he introduces me to his band and proceeds to inform me that they are playing across the street. (my competition if you will...)

so i chat with them a bit and quickly realize that they have played with the likes of steve earle, mary chapin carpenter, the mavericks....the list goes on and on. top notch session players from nashville.

suddenly, i go into rock and roll geek mode.

when my break comes around, i run across the street to catch their set. and pick their brains. and hear their stories. cool ass stories. afterall, this is the whole reason i got into music. not the cruise sheep...i mean crusie ship peeps. but to hang with REAL players who have seen it, played it, lived it, done it, and are still here to reminesce about it.

so yeah, i'm geeking hard and they can tell. but they heard me play and they dig me so ...for the moment - i'm in. i'm one of the guys. they were super cool, took me in, and proceeded to share tons of cool stories from the road, tidbits of music biz jargon, and so forth. what a night!

when i was done, i packed up and ran straight back to hog's breath and hung out with them all night - (their last night in town).

we talked about gigs. we talked about chords. we compared opinions of what it means to be a success. we talked about elvis. (i'm reading a book about his 'last days'...so it is fresh on my mind)

we talked about all sorts of fun stuff that only a geeky musician a thousand miles from home would be into. we stuck around and watched the next band -'fanny pack' - from nashville.

after buying several rounds for each other, i realized that david mead was playing lead guitar.

(i thought i recognized his face...).

i opened for him once at the pour house a while back in raleigh.

it turns out that each band member we were watching was really talented and accomplished in his own right. one cat wrote a song that tim mcgraw released. the other dude (the drummer i think) just had a song placed in a movie coming out soon and so forth....

so the night was getting better. they played a jackson 5 cover and the crowd went berzerk.

(me included)

then they played originals. and then more covers.

and then - it hit me like a ton of bricks.

we are all in the same musical waters.

i catch a lot of flack from certain folks that think i shouldn't be playing covers. (folks that will never be capable of my patience, endurance, or work ethic when it comes to entertaining people)

tom petty said he loves covers. his band knows hundreds of them.

john cougar mellencamp made his band learn 50 covers and then just before going into record his original songs - said " here you go....here's MY stuff ".

it's simple. if you want to learn how to be a surgeon, you hang around surgeons...and talk surgery.

if you want to be a painter, you study other people's techniques.

so why should it be any different for writing songs?

yes, chuck, chris, and i write great songs.

have we scored a number one hit yet?

no....(not as of the last time i checked anyway..)

but we keep on going.

we play. we write. we study other songs that we love and we play them. and we play them well.

i'm not sure where this is going except to say that i had a blast tonight and i think tonight happened for a reson. to make me feel not so bad afterall.

i've caught a lot of negative energy lately from a lot of people who don't care about me anymore.

(long story).

all i can say is that i drove a thousand miles, played my ass off to hundreds of people in the room hour after hour, and made more money in one week than i make all month back home.

find the harm in that. tell me i'm not succesful.

tell me i'm not happy sleeping in each day, working on music whenever i feel like it, and spending time with my beautiful girlfriend and brand new 80 pound puppy - (moose...)

(shout out to all the kitties and shelba of course).

i play music for one reason only. because i love it. God has given me a talent and i decided a long time ago to dedicate my life to figuring out how to play music as much as i can.

tonight was a wonderful reminder of just how lucky i am.....