When I first arrived in Florida in 2007, I came with a mission to jumpstart my musical career. After all, I had an arsenal of more than 300 songs ideas to work with, and an older brother who was willing to dive into the craziness with me.
It took many months of sleepless nights learning Pro Tools, trying at the same time not to kill each other, to finish our first Album “Tales of a Dreamer” and we released it on iTunes the summer of 2008.
You see, I had this naive idea that the hardest part was done, recording the Album. I realize how silly it is now, thinking that just because we spent so much effort recording it, by some sort of momentum it just had to succeed. The truth is that there are thousands of Albums being released every day and writing and recording great tracks is only a very small part of the process, but that topic is one can of worms I won't open, at least not for now.
We did, however, have a good run, never in an economic sense, that is for sure. But we performed everywhere, and for the most part had a great response from the crowd when we played out. We started as many new bands do visiting open mics, and went from a duo to a trio, to later having musicians sit in for specific songs.
Like many business ventures in life not everything was peace and love. The band grew, we started to make some decent money, and even did the whole touring thing, the milestone I imagined myself enjoying when I was younger and more idealistic. The arguments and later on fights just kept on piling up, and we found ourselves struggling to find a good drummer for a good part of a year.
We tried to keep the show on the road and went through more drummers than I care to remember, but It never felt quite the same again. Anyone who has been part of a great musical project knows that feeling... When everything clicks, performing becomes second nature, you become lost in a trance and life seems to make sense. It's not easy to describe, you simply have to experience it. I think it was Zappa that said "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture. " and I think he was spot on.
Lots of positive things also happened, of course. We made a lot of great friends along the way, and even started a local movement with a podcast to go along with it called “Underground Miami Entertainment” or “UME” for short. The events mixed visual arts with some of the best musicians South Florida had to offer and it was unique in our local scene.
I organized and hosted a full year of events at different local venues trying to rally up musicians. It was my attempt to take back a music scene that in my eyes was being corrupted by reggaeton and laptops. But the venues became fewer and fewer until the hype died off.
My last show with my band was almost three years ago today, in a bar that does not exist anymore of course... It was a fun night and we packed the place. But, after playing our two sets and waiting to talk to the bar owner I was met with the surprise that they could not pay us for the gig. The door person had not shown up and everyone got in for free.
I had no energy left in me, It was 2 am and I still had a long drive home after packing. I took out my wallet paid our drummer, paid our rhythm guitarist, and went home and never set foot on a stage since then.
I do miss playing out, I won’t lie. The energy of that stage and the emotional conversation with the people in the audience is something that made me feel alive. I would like to believe one day I will find the energy to give it another go, but maybe in a different city.
For now, I’m grateful to have found Steemit, an amazing community that gives us musicians a platform to share our art. For now, I'm grateful that you are here, reading these words and sharing your time with me.
