After leaving Y’all is Fantasy Island, I feel sort of free. Not that I was feeling particularly opressed and I did love the music we were playing. Some of it I really loved.
But I don’t suppose playing in that band would ever really satisfy me. It started out as a friend asking me to fill in for a couple of gigs as a bass player was required Then before I knew it I was playing in every gig, playing more instruments and being the unofficial driver. Maybe in another life that would have been enough to keep me happy, but I think I am far to egotistical to sit back and continue to be part of someone else’s musical vision.
Maybe because I joined the band after it was established, maybe because song writing was not really a group-effort within the band, but I did not feel like it was my place to come up with creative ideas, or to write tunes for us to play. So what do I do after leaving a band in which I was feeling unfulfilled playing somebody else’s music? I join a covers band.
Falkirk based covers band Arthur recently suffered a major fracture and lost two members. Like so many times before, word of a bass playing vacancy came my way on the local music grapevine and after a couple of meetings, a bit of an audition-ey rehearsal and some practice sessions I found myself playing with the re-christened R-4 in Inverness. We are going back up this coming weekend too. What is even better - we seem to actually make money out of it all.
So I am being kept musically busy with performance and teaching, I have the new College year looming. Am I fulfilled and happy? Of course not.
I am still playing other people’s music, which as fun as it is, still leaves a bit of yearning in my soul. I don’t know if I am a good enough songwriter to ever fulfil that yearning, but I suppose I have to try. So amongst gigs with the new band, an ever increasing number of lessons to teach and lots of fresh college work I shall have to finally write myself an album to record. The good news is that it is partly done - I have been writing it since I was 12.
So as I said to begin, I feel a sense of musical freedom. To misquote Morgan Freeman in The Shawshank Redemption, it’s the kind of freedom and excitement you feel at the start of a long journey. Some kind of musical journey, hopefully.
