Greetings -
Just In Case Anyone Cares what's happ'nin' with me since January:
It went like this, this year:
Had practiced like mad, for weeks, for my glorious return to the stage at the Pressroom on Jan. 14. That went okay, since few were there to witness it, and i learned that i must practice with a pick, 'cause i wasn't used to one, and couldn't hold onto it at the Pressroom. {i only RECENTLY - like, this week! - realized, too, that the pickup i use when guitar is plugged in, doesn't pick up the fattest E string, which i use heavily and emphatically in most of my songs. This is why "Hot Wax Baby" guitar sounds kinda like nonsense - the low E string was nearly inaudible. So, now i turn the pickup around, so it picks up that all-important string very well. I would have sounded much better at the Pressroom, had i been aware of this at the time. Since i practice and play alone, nobody's around to point these things out to me.}
Okay, so my intention was to start playing like crazy, in public places, after January, after that initial "debut". THEN, however, it was suggested to me that Portsmouth's RPM Challenge would be a good thing to get involved with, so i shelved my live-appearance plans for that month, to focus on recording a CD. To make a horrible story short, i failed to figure out how to operate the digital recorder i'd bought over a year earlier, and had never tried to use. The month was shot.
Having planned, and then failed, to make the RPM Challenge CD, my spirits were very low, my focus on live appearances now very un-focused, by a month of frustration trying to record, and not being able to.
Then i got laid off, on the day-job i've had for years. Pretty serious, being the sole provider for three. Money now squeezed badly, living on unemployment, i couldn't continue to buy and smoke my medication, and the combination of not being able to figure out how to record, when others tell me it's "easy", and losing momentum on live appearances, and getting laid off, resulted in a crushing depression {artists can be like that}. i was basically inactive for the following months. i did get another day-job, with a fluctuating, unpredictable schedule, very physically demanding, and this kept me, for a while, too exhausted to play at all. Some days i had to be at work by 6 a.m., and i rarely get to sleep before 2 or 3, and many of those early shifts were 9 hours long.
I did finally get myself playing again, a Lot, and that's NOW. At home, i mean, where it all begins, getting myself musically back into shape in the dingy basement where, bat-like, i hang out - and play.
So, i am now getting geared up to get Out There again. Still trying to stabilize things personally, though, as i'm still laid off from what was my regular day job, a Mon.-Fri. daytime gig, which enabled me to practice every night and get rested on weekends. I also, very recently, quit the crummy job that was tiring me out so much, for several very good reasons - reasons that didn't involve the tired-out part, so much, which i'd basically adjusted to. It just needed quitting - sometimes a job does. Now, then, again, there is some considerable stress, and the possibility of getting depressed over being jobless, but so far i'm maintaining as a musician, just Fine, still going ahead, practicing, learning a lot on the guitar itself, and getting Ready to get back onstage.
I have not yet done myself justice, done anywhere near as well as i can, regarding any recorded representation of myself as a musician. In other words, the few videos and stuff that's available online, here at jimdangerzone.com and on YouTube, are devoid of anything that shows what i can really do. The recordings, free downloads on jimdangerzone.com are disappointing, because they were taken from very good-sounding cassette tapes, and put on CD by a hack who screwed 'em up pretty badly. Also, some of my better songs aren't there at all. {Man, if i could only make my own CDs!!!!!!!!!} The videos, well, the stuff at the Pressroom was screwed up as described, performance-wise, and also having songs chopped up, beginnings and endings missing, well - ! Chalk all that up to First Time. So, i'm very eager to not only do well onstage, but also to be adequately well presented by recordings, audio and audiovisual. These things lie ahead - and i'm looking forward.
Here, Now, AND Forward,
Jim Danger Oct. 14, 2014
