The last 6 months or so have been pretty Weird!
There's been a lot of just trying to hold on for the sake of holding on.
I
moved to Philly in the fall & things ended up not really working
out there, and I quit the bands & projects I was in, with the intent
of putting music on the backburner for a bit while I got my life
together.
"Quitting" music didn't quite
pan out either (You never know *where* life's gonna take you) ... I got
back to New York & needed to make money & get by - started out
with busking & got some freelance work - and hey, if someone's gonna
pay you to do something you're good at - Work is Work
Then I
fell into (read: applied & got competitively selected for) a Work
Training Program in ITS Cabling (if you want to know what this is,
google Infrastructure or Backbone Cabling). It was a 6 week, 175 hour
course - 8:30-4:30 M-F with 3 hours of homework every night. Suddenly
my only option for survival was Busking (and any other odd job I could
find). Once upon a time, a dear Cellist friend told me "Busking is
bullshit for reliability" ... Gods, those words proved to be So True.
Now there's Job Placement & seeking, and ultimately this will allow
me to support my creative desires instead of being crippled by them.
The
last 6 months have been this weird place of burnout & financial
desperation, and hope & perseverance, and wanting to create
something musical & beautiful, but not really having any creative
desires. I've also become increasingly conscious of wanting to do work
at Good Quality - the recordings I've made in the past were all done
lightning fast in 24 hours or less, and not really properly
recorded/captured - not great quality. Additionally I've never pressed
CDs, and I'm still waiting for Ghosts of Greyhame mastering to finish
(it's out of my hands). But anyway, the point is, I'm trying not to be
the metaphorical Kid with Raggedy Torn Clothes on the block anymore -
which has meant that I've had to put time, energy & money into other
things, so that at the end of the day I *can* put out good quality Art
and I can create something meaningful & something that I can be
proud of.
In ways I'm proud of everything I've done so far, and in ways I've become less ambitious, and in ways I have more to go.
I
do look forward to creating some more art & exploring the places
that I meant to go when I first started out on this cello journey... I
don't know when exactly it will happen, but I know it will, and I look
forward to that happening.
I'm really blessed that so many people have stuck around and cared,
and as I'm embarking on this tour (as a Roadie, not as a Musician), I
look forward to the future, and to knowing that at some point again,
I'll have some beauty to share with you all.
Thank You All
PS - I'll be blogging about Tour over here: http://awakemyeyes.tumblr.com - so feel free to follow along if you'd like!
PPS - I was lucky enough to play Cello for a track on the new Frenchy
& The Punk album - If you haven’t already heard them, go check it
out!! The track is called “Mulina, Mulina”
