Music and Me...

I was the bass guitar player in a country band called "Last Minute Thang." And no, this is not a joke.

It was high school and I was a band student. Make that, a band nerd. I wanted to be in band since I was a young child at football games, back when the old rock gymnasium was still standing at the visitors end of the football field. I didn't understand how music worked when I was a kid, but I would go home and on a sheet of paper try to recreate what I heard. I drew lines. Small lines for low notes, longer ones for high notes. The next day I would try to recreate the song in my head by looking at the paper. I was obsessed.

Then the glorious year came-- Sixth Grade. About the only thing I can remember good about sixth grade was beginning band. I was a trumpet player, and I was good. Well, good for a sixth grader. By tenth grade my teeth needed braces, which made it painful to continue playing the trumpet, so I switched to Tuba.

Yes, I was a Tuba player. Two years All-State.

Like I said, band nerd.

Sometime in high school a jazz band formed and I learned how to play the bass guitar. I actually learned on an old upright bass. I was not naturally talented at anything, I just practiced hard. Because of this lack of natural talent, I didn't play any instruments, including the bass guitar, by ear. I simply knew how to read music and recreate it on the instrument.

The upright bass became an electric bass. Then, as the Brad Paisley song says, I grabbed a few good buddies, and we started a band.

We played at a few country churches and at the Chandler Cherokee Pow Wow. We played covers of popular country songs. Garth Brooks, Clint Black, and Garth Brooks. (We listened to a lot of Garth Brooks.) At the churches we played old gospel favorites. Beulah Land, Amazing Grace, Beulah Land. (Beulah Land was popular among the little old ladies.)

And then our Footloose moment came. We were about to play at the Winona Shindig, a place that helped a lot of small regional acts get their start. We were shut down when the father of our drummer and lead singer, a fundamentalist Baptist pastor, found out that there would be dancing and alcohol at the Shindig.

Country Music glory was derailed forever.

I continued to play the bass for a bit longer. Early college in the early 90's was the "Praise and Worship Revolution," so I tinkered with the bass guitar. I was actually the bass guitar player for a Christian group Point of Grace. For two songs anyway, but that is another story altogether.

Whenever I run into an old friend from home one of the first things I get asked is if I still play the Tuba or the Bass Guitar. The Cross Canadian Ragweed song rings true-- You're always 17 in your home town. But the truth is that I haven't touched a musical instrument in years. I'm not sure I'd know what to do. But that is ok with me. That was a whole other life, a whole other person. I've got other things to work on now...