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| Dino and John Gibson at the Cavern Club, Elmwood Avenue, 1970 |
For a major portion of my life, I have dreamed of Musical Fame.
Maybe not Beatles-level; maybe not Husker Du level; most probably not even your favorite indie band-level. But I did believe Musical Fame was possible for me, whatever that might have looked like. A novelty single catches on, an LP is recorded, a few shows, a few write-ups, and a bit of money for my continuing releases.
At the same time, I also dreamed of Movie Fame. Director, Screenwriter, independent filmmaker. Someone known for making his visions and stories a reality on the big screen.
So how have I done?
Clearly, I got a lot closer on the movie front. I directed some student films and penned a few screenplays, only one of which was produced (on a very low budget). I taught filmmaking to kids, among them Patricia Arquette, Josh Koenig (son of Walter), and David Prior, a documentary filmmaker who does all the companion videos for David Fincher's movies.
In my own career, I scaled down my directing and writing dreams to sound editing, for which I had an affinity thanks to my love of music and tape recorders.
I've had credits on countless movies & TV shows and even some great ones. My sound creations have been heard by Presidents and Despots, as well as most of the children in the world (thanks to HOME ALONE). I've won an Emmy, and my name was even mentioned on the Oscar broadcast for SKYFALL. I've walked the grounds of every studio at which I've ever dreamed working, and am even now cutting sound effects on NARCOS, a highly popular and well-reviewed series. I'll be retiring with a great pension and health benefits.
So... THAT part went okay!
But what happened to the dream of musical fame, especially given that I am still writing songs for a future CD?
I have only just realized what happened.
As much as I loved music and wanted to be a famous rock star, I just as badly wanted to be with GIRLS.
It's a hoary cliche that most guys pick up a guitar to help get them chicks, and it certainly helped me. But while those guys would party with their girls and then get back on the stage, I'd get stuck with the girls and lose my way back.
From my very first girlfriend, I've always picked the women who would feel most threatened by my interest in anything but them. Though my first band wouldn't have lasted anyway, I was unceremoniously dumped because my girlfriend (also my ride to rehearsals) felt threatened and kept devising ways to keep me from my friends (usually sex). And of course, I was complicit because I allowed it to happen.
In my mid-20's, my filmmaking partner Eric and I had big plans to write and direct a movie that would feature OUR band (The Shades) as part of the story. A screenplay was written, songs were rehearsed. But this time, I was dating an older woman named Ahna who, once again, seemed to resent my time doing ANYTHING else but being with her. I chose to stay in that situation, and my music again went nowhere.
Finally, in 1984, I bought the TEAC multi-track tape recorder of my dreams: I was reborn as a solo artist, playing all the instruments myself. I discovered an underground network of like-minded artists, had my music reviewed in underground AND legitimate publications, and even had offers of live gigs and management.
However, yet again, a woman came into my life and everything changed.
Julie was the mother of my two children. She was a wonderful person in many ways, and I was absolutely in love with her. However, she turned out to be the biggest hindrance to my music that I had yet faced.
Her resentment at my music time was so obvious that we started talking about it in therapy after just two years. For a while it was a deal-breaker to my agreeing to get married. It was only AFTER we had hammered out a legal document-like agreement to my music schedule that I finally went forward with the marriage.
Six months before my son was born, I released my first CD. My previous cassette, GOWER STREET, was a high-water mark: 500 copies were pressed, and well over 400 of them were in the hands of listeners. Reviews were great and interest in my upcoming digital offering was high.
But with the arrival of my infant son, it was made clear to me that anything besides his care (and my job) was to be put on the back-burner. After mailing out 80 copies of my CD, the other 420 copies were literally shoved under the bed to be distributed later. Spoiler alert: "Later" never happened, my musical moment was lost, and to this day I use those CDs as blank covers.
So, Musical Fame was now finally off the table for good. But I still loved making music, and I planned my next CD as a stripped-down rock album that would be recorded partly in a pro studio with the $5k my Grandmother had willed to me. Julie encouraged this plan, but as the months passed, she began dipping into my recording budget for house repairs, until finally declaring that the money was no longer mine to use.
It took FIVE YEARS of selling off my music collection and scraping pennies off the floor to finish my studio recorded tracks and release TRAIN GOING NOWHERE. I was pleased with the result, but in no sense did it sound like a CD that required five years to finish.
And then Julie died in 2004 from a car accident. I grieved, then slowly but surely began recording CDs again, though never as fast as I used to.
I married Sharon in 2010. Ironically, the situation is now reversed: she has always encouraged me to work on my music, but I'm the one who now wants to concentrate on my final years of working & then find a house in which to retire.
I still have a guitar in my editing room and the song ideas still pop up, but I've been lucky that the shows I work on are a perfect release for the creativity I would otherwise bring to music. I know the songs will be there when I'm done.
But my realization has been this: I never quite made it in music because I didn't want it enough. I wanted musical recognition, but also wanted to be with a woman I loved, and I wanted a comfy job that paid enough for me to do music on my own terms. A person like that doesn't rub shoulders with The Greats, the guys and women who want to perform their music more than anything else. That's something I now accept.
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