Quote:

And eddie1261, you must be the life of the party when you go out!



Out? What is this "out" of which you speak?

I never go anywhere. There are times I wish I'd get sick so I'd have to go to the hospital.... and that paramedics would have to come and transport me just so I'd have visitors. If I didn't have a dog, I would never speak outside of my job. Nobody calls me, nobody ever comes over, when people DO need to contact me they email or text....

But a lot of this is by choice. I was in a VERY busy band. We would play 5 nights a week, and in the good weather months, we would usually play 7 shows in 4 days from Thursday to Sunday. Often the afternoon show and the evening show were 3 hours apart. We had 2 PA systems for those weekends, and a guy with one of those big vans that seated 9 who would drive us so we could nap between shows. After all of that, I got tired of people in general, and especially people in bars that don't know how to behave after their 3rd beer. In my day I was a party ANIMAL, but never to a point where I invaded other people's good time, and I saw too much of that to be comfortable in a bar ever again.

So, no, I not only COULDN'T make a living playing music anymore, I wouldn't try. Of course, my skills have eroded to a point where I am not but maybe half the player I used to be, but I found out a couple of years ago when I was putting together a tribute band that with work they could come back. That band never got off the ground but after a lot of weeks of rehearsals it was sounding really good with me behind a mountain of keyboards. What I absolutely CAN'T do is work a 40 hour job and have the energy to practice every day to get those skills back. I find myself asleep sitting up on the couch by 7pm.

Plus there is the component of having to conform and play that set list of cliches and I refuse to do it. There is that "list" of 20 or so songs that I will NEVER play again. That will disqualify me from 98.6% of rooms everywhere. I've never been one to worry about coloring inside the lines and I don't see how I could start now at my age. That other 1.4% is not going to provide enough earning potential to survive.

It was fun, I enjoyed it, and I wouldn't trade those years for anything. I got to travel to a lot of places in the US and Canada, play music, and get paid for it. But my life is now computers and the network that they sit on, with a stable income AND a more responsible perspective on how to manage it.

People CAN make a decent living playing music. Just not me.

I am using the new 1040XTRAEZ form this year. It has just 2 lines.

1. How much did you make in 2023?
2. Send it to us.