© Copyright 1998 by Brian Alpert; All rights reserved.
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The Way Out... The Road Back The Way Out; The Road Back ========================== Copyright 1999 by Brian S. Alpert. All Rights Reserved. Much of what appears on rhumba.com is dedicated to non-musicians curious about the musical life. But rhumba.com is also read by musicians, both active and retired. Email from the site's readers usually identify themselves as being a member of one of these three groups. The non-players have various questions and reminiscences, the current players may trade a name or two, or compare a particular kind of battle scar. The retired-musicians relate fond memories of the road, playing one-nighters or touring chain hotels for weeks at a time, basking in remembered echoes of cheering crowds through the delicious filter of selective memory. Generally, the emails reflect the site's main focus, the musician's life ON the road. I am no longer on the road but I do still play quite a few gigs. When I get to talking careers with the musicians I work with, their questions are quite another story. They focus on my day gig. They're interested in how I got OUT of playing full-time, and what exactly did I do to establish a new, different career. A few ask about the career change out of more than idle curiousity. Growing older, they feel a gnawing sense of diminishing opportunity, and maybe even feel trapped in the unchanging life. They ponder, some jokingly, some tentatively, and indeed, a few seriously what might constitute a reasonable alternative to full-time playing. I guess they're curious about how I pulled-off a career change so as to provide context for their situations. This is about that and a little bit more. This is how I burned-out, got off the road, made changes, found a new life and eventually found my way back to music. Burnout ======= In 1990, I was midway through my 11th year as a full-time musician. On paper, things were going well. I was on the road with The Assassins, which was one great band rock and roll/rhythm and blues band. This group was for me the culmination of a decade's road experience, and two decades of learning to play. Our accumulated professional experience exceeded 120 years; our attitude of musical excellence was real, not self-important pretension. David Letterman Band bass player Will Lee (a cream of the crop, in-demand session player) saw us at a party in New York City and was heard exclaiming "Man, these guys can really play..." The group had excellent arrangements, catchy originals and the kind of tight stage show acquired when grizzled veterans play non-stop for four years. So I had every right to be happy, even deleriously so as when I landed the gig in 1986. In reality, the past twelve months had seen me growing increasingly unhappy, though I didn't know it. I never stopped to think about how I was feeling, or consider the fact that leaving for each weekly road trip seemed increasingly torturous. Then, I got fired. I'm afraid none of the traditional euphemisms apply. I got fired, plain and simple. They saw the writing on the wall and decided I needed a change. They were right of course; it was obvious. I was bored and irritable, I had no enthusiasm for touring. I was increasingly worried about the dangers of inhaling large volumes of second hand cigarette smoke night after night, and my fears about being involved in another serious highway accident were surfacing in various ways, such as bolting upright out of a deep sleep in the middle of the night, fearful that the van's driver surely was falling asleep. Worst of all, my playing was lethargic and uninspired. NOT good for a drummer in a high energy rock'n'roll band, the lynchpin of so much of the group's energy and foundation. I had even taken to engaging in trivialities onstage to ease the boredom. Like the time I counted all the backbeats (beats '2' and '4' in a standard 4-count measure of music) in one of the long Jimmy Thackery guitar solo extravaganzas, several of which we played nightly. There were nearly a thousand. I suppose when I get bored I start counting. I was once on the road with a highly respected blues guitarist, a man who's good nature, integrity and musicial excellence I to this day admire. But I had grown bored with the gig -- my own musical immaturity to blame -- and one manifestation was an increasing irritation with his seemingly endless stream of small jokes and one-liners, many of which were repeated day after day, week after week. Many were boyish potty humor, all were harmless enough. But the endless repitition was driving me crazy! So I one day counted the jokes, from the morning we met to go to breakfast, to the moment we bade each other good night after the gig. Total: 154. Anyway, back to 1990. The news came on the phone; a thunderbolt. I was devastated and depressed. Well, that night. Imagine my surprise when I woke up the next morning elated. I felt way beyond relief or stoicism: I was HOO-RAY elated. I kept waiting for the ecstasy to diminish, perhaps it was just an opposite swing of some kind of emotional pendulum. But it didn't, I just kept on being happy. I felt set free, not struck down. I had to determine why. Had I really suffered major career burnout? After some soul searching, the answer came back, without doubt, yes. I had to admit that even playing in a skilled and respected group -- something I'd worked years to achieve -- no longer pushed all the buttons. I wasn't immune to wanting new things, including new challenges and personal growth. I felt no shame, and certainly didn't consider the last dozen years ill-spent. Quite the contrary, I felt lucky and appreciative: for the great players I'd been fortunate to play with, the travel, the comradery, and above all, the opportunity to learn how to play. Also -- perhaps most importantly -- no matter what happened I'd never have to wonder about whether or not I might have been a pro-caliber musician if I had only tried. A bigger picture seemed to snap into focus, and I was... happy. At long last, I realized how badly burned-out I had become, and how right it was for them to let me go, and for me to let go. But, now that I was admitting I was over playing full-time -- what was I going to do? A New Career ============ Well, now that I was out of a touring band, and quitting playing music full-time, I needed for find work ASAP. So I did the natural thing -- I tried to find work playing music of course. I mean, c'mon -- it was all I knew how to do! And I did know a fair share of the Washington DC musical community. Yes, I needed to figure out the new career, but for the moment, I needed to pay the rent. So I called everyone I knew, and began to build a practice as a freelance musician. Part of this was also tied to the fact that I knew I wasn't going to quit playing, it just wasn't going to be my only job. Of course, being a non-traveling freelance musician is quite a bit different than being committed to a full-time touring rock and roll band. The work is radically different -- You need to know different contacts (contractors and other freelancers, who will hopefully hire or recommend you), you play different places (instead of only playing nightclubs, you're now working a smorgasbord of nightclubs, private clubs, hotels, conference centers, private homes -- anywhere) and the dress code varies ... a lot (you go from wearing whatever you want, to a wide variety of clothes, from casual to a formal tuxedo). The way you get paid is different. You no longer can count on getting paid in cash. Cash does still happen, but more likely you are collecting check from disparate sources, sometimes having to wait as long as 4-6 weeks. In fact, getting paid while not being taken advantage of is one of the most frustrating aspects of being a freelance musician. Most contractors are reliable enough, especially if they want to be able to hire the best musicians. But there are also dishonest contractors who hold your money longer than is reasonable lie about its whereabouts, sometimes even stiffing the musician. They're banking on the premise that musicians need work wherever they can get it, and will sit docilely by while taken advantage of. I once foolishly waited until January for a lousy $115 for a job I played in August! I decided to burn my bridge with that contractor, threatening to write a formal letter of complaint to his client. I got the check in two days -- good riddance! Issues of HOW one gets paid aside, here's the good news: many freelance jobs pay better than the "bar scale" that permeates the rock nightclub world. And, here's the bad news: in a large metropolitan area with an abundance of good players, the competition is very keen. There just isn't a natural space for a new kid (even one with a dozen years experience) to one day pick up the phone and announce "OK, hire me!" Establishing one's self as freelancer takes time, depending on market conditions anywhere from one to three years. And as I've said, I still needed to pay the rent. So aside from scooping up what scattered musical work I could right away (which, praise the gods included a fair number of jobs with the great Danny Gatton, chronicled elsewhere on this site), I quickly realized career-change ambitions aside, I couldn't immediately support myself as a freelance musician even if I wanted to. Even though I had some savings, I needed other income, right away. Musician had so far been my only professional job, but I'm fortunate to be a college graduate. Even lacking experience I did have some skills, most notably writing and communications. To all you musician career-change candidates, I admit, education was key. For someone in this situation without a college, associates or even a high school degree, career counseling and going back to school are two of the most widely acknowledged options. One, or both of these things may be necessary to make a successful transition. Something else which proved invaluable was the purchase a few years back of an Apple Macintosh. I acquired the computer only because I thought it was cool, and likely could help me write. I logged a lot of hours on the Mac and became fairly proficient on a variety of programs, including rudimentary desktop publishing. It was all self-taught, and just a matter of time spent. It was more than worth it: in today's market, even basic computer skills are absolutely essential. But even with my degree and a few computer skills, my glaring lack of experience guaranteed rough going in terms of finding work where I decided to look for it: in the white collar world. Considering my writing skills and desire for intellectual challenge, some sort of white collar, communications-oriented job became the long term goal. I knew however, this was going to take some time. By the way, it's worth mentioning that when I was fired from The Assassins, a couple of important life events were drawing near: the upcoming close on my first house -- in a couple months -- and preparing to be married -- in about six months. So life's pressures were looking in, especially in the shape of a looming mortgage payment. A fairly obvious plan emerged, to follow three paths simultaneously: 1) Play music as much as possible, 2) look for a legitimate second career wherever and however I could and 3) get whatever work I could to help make ends meet in the short term. Number 3: THAT's where things really got interesting. What happened over the next twenty four months is best described as a smorgasbord of moneymaking activities. My mantra was "whatever it takes!" At first I looked for literate-seeming jobs that assumed a dignified pretension (e.g. at bookstores), but because the nation was in the throes of 1991's serious recession, those jobs were locked-up and out of sight. Looking hard and finding nothing, I ended-up scrabbling together a motley pastiche of things all over the map; lots of 'em. These jobs ranged from ones I was qualified to do (teaching drum lessons, freelance writer, proofreader), to things I wasn't qualified to do (desktop publishing specialist), to things retail (Christmas help at a major men's clothing store, counter help at a leather clothing mall outlet), to things of a blue collar trade nature (housepainter), to things too mindless to be considered a trade (goundskeeping assistant), and most radical of all, a stint doing something brutally manual (tree surgeon ground crew). In the meantime, my attempted foray into a new, white collar career consisted of interviewing at temp agencies (where I thought a possibility existed I could land somewhere and get some real experience), to going on whatever interviews I could find. In reality, I was unable to get interviews on my own merits. I responded to classified ads by sending my crudely done and woefully short resume, but received not a single call. I did eventually have a few interviews, courtesy of good samaritans acquainted with my sister and my fiance. These people were sincere in their desire to help -- and indeed, truly were helpful in that they put me into an interview situation, a brand new, necessary experience. I was really rough around the edges. I would show up wearing the one outfit I had that passed for shirt and tie (I owned not a single suit), and also sported the only footware I had that wasn't tennis shoes: a pair of Tony Lama cowboy boots left over from my days in Cowboy Jazz. I felt so out of place; I needed to buy a new uniform, and also look and feel comfortable wearing it. I sunk some of my proceeds from the Christmas gig at the men's store toward the purchase of the first real suit I would own since my Bar Mitzvah twenty one years ago. It was the interviewing at temp agencies that proved to be the groundbreaker. I attended quite a few. Generally, these interviews amounted to typing tests, and resulted in occasional phone calls to make photocopies for minimum wage. But I kept my eye on the classifieds and one day I saw an ad calling for temporary Macintosh-skilled help to work at a large corporation. I called and scheduled an interview for three weeks hence, but was stunned when that agency called back the very next day with a panicked message: "Show up at MCI Telecommunications wearing a tie at nine AM tomorrow, and we hope you can do what your resume says." After 12 months of the hand-to-mouth employment smorgasbord, I had at last made some real progress. It turned out to be a short stint doing simple desktop publishing and presentation slides. But I clicked with the people there, and more work soon followed. For this level of worker, they weren't concerned about my resume or pedigree, as long as I was literate enough to do the things that needed doing. MCI is like that -- a company founded by a maverick, run by mavericks, and not afraid to hire mavericks. The place is such a continual whirling dervish of fast-moving assignments, corporate reorganizations and high employee turnover, it was the perfect place to get a tiny 'in' to a new career. After a few months of intermittent assignments, I was offered a forty hour/week position. Not as an employee with benefits, but rather as a full-time temp, through the agency. I held this position for nine months before landing an actual full-time job, with benefits. I negotiated a reasonable entry level salary, and suddenly was making more than I'd ever come close to as a musician. Even though I'd been at the company for nearly a year, making the transition from temp to employee was not a "gimme." The job I got was not my temp job transformed into a full-time job. That prospect seemed logical to me and I had pushed for it, but things just don't work that way. Temp positions are temp positions, real jobs -- "headcount" -- are real jobs. The two just don't intersect, no matter how much sense it might make. But being a full-time temp poses distinct advantages in terms of looking for a full-time position. You're on the scene, hopefully making a reputation as a hard working "team player" (gag), getting to know the hiring managers, and ultimately going through the interview process like everyone else. I was a happy guy, and I was working my tail off. Making each month's mortgage payment seemed a happy miracle, but I was also under a lot of stress and putting in all kinds of hours. For the first time since I was a party-happy college kid, music took a back seat to my other life. The day gig was such an enormous sea-change, new hours, routine, ways of communicating, work skills, tons of new people... This was taking all the energy I had; there was no choice but for the musical part of my life to go on auto-pilot. Naturally, I didn't stop gigging, for financial as well as musical reasons. But it was rough -- I'd show up at gigs at the last minute, exhausted, change out of my suit in my car and load in. I wasn't playing poorly, but I wasn't inspired either. My heart still wasn't in it. Quite a few of my musician friends were shocked that not only had I taken a day gig, but such a radical transformation -- wearing suits no less! One of the things I noticed was that dealing with the day gig's reality, being in the same place all day, attending meetings, making phone calls, dealing with bosses, etc. took a different kind of energy and endurance than I had. Much different than riding in a van all day, playing a gig and driving home. It really took some time before I was leaving the office not thoroughly drained. I continued in this mode for about four years, from 1993 to 1996. Things were going well at MCI. I worked my way up from the original information specialist/desktop publisher job to manager, managing a staff of six other information specialists. I was acquiring boatloads of new skills, and more than once found myself in the water swimming, as the cliche goes, with the sharks. I continued to play music, but the day gig was my primary focues, without question. The Way Back ============ Then an interesting thing happened. I got fired. No, no that's a joke; I didn't really get fired. But like many moderm American mega-corporations, MCI is a swirling vortex of constant change and reorganization. A corporate "reorg" usually comes with a certain amount of Reduction In Force - RIF's -- layoffs. It is not unlike a child's game of musical chairs. During the secure times it's important to guard your position, stay close to your allies, protect yourself from your enemies (or at least, those who aren't necessarily on your side). When the music stops, if you've played your cards right, you will have a seat. I managed to survive quite a few reorganization/layoffs at MCI, but in the summer of 1996 circumstances found me in a more tenuous position. I was managing a now-smaller group for a less than supportive management team. In the fall, the music stopped, and though I wasn't left standing -- i.e. I didn't get laid off -- I was relegated to a reduced capacity, staff disbanded. No longer moving forward, I was slipping back. It was a call to action; I took a severance package and said "Sayonara." It was a most excellent wake-up call, and believe it or not, like my experience with The Assassins, I found myself feeling upbeat. I still look upon the experience at MCI as a crucial, force-fed growth spurt, ten years experience in four. A grueling, but altogether positive experience. Musical Reawakening =================== My ability to acquire and keep a day gig were established; I now had a real resume. The World Wide Web had happened and I wanted to be part of it; I got a new job in about five minutes. What I did next isn't important for the purposes of this essay. What is important is that the change seemed to rekindle the dormant musical flame. Before I knew it I was on the phone spreading the word that not only was I more available to play, I wanted to play as much as possible, every weekend and then some, if circumstances permitted. This was a reflection of another important lesson I had learned. If you're playing part time, you don't tell anyone you're playing "just" part time. If you do, the phone doesn't ring; other musicians subliminally think (and perhaps they're right) that you're just not that interested. As soon as I put the word out I wanted to play more, more gigs started happening, including a lucrative wedding band that while not musically the most intense thing I'd ever done, had me up and running a LOT. The result was a different sort of growth spurt -- I began to grow musically, for the first time in years. My enthusiasm for playing was brimming and I was playing more musically, and with more energy and enjoyment than in a long, long time. It has been that way ever since: working a day gig I find to be challenging, even thrilling given all that is so exciting about the Web and the new networked economy, combined with a healthy dose of playing as much as possible, which usually means four to six times per month. The great burnout of 1991 is a long ago memory, and as with the sleazy freelance contractor, good riddance! Music is alive and well, speaking its honest truths and generously doling out its sublime energy, now sans the trauma of endless travel and exhaustion. And in addition to making a decent living, getting to choose with whom I play, playing as often or as little as I like, I'm happy to report, given today's trend in casual workplace attire in the technology industry, I needn't feel freaked out if I want to wear my Tony Lama's to work. |
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