Interesting thread. I'll throw one out from the "I stepped back" perspective. Probably a bit long, but hey, here it is.
The summer of '81, three recent high school grads and one who hadn't yet got together with the mentality of "we've been playing together for years, let's see how good this can get." No limits kind of thing, ideal band in my book.
I went off to start my comp sci degree. Over the next few months, another band from the same high school got infested and taken over by the others. It stayed that way long enough for me to realize that nope, I wasn't really wanted. Until an unnamed event involving some others, the police, and lawyers blew up and split off the other guitar player.
I heard about that one Saturday morning and figured I'd better stay around the phone for the day. Went from nothing to playing Alpine Valley four nights a week--there was a chalet hidden there that hired a band in concert and ski seasons--with weddings the rest of the year.
But the band had changed and it was dead to me. Later in life, I realized it was just another job. Sure, "the juice" was there. The drummer and I were psychic some nights. "Juice" for me was never outwardly visible, the music part of me would completely take over and the rest of me was just along for the ride.
Sure, there were some really good gigs. The, uh, overly Italian confirmation party where the piano player had his electric baby grand parked without legs on the parquet floor, and I could hear the piano from ten feet away as he was playing the frackin' theme from the Godfather. The literal "Hey, we're the only white people in here, okay, standard set" chicken wire gag from the Blues Brothers.
But after four years, the money equation worked out and I gave a few months notice.
Up until three years ago, I had only played about 10 hours in total. Played for my friends' kids when they considered joining school band. Went to the living room and played a bit when there was a, uh, loud lady neighbor. My dad's place went up in smoke from a coffee maker and I lost everything but the instruments. I'm in Austin now, good guitar players are a dime a dozen, and I was a self taught guitar player with way too many bad habits. There was decent money in comp sci. Blah, blah, blah.
About three years ago, I was listening to something, playing it in my head, and realized there was probably a web site with tabs. Found a tab, looked at a few more, noped out on playing guitar.
But something had cracked. I digitized the two cassette tapes we made of a gig to help train my replacement. Some of that performance was actually good. Six months later, I was visiting my mom, annoying everybody with Pete Thorn videos. Four months after that, I surprised everyone by digging out the guitar and actually practicing technical stuff, trying to fix my huge collection of bad habits. Two months after that, after I'd convinced myself that I really did want to learn to play what was in my head, the Fractal arrived.
So I've been chasing technique so I can finally chase what's in my head. The Fractal and various people who hang out here, pro and otherwise, make that so much easier. And quieter. I always wanted a tube amp, nope, no longer.
I can't wait for the next Spinal Tap. You all know why. The trailers and even that Elton John thing they have up on youtube...yeah, I'll be there opening night. Tap Into America.
