Rock Royalty In The Home
2020 may have been the year that none of us saw coming and what it brought with it was nothing short of chaos for so many. Each and every person in the world has been affected in their own way and lives have no doubt been thrown off the tracks that we all laid so nicely out in front of us. For myself and others in the entertainment field, we found ourselves scrambling to carve out a living from the other side of a computer screen much like all of our neighbors. For the first time in a long time most people were on the same level. I had no idea what to do. No shows, no sessions, no tours, no lessons at our respected music stores, no nothing. Hell, even certain guitar strings are STILL on backorder because it seems anything made of steel is months behind in production and we are creeping up on almost a year since we were all handed our cease and desist orders courtesy of Covid 19.
For the musicians we all scrambled down the same path. Livestreams were open 24/7 and each and every artist tagged their post as “tips are always appreciated but never expected.” Live shows became virtual events, while lessons were switched to virtual online lessons. In fact, not much has changed still to this day almost a year later. I still haven’t set foot into the shop I teach at…..and I’ve taught there for 20 years. It seems almost everyone is now a Zoom, Skype, Facetime, and Facebook Video professional, and it’s not out of choice. It was, and still is, sink or swim. As we moved from spring into summer we actually found some show availabilities open up. Risky as it was, many have gone out to do shows simply for the fact to make ends meet at home. Thank you to the establishments that were open and welcomed us back with open arms and masks. It was because of places like those, and the students that continued to plow forward online that some of us were still able to keep the lights on. Also a giant thank you to all the folks who tuned into the live streams week after week and tipped all of us even though they were in need just as much as the rest of us. My faith in humanity was actually somewhat restored.
The strangest thing for me throughout the last 10 months was the disappearance of recording sessions. Recording sessions and live performance have been the bread and butter in this household for a long time now. Recording sessions were a rare commodity for the majority of 2020. Every now and then you’d get a call but mostly the phone was silent. Thankfully, upon the insistence of my good friend Frank Pappalardo, I dived into the world of recording guitar parts here at the house. Thankfully after being around ProTools, and digital recording for 20 years, I’ve been able to keep some notes on how everything works. Never in a million years did I ever think to myself that I’d be working on guitar tracks for Jim Peterik and Dennis DeYoung at my little house in the Illinois burbs. Now Jim and I have been recording together since around 1998, so that’s not new news on that front, but actually having to produce my own parts was new and different. Thankfully he has the trust in me to send him the goods and I m thankful to get the call when he is in need of guitar work. Getting to work with another hero of mine, Dennis DeYoung, is always a treasure. I was extremely lucky enough to play guitar on Dennis’s last solo release “26 East Volume 1”. Through the recording of that CD we forged a really good working friendship and it has continued to the point of doing Facetime sessions for other music things. I’ll tell you this, working with two of your heroes and seeing just how gracious and awesome they are is an eye opener as to how lucky one can get in life. Other rock royalty I’ve been getting to work with…well I can’t really talk about that now…more to come on that in a blog that is a little further off in the future,
As always, be good to each other, and I’ll see you all around the bend.
Pick On,
Mike
