Self inflicted Music.

For some reason I love the concept of musicians getting hurt as a result of being so into the music they're making that they can't stop even if it's inflicting injury.

When I was a kid and I heard about Flea playing bass so hard that he had to put glue over the intense bloody blisters he got as a result, I was impressed. I thought, "Wow! He must play really hard! Why would anyone - that's crazy - whoa!". Now that I've played bass for a number of years now that's like..."Oh....yeah....that happens."

When I was touring Sweden and Austria with my University Jazz bands we were playing one to two shows a day and it did a number on my fingers. By the 4th or 5th show the tour guides son was being sent to the store to get me some super glue (cuz God knows what I would have ended up with not being able to read Swedish). And yes, I had to put a layer of super glue over my red, bleeding, pussing, raw blisters that had formed on my middle and index finger. But it wasn't

weird or gross, it was just something that I had to go through to get the job done. I get blisters all the time, it's just become an extension of being a bass player.

When I met Esperanza Spalding I made sure to ask to see her fingers, of course they were callused and red and blistered, beautiful. All a part of being a dedicated bass player.

Guitar players can usually avoid this by using pics.

Drummers, however, beat them selves up on a daily basis. Blood on a snare drum is a regular occurrence.

One of my favorite photo's that I've taken is of my friend Ben's fingers after he's played a show. knuckles cut up and bloody. Followed by another photo of his forearm, bruised and red, all part of being an impassioned drummer.

These injuries are gross to people who don't understand that these things are part of the gig, and that's amusing to me. I love these photo's because usually the messages taken from such images is one of anger or sadness. For these people, it's one of passion.

Can we say, "Leigh's new photo project". I think so.

An artist doesn't stop.

Yesterday I was talking to my best friend Katie about this and that. The skinniness and tonedness of her older sister came up and Katie, who is a professional Classical Bassoonist said this. (and I'm paraphrasing)

"I mean she has such a cushy job though, (she's a lawyer in London or something) she can come into around 10 or 11 and always leaves before 7 and then she's done! She can go home and work out or whatever and doesn't have to think about work anymore. Unlike an artist where what you do consumes your life 24/7, it's hard to fit in a work out."

Now while Kate is required to practice every night for hours and make reeds whenever possible, not all artists are as physically restricted from exercising as musicians can be.

But I do agree that creative persons can never truly escape their "Job" and most of the time don't want to. Where people with a more "Type A" kind of job have the ability to go to work, come home and forget about whatever profession it is that they have. Of course there are some exceptions, but I'm pretty sure accountants don't think about accounting all night and all weekend.

This is why artists who are lucky enough find jobs in the artistic field barely sleep until a project is finished, (i.e. working on an album, film, play, etc.) and artists who don't have a job in their field use every ounce of their spare time to work on artistic endeavors.

Personally, I know that I will not be happy if I don't have a career that is in some way creative. And I think that's a mind set that most if not all artists I know have.

So there's that.

New Blog/ RIP

I made another blog today called "Look At What I Made Today" that will have a post each day of something I made. Check it out:

http://lookatwhatimadetoday.blogspot.com/

This blog will remain for my ramblings.

On a sad note:

My Grandfather Robert Rickert Died the Sunday after Thanksgiving my senior year of High School. He was an amazing man, a story teller, seriously wouldn't stop telling jokes and stories. He was tall and lanky like me and always said "You're slender, not skinny". I recently watched a home movie from 1987 when him and my grandmother were visiting us at our home in Texas, he was playing a pretend game with us where we made a string grow between us and then played jump rope with it, he was always a creative instigator. I miss him.

Recently his best friend Edwardo passed away, a man that my Grandfather waited to see before dying the same night. I remember him by the stories he would tell me and my sisters about catching my Mom sneaking out of the house at night back in the 70's, and from him reading me and my sisters stories in Spanish.

Two great men that are surely missed.

RIP