Taking Stress in Stride…

Its not stress that kills us, it is our reaction to it. Hans Selye 

As with all things in life there is stress. For the most part I am taking the stress with music, the band, the clients and people who come to see us play in stride. I admit that it does get a little overwhelming at times. Ok, I lied, it can be hellya overwhelming and really stressful, but I’m trying hard not to let it get me down. The stress in and of themselves are minor, but they culminate as a whole and at times push me into wanting to lock myself in my room, shut people out and just gel for about 2 days. Unfortunately I can’t. We have these intense financial worries and until I start work on Monday and see some checks start to roll in I am going to have that on my head. Our mortgage is due and we aren’t anywhere near having the money to pay it, we spent our last bit of money on gas to get to the gig last night. No one made any more than the gas money we had already paid in last night so Mike and I have got to go get a loan to get through the rest of the week. We really want to help Giuseppe out but he has to respect the fact that we need to be getting paid to play, a real paycheck, not relying on the kindness of people’s tips to pay our wages. After Halloween things are going to change because we have to be getting paid, unfortunately we don’t have the energy or financial resources to keep playing for free. I will find someone to take over for us as soon as I can so that Giuseppe can try to keep his business going but I have to move this band forward. We will keep it up as long as we can, but we have had offers from 2 different venues and I have to take them for our sake because the band members have made it clear that playing for free is ok for now, but not much longer, and if I don’t move us forward I am running the risk of the band falling apart before we even have a chance to get started. I am not going to sacrifice this band for anything, we have all worked too damn hard to see it go up in smoke because we couldn’t make a decent nights wages for playing our hearts out. Don’t take this wrong, I am not really bitching here, I am just stating the facts as they are and trying to express a little of the stress I am feeling so that I can get it out of my system and push us forward. With that I leave you with John Mayer, one of my favorite guitar players/vocalists