How I got into music (1983-1994)

Learning Guitar, Studying Bands (1994-1995)

That one Fantasy Band we all start with... (1995-1997)

Pre-Lithium: M.J., Moonlight Rose, and other monkey business(1997-2000)

Lithium (2000-2003)

The Five Year Hiatus & I.T. (2003-2008)

More Bad Names - Ancient Tongues, Smokin' 66', Deliciously Infectious (2008-2011)

Years of abuse start catching up with me + open jam nights (2011-2014)

Zombie Jihad (2014-2015)

The Undertow becomes the Main Event (2014-2018)

5 Bands, same six people (2018-2020)

Do you still play? Are you in a Band? (2020-present)

During what most considered mid-pandemic, two of the places we had the most local association with were scandalized for questionable ties to hate groups and possible human traffiking, racism, and other things. To avoid guilt by association, I stopped performing, stopped gigging entirely, and needed to re-assess what I wanted to do, if I could even do that locally anymore. It seemed every other week, another dissappointment about people and places was coming out somewhere in the country, and this put me on high alert because I didn't want any guilt-by-association issues, nor did I want to have to worry about dealing with people like MAGA or the Neo-Nazis at a show. As I had been reading a lot of Henry Rollins by this point, it would have been a terrible idea. A 6'4" tall guitarist with a lot of pent up anger is not something you want after he's been reading "Get in the Van", it's a good recipie for a skinhead to end up with a Telecaster across the back of their shiny head, or worse if they get you outside. Plus, I finally was in a good place career wise, I didn't want to jeopardize that. So I made a mature decision.

Career was a big part of it I don't talk about much as well, so as not to curse it. So let's put it this way. The last 20 years prior felt like a big letdown. I went from corporation, to corporation, all of the biggest ones in seattle - Nintendo, Boeing, Microsoft - and still just felt like a gigging 20-something year old fresh out of college kid trying to prove to bone-headed corporate assholes that I'm worth keeping and being paid more. Now I was finally being taken seriously, and being allowed to leverage a unique skillset I've cultivated over 25 years to that point, in my day job. I had actual benefits now, not "health insurance" that ate up half of every paycheck if I even took it on, and eventually, moved to a better place than I've ever lived in my entire adult life. Music just continued to fuck me every way possible, while work started to finally be worth it. I'm riding that story till I die, or the next chapter, whichever comes first.

What this means is every workday, I get up at 5:30am, take a shower, have a black coffee, and work. That's a whole article in and of itself that I'd never post publicly on the internet. I'm also on-call once a month, making extra money doing that, so that makes gigging difficult. If we book something a month out and the schedule isn't up yet, I'm f***ed and likely out of the band. And it's not a good look when you're fixing I.T. problems in a crowded, noisy bar full of people talking about adult things like their sexual exploits or drug memoirs, or drunkenly spewing nonsense to much amusement.

That said, as the pandemic started, I did start a little engagement with another local band for a brief moment, but things sort of faded after that, and quite quickly. Not sure if it was meddling from the previous band, or if it was just my job situation that made them uneasy.

But I still get asked "Are you in a band?" or "Do you still play?".

Let's start with where I was going first, "are you in a band". The answer is, no. In order for me to have a band, there's a lot of things that have to be understood that didn't apply before the pandemic. The first and most important, is that my family, and therefore job has to come first. I'm not a career musician, never was, probably never will be. I've made so little money playing gigs it's laughable and done at a loss. Yes, I've had a lot of great experiences, and met a lot of cool, even famous people, along the way... but let's move to reason #2.

Your average person on the street who only listens to music more often than not doesn't understand that the industry isn't what it was. Heck, even a lot of musicians I've worked with aren't hep to the changes in the industry. They still think it's 1978, they'll get noticed by an A&R rep, get a (crap) contract with a major, and next thing you know they're on a heart shaped bed in the back of a custom painted 707 with a sea full of groupies touted as "legends". When more likely, you're going to get laughed at for doing this at my age by everyone if you take it too seriously, the major labels only want 16 year old girls they can easily manipulate into damaging diets and plastic surgery with a healthy dose of auto-tune, you can record a whole friggin album at home for free on a Linux desktop that cost $35 at Goodwill, and the latest generations don't go to bars, drink, or party as much as previous generations do, so there goes where you can jam or play at. People are more into being successful as "content creators" or "influencers" now anyway, and even that's becoming passe with the analog revolution, Epstien class-based backlashes against a broken system, and the realization that everything is messed up. If you're thinking this is still a world where music corporations give a fuck about you, dream on! And even IF the venues have you, nobody is looking for new music anymore, they're looking for rehashes of the same stuff that's been around 30-40-50-60-70 years now.

That said, rock and/or metal is the genere I want to be in. Everyone my age is moving to Country, blues, Post-Rock, or making "beats" anonymously. Some look down on people my age being into a "young" genre like this, but the truth is, rock is old, it has joined Jazz music almost with where it is now. I'm sure the Skibidi Toilet generation will probably be too busy making AI make songs about shitting your pants at the bingo club again to care. Not that I haven't participated early on in that weirdness.

For me to be in a band, my job would be important to work with/around. Next up, we would need to understand, we are older, our chances of "making it big" or "getting signed" are slim to none. The last thing I want is dealing with one of these hustle culture bros telling me how we need to be "more commercial". We don't. Also, none of this "rock will take care of itself" bullshit, it wont'. Every band I've been in since 2014 has been LATE to gigs, often so late, me or my wife whose there to support have to step in and talk to the promoter to explain why everybody else is dragging their (often stoned/drunk) asses to the show 5 minutes after load-in ended and the opener is already doing soundcheck...because we were the opener and now get shifted to the 2 am slot where everyone's left because the headliner is done and probably gone 45 minutes over, and now I'm on my phone after our show explaining to my wife how I'm going to go to work on 2 hours of sleep while getting yelled at for "not caring for my own health".

Speaking of that, my wife is off-limits. For some reason, because my wife films, photographs, and roots on the band, either she's constantly asked to be P.R. for us, or she's shut down because some insecure fool decided to go out in public looking embarassing, and doesn't want it documented. THEN THINK BEFORE YOU GO OUT!!! That also goes for anything else involving my wife, she's mine, she's off-limits, don't even try! Those who did didn't live to tell the tale. Chances are, she might not even attend now. As such, as a married man, I'm not participating in your stupid groupie wars. I'm not a cheater. Sorry ladies, I'm taken.

Another piece of note is IDGAF what gear you're using or think I should use, and likewise you should feel toward me or keep that shit to yourself. I'm playing a Jag-Stang with EMGs, a Fender Jaguar, a modeling amp, or whatever I want - whether you like it or not. I'm not interested in playing in a group with people who want me to spend another several grand on a different "rig" because you have some kind of consumertard problem. If I choose to play Slayer with a CHickenbacker 325 and a Boss Katana - that's my cross to bear, not yours! If you want me to play a Gibson, and I'm not willing to or want to throw down $1500+ for one, then I'm not playing a Gibson, that's that! 99.99999999% of the time, the problem is never "tone" or "reliability", it's some fanboy who doesn't like xx piece of gear because they are too busy listening with their eyes and not their ears!

Also, we need to think of better names! Lithium had about 5000 other bands named that in America, yet somehow we're the first? And about 50% of those bands were NIRVANA cover bands. I'll give it a pass because it was the 90's though (1998 to be exact). Smokin' 66' has at least 3 lounge bands with that name, Ancient Tongue is a rap group, Deliciously Infectious was stolen from a beer ad, and all five of the last band I was in were named after IP by other people, and likely without permission. Dont' even get me started with having "Jihad" in your band name, the smooth brains were probably terrified of us, not in an Alice Cooper way, but a "scary man in turban holding a shoebox that's making a ticking noise" kind of way. We need to do our research and try something different. Because the dictionaries and thesauruses aren't doing us any favors in this world, and the corporate and government worlds are tightening the screws on things like copyright, plagurism, IP theft, national security (c'mon, Trumpets are now a weapon of mass destruction - didn't you hear?), and trademarks.

And finally, don't think for one minute if somehow, but some stretch of the imagination, we somehow DO magically become super successful, I'll refuse just because of the above. I take the attitude of "hope for the best, prepare for the worst" with the step of making and performing as a group.

And yes, I still play, I play at least a few times a week at home. I just built a Chickenbacker guitar, so I've been tuning/testing/tweaking that one a lot. I have a newer Jaguar I'm doing the same to.