I hate myself.

I love myself.

I think we all have feelings like that sometimes. Most people aren’t indifferent to themselves, for the most part. There are things we like about our personalities, and things we sort of hate or are embarrassed by. There are things we have done that we are proud of, and things, well, not so much. Now, since this tends to be a music blog, I’m going to focus on this part of my life as an avid navel-gazer.

I’ve been in a bunch of bands over the years. I’ve written a bunch of songs. There are good and bad things about all of the stuff I’ve had a hand in creating. Nothing is perfect, but nothing is perfectly bad, either. Does it all deserve the attention I still pay to all of it? Meh, I’m not so sure.

I have an issue with nostalgia. I would say it used to border on an actual complex. I desperately longed for the simpler times in my life. Being a kid, being in high school, being in college, living in those first couple of years out of college. You know, the time before my sense of duty and responsibility to my family replaced my youthful self-absorption. The darker times of having the past on my mind all the time really forced me to start understanding how thankful I need to be about NOW. Well, maybe not 2020 now, but you know what I mean.

But let’s get back to my nostalgia “Stan”-ing – my mind is frequently consumed by my old musical endeavors. From Magic Garden to Porque to Waffle to Soup Kitchen to Shaft to Jive Town Jimmy and the Knights of the Purple Cadillac to Joe Rey to Neon Logic Band to Slaphappy to Pale Manacle to Three Piece Suit to Wok Five to Al Naturale to The Remedy to Big Al and the Kaholics to Schizophonic to Dial-9 to C5 to The Extractors to Roman Holiday to Capital Suspects to Audio Time Machine to Nudge to Flext to The Dangerfields to Chandler and The Bings. (This paragraph is apparently a blog manifestation of “This Is A Call” by Foo Fighters. But anyway…) I listen to these bands regularly (well, the ones I have recordings of). They all feature me on some instrument, some of them with me also singing.

Here’s a demo of some of this stuff:

This is a singing demo that I’d use to send to people to prove I was worthy of being their bandmate. And it’s OLD at this point – the newest stuff on here is from 2005.

Here’s a list if you are going to listen through:

Soul Man – performed by Schizophonic (with me singing and playing guitar)
What’s Going On – performed by Schizophonic (with me singing all vocals and playing guitar)
Hot Legs – performed by Slaphappy (with me singing and playing bass)
Should I Stay Or Should I Go – performed by Slaphappy (with me singing and playing bass)
Just Like Heaven – performed by Slaphappy (with me singing and playing bass)
Rebel Yell – performed by Dial-9 (with me singing and playing guitar)
Always On The Run – performed by Dial-9 (with me singing and playing guitar)
Roadhouse Blues – performed by Slaphappy (with me singing and playing bass)

A co-worker of mine at iHeart is also a musician, and we were sending songs back and forth on Friday, sharing our experiences in bands. He had very kind words to say about this, and was shocked when I told him how old it was. But it’s not like I hadn’t listened to it in years. I probably last listened to it a few months ago. At most. Because I tend to live in the past a little, even now.

I have playlists of all the videos I’ve found from various music things I’ve done over the years that I could find on YouTube. No bullshit…

• Videos from Roman Holiday
• Videos from Capital Suspects
• Videos from Nudge
• Videos from stuff I’ve done with Sky Zito
• Videos from The Dangerfields
• Videos from me in the bathroom singing various songs
• Videos from my solo acoustic shows

I think you get the idea…and this is just the surface of all of it. I have hours more stuff on my computer of many different bands, going way back, that I don’t share usually because someone doesn’t want me to or I just haven’t gotten around to posting it.

I will sometimes sit and think about how it would be if I had to just go play a Slaphappy show from 2002 as me right now. I mean, I think I’d remember most of the songs, because that’s just how my brain works, thankfully, but I find the very notion of it so exciting.

In the end, I end up getting kind of depressed, because I know it’s not possible. Even the reunion show that Slaphappy played about five years ago was fun but still ultimately a bit of a let down because I feel like it meant way more to me than the other guys. But that’s probably just me. (You can listen to that show here.)

So how does this all relate to navel gazing? Well, most of the time I’m listening to my own stuff from the past, I’m thinking about me. Where I was. How I felt. What was going on in my life then. How much I miss the guys and/or gals. I wonder what happened to that fan who used to come to all the shows. Thinking about what equipment I was using at the time. Just non-stop thoughts about all of it as I consume what is ultimately not that important.

I get shit sometimes from my wonderful wife and my friends for being mean to myself or disparaging my abilities, but I’m just being realistic most of the time, not trying to crap on myself. I am actually generally proud of what I’ve done based on how hard I’ve worked on things.

And this doesn’t even cover how much time I spend listening to my old songs. I mean, other than the Adam Schlesinger tribute from earlier this year, I really haven’t written anything in years. So I cling to the past, when I actually wrote songs. I believe I have about 150-200 in total, written from 1991-2015 (but mostly between 1997-2001). Not that they were particularly GOOD songs, but they…exist? You can listen to some of them over here on the main part of the site.

Tracking back to the point here…navel gazing.

A blog is kind of the ultimate tool for the navel gazer who likes to write. And I’ve definitely utilized this blog for a lot of navel gazing. But I have to say, it’s really nice sometimes to go back and read what I wrote years ago. It feels like a window into my mind at the time. It’s nice. But even THAT is navel gazing on some level – and it definitely feeds the nostalgia spirals if I let it.

So, what to do?

Well, like pretty much everything in life, moderation is key. I don’t think it’s fundamentally wrong to do some navel gazing from time to time. But if that’s the only way you’re self-analyzing or experiencing your existence as a creative person, you’re definitely doing it wrong. I definitely do it wrong. A lot. But getting this out there will hopefully inspire me to do better.

I really wish it were easier for me to just stay here in the now and make things. Or at least take the things from the past and work them into something new. But it just isn’t. And being fully honest with myself, it’s a convenient excuse to never really get anything done.

It’s a whole lot easier sitting there huffing your own ancient musical nostalgia farts, as it were, than being HERE and creating something.

Okay, that was a satisfying bit of navel gazing. Off to bed for me.

(I’ll probably get on the Internet Wayback machine and look at old versions of websites on my phone as I lie in bed…)

Love to all! Black Lives Matter. Be nice. Don’t support fascists.

TMS

P.S. Here’s a bunch of old photos from my past bands, because it’s fun: