I’m a musician and I write songs.  I used to play around town at various gigs, trying to promote my music and have a little fun.  Certainly, there was not ever much hope of making any money.  You CAN.  Some do.  There was a meme that went around awhile ago that defined a musician as a person who put five thousand dollars worth of equipment into a five hundred dollar car and drove fifty miles to make five bucks.  That seems about right.

Most people (non-musicians, anyway) have no idea what goes into a three- or four-hour gig.  The audience gets three or four hours of music.  The musician puts in something like six to eight hours work on THAT day (and that doesn’t even cover what goes into preparing for gigs in general.)  The day of the show, the musician loads his equipment and hauls it to…where ever, unloads it, sets it up, makes sure everything is working, plays the show, breaks down the equipment and loads it up for the trip home, UNLOADS it again and puts it all away.  Yeah, fun.  One night, my cut was seventeen bucks…but that was before expenses…

I don’t do it much anymore.  These days, if you want to hear me play live, you pretty much have to be at my house while I’m playing or join the wine club at Amphora Wines and come to one of their private events.  I’m in what might be called the house band at Amphora Winery but that’s basically because the guy who owns the winery, Rick Hutchinson, is also the bass player in the band.  (That means he gets us for free…)

But I still write songs.  As it happens, the part that bothers me most about not performing is that I LIKE the songs I write and nobody – save the guests in the wine club – ever gets to hear them.  Until now.

Sometimes, politics just gets a little…tiresome.  So, I decided to share one of my songs, instead.  This song is called ‘Options’.  I wrote and recorded it a LONG time ago.  I only recently added it to YouTube.  I do the singing and I play the acoustic guitar.  Rick plays bass.  The lead guitar is played by a friend named Tony Cohen and the drums are played by a guy named Jesse Wickman.

So…with no further ado…‘Options’…