advice to players

This was written for AUSTRALIAN MUSICIAN MAGAZINE earlier in 2009. I do a regular collumn. The magazine is a glossy, full colour affair that comes out every three months and is available in music equipment shops.

I don’t think I really have any advice to give musicians. I’ve never been any good at taking any. Basically, I think everybodys in a pretty unique situation. The timing and the perception is all theirs. Or yours. So, its hard to translate.
I know theres lots of books and courses about music. The only voices I trust are other players. The only person who knows what its like to be punched in the face is you. Nothing can really prepare you for it. Being a musician is full of undignified situations. The best thing to do is to embrace the indignity and shame. Is that advice? Looks pretty grim.
The best way I could describe it is if you are a musician and you watch a movie like “spinal tap” you are watching stuff that is real! It is funny, but in a deeply stupid way that outsiders can never know. Those guys are stupid but so are we. And anyway, its a thin line between making a great move and falling flat on your face.
If I was to give any gratuitous advice it would be to lay off the booze. its a downer. I mean its a depressive, and you never play as well as when you are straight. You need to feel the terror and the excitement.
All those stories of heroic drunks and junkies are never told by people who are on them. Its told from parasitic hangers on and people slicing a buck from the corpses. Believe the players. Do your swingin’ at home!
Think about it. Nobody can play any good on dope or booze. Your mind is fogged and you are not in your body right. Its a scam, all the players said so. Look up Charlie Parker or Mingus or Miles Davis. Only the real mean straights and squares peddle that jive about taking stuff and getting straight to the source. Its people who make all that great music you can hear in clubs and on cds and records, lots of times in spite of their best attempts to ruin their best game.
I’m into those turn of the 20th century European poets and artists who were called “futurists”. they rejected the idea that artists had to be like outcasts sleeping in the streets and begging for bread. they thought the artists should be cool and sleek and in control of his world and taking care of the scene. Knock yourself out!