Itchy. Scratchy. Wrong.

I've got an itch. It's a mental one, not a physical one, but I need to scratch it nonetheless. I've always been creative in more than one way, whether it is with painting and sketching, or with music, or with words, whatever. I need to make stuff. To do stuff. It's in there and it's gotta come out, as John Lee Hooker would say.
Anyway, last night I went out with Rachel and Kev and we went to a pub to see a band. I don't even know the name of the band but they were good even though they were playing a sort of country/bluegrass mix (which is usually like fingernails being dragged down a blackboard as far as I'm concerned). So there we were watching this band and it suddenly struck me how much I miss playing live. Rhythm and the Devil kind of fizzled out again a while back and I haven't done a gig now for the best part of a year. It's all my own fault as Ken (Ghengis - ex Scutters and the other half of R&D) is still keen. I bumped into one of the organisers of the Moseley Festival the other day and the first thing she did was ask me to play next year's festival. I know that I want to do it. I know that we'll go down a storm there - without wanting to blow my own trumpet we always go down a storm wherever we play. We're really, really good. Really.

The fizzle factor with R&D is down to me really. I love playing blues and I love playing with Ken; you really have to see the guy play to believe it, I've never seen anyone bat such a sound out of a guitar before or since. We used to be in two bands and we used to go busking too of a weekend in Birmingham city centre - this became a six- or seven-hour practice and a proving ground for new material.
Because of the sheer amount of time we were spending playing together with all this we ended up being able to second guess each other by the most subtle of cues - an off-beat stab here, a suspended chord there and we'd be off into completely new territory, sounding for all the world like it had been rehearsed a thousand times.
What anyone thought of our playing was secondary really. I suppose it's easy to say that having only ever had (over-)enthusiastic reactions to our gigs) but it was true for me at least. Don't get me wrong, I do absolutely get a fucking enormous buzz from standing on a stage and giving it the big 'un while people cheer and shout for more. You'd have to be dead for it not to feel good. But that wasn't the reason that I did it. I did it because I love playing music. I love playing blues. I mean really, really love it. It's not a gimmick or a style of music I think will be popular or cool - it's a passion and a need. A need.
But that's where Ken and I don't see eye to eye. I know that I'm never going to be a big star for playing blues - in the late eighties or early nineties maybe but not now. Ken wants to see how for we can take R&D and make it a living. I used to make a living from making music and I noticed two things about it then and a third since:-
1. It's not a very affluent or healthy lifestyle.
2. When your love becomes your job you eventually lose sight of the passion that started you off in the first place.
3. Being a musician never paid anywhere near what my current job does.
So Rhythm and the Devil fizzled. I don't say "split up" because I know that if I call Ken and suggest that we do a few gigs then he'll be as eager as I am. But we'll always eventually arrive at that same place: I play for playing's sake and he plays to make it big/rich whatever. It's like going back to an ex-girlfriend, it's great for a while and then you realise that she was your ex for a reason (or she realises that you were her ex for a reason). And the reason is still there.
But every lunch time I find myself in the music room, with a DJ-X providing a rhythm section and me thrashing away at a guitar or a bass or a piano and every time I see a band I think "I want to be up there playing again".
But I feel like one day the "ex-girlfriend" is going to accuse me of taking the piss and just using her when I feel like a quickie.
OK so I'll call Ken at the weekend....