I’ll Be There
Well...it looks like I'll be playing some shows in support of my debut album, The Down Valley. And hopefully I'll sell at least a few records too, as my album has been pressed to vinyl. I did not plan any of that ahead of time. How did I get here??
To start off, I never intended to do a single live "solo" performance, really ever in my life. Nor did I intend on pressing my first record The Down Valley on to vinyl or any other physical format. My reasoning at the time was that not very many people would want to see me perform these songs live, or at least not too many people outside of my inner circle.
Also, performing "solo" after only playing in bands is a strange concept to me. In a band, you are a gang, a group, and in a sense it feels like the gang against the world, or the sound guy, or whatever. And as far as the vinyl records are concerned, I assumed (and still assume) that this will be a rather large sunken cost.
But at some point I realized that I was vastly missing the point with these two decisions. Music is performative by nature, and certainly historically, and I should've known better than to brush it off. In fact, I would go so far as to say that performance is a vital stage in the life-cycle of a musical piece, and certainly in a musician's experience. Music is about connection, and live performances and physical media are ways in which we have been connecting for ages.
From personal experience, I would say that I've never once felt miserable performing on stage. To the contrary, I've always felt alive, fully connected with the present, and connected with the rest of the band and audience (which at times could be just the bartender and maybe a sympathetic loved one connected to the band). I've played shows with a couple hundred people, and I've played shows for 2 people, and they all feel the same in some way to me. You can feel the connection, the human-ness of it all. It feels almost like some sort of prehistoric ritual or dance that humans have been doing for our entire history, and we are somehow tapping in and connecting to that same stream, both as an audience and a performer. I think that every human in some way knows exactly what I am talking about here, as we've all been an audience member and many of us have also been a performer.
Hell, I've gotta say that I've really missed performing live. The band I play guitar in, The Get Together, has played about 3 shows since 2019 (though we are aiming to change that in a big way this summer with our own full length vinyl coming out). Between kids, careers, the pandemic, and life events, we've had a hard time getting anything going. We miss playing music together, and I can feel it when we do practice. And we all miss doing shows, and I can tell by how we all talk about it.
Do I feel any less awkward about playing "Johnathan Maske" shows? No, that's pretty fucking weird to me still. Especially as the first show I will be playing in the Denver area on May 31st, 2024 will indeed feature a full band with three of the best friends, musicians, and people I've ever known (Stephen Prill, Brooks Miller, David Scott). It makes me feel deeply bashful. But, the best part about this is playing music with these guys. The rehearsals, the conversations, the setting up on stage, and the loud first notes kicking in that adrenaline. Those are the things that will make all that awkwardness for me disappear in an instant. We are still a band, a gang, and we are trying to connect with the audience. A story literally as old as human history. As for my other solo shows out on the road where I'll be playing an acoustic only....well, for those I have no idea what to expect as I've never done that before, but I'm excited to find out! I have a feeling the experience will be well beyond my top expectations, even if the only people there to see me are the staff and my family. What a privilege to write and play music with and for the rest of my little world. If recording music was my way of saying "I was here", then performing the music live is my way of saying "I'll be there as long as I'm able". And I will be.
