Back in the day...

That's the term I use anytime I start talking about my Anchorage Music Scene life. By my best estimations, it started about 1987, became more infrequent starting about 1998, after the birth of my daughter. It fell off all together when my health deteriorated and my "mommy and future-wife" life took over.

And I don't regret that...not at all...

I hear many people say how much they miss the crazy hours, the all-night jams, the 3:00 am breakfasts at either Village Inn, Leroy's or China Gardens, the "freakers floor-show" that happened every Saturday night at Village Inn after the bars closed (you couldn't pay for entertainment like that), etc...

However, what they fail to mention is that they were young and healthy, had unlimited energy, were responsible only for themselves (i.e. alone and childless), and were the "Top Raman" kind-of-poor. (While that kind of poor may be "fun" in college, it makes a big difference when you don't live in a dorm room that's paid up through the end of the semester.)

Those things I do not miss.

However, if you want to see me get misty, ask me how it felt to play music with the rest of "Sky Is Blu" - my "family" for six years. Ask me how it felt to get to see bands like "Disastronauts," "T.S. Scream," "Hopscotch" and "Drunk Poets" every night because I was booking them into the coffee house. Ask me how it felt to play the Folk Festivals, staying up all hours and jamming with the other musicians around the campfire. Practically living at the Java Joint put me right into Anchorage's core. If I didn't know something, I knew the people who knew it.

I remember running sound for a "Little Charlie and the Nightcats" show years later at "Blues Central". They are not only a great blues band but a great group of people and they were complimenting me on my mixing. The fun I was having must have been written all over my face because someone I never met before said to me, "Enjoy this! You are going to remember these times as the best of your life."

He was right, but not the way some of my musician friends view it.

I love my daughter and my husband...they are the best things that ever happened to me...and I love my life with them. I'm also pretty sure that, sometime in the future when Morrigan is older, I'll be doing music again. However, it will never be the same for all the reasons I mentioned earlier. But mostly because you can't relive the experience of your first love; my relationship with my first band is very much like that. I still get choked up when I think about the break-up of Sky is Blu. I've been in several bands since, but it wasn't the same and it never will be.

Thus, that time in my life becomes labeled as "back in the day."

I stumbled across this blog last year and read his description of "back in the day," which prompted me to post. Being a timely person (*snort*) I decided to check back a year later and much to my surprise, Willie from Disastronauts posted to leave me his email! I'm in the process of writing one to him now.

Willie, if you read this I hope you post! I also hope anyone from that era who may be doing a "vanity search" (great term, Willie) stumbles upon my "exercise in self-indulgence."

Now, back to your regularly scheduled political slug-fest!