Being in the play, learning acting has done something to me/for me. Has opened me up in a way I had always wanted. On Saturday we played Churchill's hideaway in Miami. This place is a total dive but one of the few places left to play in the entire city for a rock band performing live music. Churchill's was the first club I ever played in my whole life many years ago with broken spectacles. We were 18 years old. Green little kids so eager to just be on stage. We would play three sets a night! for hours and hours. For little crowds of all of our friends. And we would drink on stage and be so drunk by the time we got off that we couldn’t even see straight. Back then I couldn’t even tune my guitars. Dave or Matt would do it for me. I didn't know how to get good tone from my amp and didn't know what good tone was. I couldn’t play the guitar to save my life. but we had fun. So it was great to be back there, where it all started. So many years ago.

Saturday night we—the transcendence—played the best show of our careers at Churchill's as a band. at least I did. I cannot help but feel that it has something to do with this acting thing and the subtle influence these crazy people have had on me. I felt so open and free and inspired and happy to be there on stage with my boys singing and playing. Throughout our concert people would walk out of the room, others would come in. It was late, past 1am. Normally I would obsess on that during our shows. Oh my God, why are they leaving? Don't they like us? are we too loud? Are we not loud enough? Are we not hard enough? Are we too hard? Do my vocals suck that bad? Do we not look cool enough? Something clicked on in me over the last few weeks. I decided to stop worrying. I don't know why. I just made a conscious decision to stop. Instead of focusing on the people who were leaving, I focused instead on the smiling faces who were singing along to every word and clapping and looking like they were having so much fun. I focused on the people dancing and jumping up and down. I focused on the great songs we were singing and how much I loved them and how much I loved being in this band with these guys who are so good and so talented and who give up so much of their lives to be up there with me playing. I would look over at the Piano Man or Vancouver and they would just be rocking it out so hard and sincere and I felt inspired and happy to be me. at one point after the show was over we got our money for the night. a total of fifty four dollars to split between 5 guys. Do the math. I was exhausted and still had to get my equipment off of the stage. i spoke to the God I keep in my head like many of us do, ‘God this sucks. I can’t believe I am still doing this. I have to load my own equipment. I am here in this grungy old bar in the worst part of town and I just spent hundreds of dollars to do this by the time I get done paying the guys and transportation etc. God I am just going to quit if you don't help me out here right now! I am tired and frustrated by this.’ and God said, ‘you can quit if you want to. It's totally up to you. You’ve quit before. Do you remember what it was like? You weren't very happy when you quit making music last time. do you remember? It's up to you. you'll come back though.’ So in that moment, I realized that he/she/it was right. I just enjoyed the hell out of that experience. So was it worth it? yes it was. We sang love is you and the people in the audience sang along with us. We sang oh you pretty things by David Bowie and it felt so great. This was a good show. I cannot wait till our next one.

Current Spin: Franco Batiato, Café Paix. Great contemporary Italian singer/visionary.