To Blog or not to Blog, that is the question.

Okay, I’ll blog.

As many of you know, usually before we are to play out at one of our regular places I (Whitey) post a quick note on the South Jersey craigslist.org community musicians list.  It’s a little trick I picked up from a co-worker of mine, who plays drums in a band called CornDog.  I figured what the heck.  It gets our name out, it plugs the bar, and it’s a no lose situation.  Or so I thought.

Recently on the very same board, some musicians (and I use that word cautiously) have been really ripping cover bands that do the same.  Ripping everything from cover bands being boring, un-original, and unless you covered your eyes and couldn’t tell the difference between the real group and your group, lousy to boot.  There were a few people that chimed in and told them to chill out.  Some went as far as to say that those nay Sayers were most like the people who surf the net all evening, while sitting in their dirty underwear in their parent’s basements.  I thought those comments were excellent.

Finally somebody posted a comment that stated no matter how great of musicians you were, none of you were professional touring players, and didn’t have a clue on the economics of cover bands.  Mostly, good or bad, you are judged by how happy the bar owners were at the end of the night.  Moreover, you were also judged on how much fun the band had, and the how much fun the audience had.  All comments that made a lot of sense to me.

The Deck Band will be the first guys to tell you all that no, we aren’t the best band in South Jersey, far from it.  We know there are really some great groups right here in our region that have a ton more experience, equipment, and followings than the Deck Band has or may ever have.  We appreciate those bands all the same, and try to learn as much from them as we can.

We all have day jobs and wonderful families.  We are established human beings.  We all began our first band, this band, in our 40’s.  We pretend to be nothing other than music fans that try to improve our musical abilities at every practice and every opportunity to play in front of people. 

So for all the folks that enjoy our hobby along with us, we applaud you.  For those who look down there noses at us, screw you.  Perhaps by reading the below quote from a great American you will see just how off-beat you are…

Man in the Arena

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

"Citizenship in a Republic,"
Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910
Theodore Roosevelt