Honestly, I don't know if I'll end up out there after all. I don't think I know enough about the lifestyle out there to really gauge if I'll be comfortable or not.
The weird thing is, because this guy just totally disappeared, I'll actually never know just how many levels of b.s. I was being dragged through. It could've been that he made up the WHOLE thing, which is just a terrible plot for a movie or something. Or maybe there was some truth to it and HE got cut out of the deal too, which sounded shady as hell anyway. At the end of the day, I'm just too much of a realist and a survivalist to spend THAT much time playing out a scenario which was starting to look shaky and uncertain anyway. I didn't even have enough information about the gig in the first place. If I'd known more from the start, I might have been more inclined to think that this guy was for real. But there was something really sneaky about the whole thing that put me off. I realize that sometimes people operate their businesses in such a way in order to maintain privacy...and still turn out to be okay. But the whole thing just didn't seem right to me. It felt like he was trying to grant me this new life out there in exchange for owning a percentage of it...and that bothered me. That's...not how it goes. Not in THIS century, anyway!
I've been thinking recently about how- from my observation- MOST successful bassists have kinda partitioned their careers in such a way that they do some sub/session work, some wedding/covers work, and then maybe an originals band or their own project. In other words, if you haven't "made it big," this is an option which to me seems the most attainable (and sustainable!). Given how difficult it is to make money in an originals band, I've decided that I no longer expect to reach that level at any point when it comes to playing in such bands...but that if I land in a really solid originals band, I just want to gig a lot and have a substantial following. So that maybe even if we're still not making a ton of money, at least people really like us and at least we get a lot of press and exposure.
I've noticed that in New York, if you're known for something but not necessarily paid well for it, you can then kinda make a lateral move into something else which COULD make you money...because people know you from That Indie Band That Was In L Magazine or whatever. This is how a lot of independent recording studios pop up...or fashion design labels...or people publishing books. I think New York allows people to be "Renaissance" in a way that- at the end of the day- appeals to me. And there IS kind of a small-town element to the niches of the music industry here, especially, the Brooklyn scene that I'm starting to become more and more intrigued by...I want to give it a chance.
