When I turned 24 I decided to do all of the things I wanted to do in my life but was a little scared to in the past. I always thought I had a talent in music but was so frightened by public speaking that I couldn't imagine performing in front of crowds of people openly judging me. So on my birthday I woke up feeling old and feeling like I needed to grab life by the horns as they say. One day I was surfing the internet and found myself on craigslist. I searched for musicians just to see if what type of people were on there. I came across a band that was looking for a performer. It was the type of music I'm into or one of the kinds of music I'm into so I decided to contact them. When I met the lead singer Blake we hit it off musically. I met the rest of the band and we began to work
It was just the kind of music that I was looking to do. It was sort of a hybrid type thing. A hip hop slash rock slash whatever we were feeling at the time. We began to record songs and even signed up for an open mic night. My first open mic was horrible in my opinion. Some of my friends told me it was ok but my brutally honest friend Jamal told me it wasn't so hot. I was looking at the ground the whole time and everyone couldn't hear or understand what I was saying. I was flop sweating and if I didn't have on a baseball cap and hoodie it might have been more embarrassing with everyone starring at my pit stains and what not.
After a while we began to perform more and I got a lot more comfortable in front of crowds. We recorded a couple of songs professionally in a studio a friend of the band had. Our last show was incredible. We were getting paid for shows at this time and we had a show booked in Roseville Michigan. We had sold tickets and even had people come in off the street to purchase tickets.
After that though I had to quit the band because of personal reasons but I stay in contact with the guys. I occasionally caught my missing the excitement of performing music and having a creative outlet like music. It was eating at me and I never really got over it. So now I'm moving to Chicago to do work, but I also am going to record a solo album. As much as I miss and appreciate my former band (birds and the beats) I really want to say what I have to say unfiltered. So hopefully this will go well, but either way you live once, no regrets.
Check out the band if you want at http://www.myspace.com/birdsandthebeats I am only on the song entitled change, I'm the MC on the song.
Also check out my blog and leave comments at http://marcusgallowaysmind.blogspot.com/2010/04/missing-music.html