Owen is "Star of the Week" in his kindergarten class this week. Among the dubious benefits afforded to the Star of the Week is the chance to have your parents come into the class and embarrass themselves. While I could take the easy way out and simply read Owen's favorite book to the class (a charming little tome called "Watch Out for Jabba the Hutt!"), I have decided to immerse myself fully in the opportunity to embarrass myself by playing the Star Wars theme on the trombone. While I was pretty good in my high school heyday, I then took a 15-year hiatus. I took it up again for a couple of years some time ago when I joined an all-lawyers big band, which practiced every Monday night in the courtroom of a saxophone-playing federal judge in Chicago. We would play formally at our own concerts a couple of times a year, play at lunch outside in Daley plaza, and, increasingly, play at charity dance events and the like. Despite being made up of people who worked full time in the legal profession, they were, for the most part, pretty damn good. I was, however, less good. They got increasingly serious and played more and more about the time Owen was born and I decided to hang it up again. So, six more years on, tomorrow marks my auspicious return to public performing.
Nothing eases any concerns about performing after a six year layoff, however, like playing a song beloved by kindergarten boys who, I would guess, have no idea what a trombone is supposed to sound like. It reminds me of the easing in done by my first high school rock band. At the time we were called "Andromeda," later to be changed to "Circus" and then, alarmingly, "Drauma" - yes, with a "u", for reasons I can thankfully no longer recall. I played electric bass and occasionally sang (although I was never able to do both at the same time, a fact that a year later made me expendable and got me and my rock star attitude booted out of a different band, "The Wave," mere weeks before they went on to win my high school's Battle of the Bands). Anyway, Andromeda's first paying gig was playing a Christmas party for kids with mental disabilities. At the time, we knew about 9 songs, 5 or so of which were Judas Priest songs. Although it sounds like an unlikely recipe for success, I don't believe I have ever played for a more appreciative audience in my life. No matter how much a song sucked, they loved it, clamoring for more. Even after I blew out the speakers on our borrowed sound system with my trademark scream at the end of REO Speedwagon's "Ridin the Storm Out", they were loving us as we soldiered on with some acoustic Christmas carols that I am sure were almost unrecognizable.
Nothing eases any concerns about performing after a six year layoff, however, like playing a song beloved by kindergarten boys who, I would guess, have no idea what a trombone is supposed to sound like. It reminds me of the easing in done by my first high school rock band. At the time we were called "Andromeda," later to be changed to "Circus" and then, alarmingly, "Drauma" - yes, with a "u", for reasons I can thankfully no longer recall. I played electric bass and occasionally sang (although I was never able to do both at the same time, a fact that a year later made me expendable and got me and my rock star attitude booted out of a different band, "The Wave," mere weeks before they went on to win my high school's Battle of the Bands). Anyway, Andromeda's first paying gig was playing a Christmas party for kids with mental disabilities. At the time, we knew about 9 songs, 5 or so of which were Judas Priest songs. Although it sounds like an unlikely recipe for success, I don't believe I have ever played for a more appreciative audience in my life. No matter how much a song sucked, they loved it, clamoring for more. Even after I blew out the speakers on our borrowed sound system with my trademark scream at the end of REO Speedwagon's "Ridin the Storm Out", they were loving us as we soldiered on with some acoustic Christmas carols that I am sure were almost unrecognizable.
So, here's hoping the kindergarten kids like my little performance tomorrow even half as much as the kids back then. Tomorrow's possible encore, in case you are wondering, is "Colors of the Wind" from Pocahontas, not Judas Priests' "Heading Out to the Highway." Signs of the time, I suppose.
