About four months ago, something began happening to my voice - something that'd never happened before. My voice wasn't recovering after gigs - or if it was, the recovery was so minimal it made no difference when it was go time on Friday. I began losing range and control - I couldn't nail the highs and swerving around the vocal curlicues felt like I was driving a bulldozer on a curved mountain road greased with lard ("I canna mahk the tuhrns, cap'n! She'll fail for sure!").
Needless to say this freaked me out. For my entire life, my voice would ALWAYS recover completely in one or, at the absolute outside, two days. That is, no sign of huskiness or hoarseness or Joe Cockeriness - come Monday I could hit the notes in my sleep.
But four months ago that stopped happening. My throat wasn't recovering, and I began to worry. First thought: voice with 25 years worth of singing mileage on it, some of those years spent singing in smoke-filled bars (though I never smoked, for years I played in bars with so much second-hand smoke I felt like I was eating nicotine cotton candy) is crapping out. But it didn't feel like that. My voice felt fatigued but not finished. Next thought: polyps on my vocal cords. This freaked me out - if they don't go away on their own, then what?
Finally, I decided to control the things I could control. I committed, for a month, to have absolutely NO alcohol at a gig - not a beer, not a shot, not a bourbon seven- nothing.
(No-brainer time here, as any experienced singer will tell you this: alcohol is a drying agent, drying the vocal cords and making it tougher to sing and hit the notes. Still, as a front man and band leader, I've been expected to knock back a few drinks/shots during the night. Not that I didn't enjoy it!)
Strangely enough, six months ago (before the onset of the vocal problems) I decided to ease up and have only a beer or two per gig in order to stay sharp. But four months ago - when the throat problems really became predominant - I completely quit drinking at gigs.
Boy - reading this back, it sounds like I'm a cross between Otis and Foster Brooks at my gigs. I can definitely hold my liquor, but knocking back a few highballs didn't make me mess songs up. I'm too much of a perfectionist (and far too into beating myself up for every tiny mistake) for that! If anything, I got a bit too silly/giggly, but hell, what can you do?
Also - I'm not much of a social drinker, either. I rarely, if ever, drink during the week.
So what happened? Well, it was amazing - my voice completely recovered, and I found myself singing with the same range and control at the end of the night that I had at the beginning. No small task, considering the band plays for roughly four hours per night. It was awesome.
But something else happened, too - a really cool side benefit. I was seeing everything clearly, all through the night. Suddenly, I could really enjoy the crowd getting off on the band, or the band tearing up a song like there was no tomorrow. I found my concentration going through the roof, and it was like I controlled every note of every song with my hands - not my vocal cords.
Needless to say, my newfound water-only stance has rankled some of my great friends who come to the gigs and say (with a smile) "We liked you better when you were drinking!" It's at this point I wobble a little and slur the words to some one-hit wonder song. That always gets a laugh.
Master of Ceremonies with a bottle of water? Captain of the Enterprise passing on the tronya, instead powering down some Gatorade? The point guard at a championship celebration foregoing champagne for Sparklets?
Hey...why not? :-)
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I've been hesitant to comment on these blogs of Kenny's as I feel any comment I leave would be a defamation to the thoughtful and insightful ramblings as he calls them. After incessant badgering, I decided to go ahead and throw up my blacklight velvet painting"esque" comment to one of his artful masterpieces.
As the drummer in this band, I have the best seat in the hosue to view the other players as well as the crowd. Not being a big drinker myself, it didn't bother me at all that Kenny decided to abstain. One thought that entered my mind, however, had to do with his aforementioned "silliness" at gigs. I wondered if his charisma would decline as a result of his abstinence from the hooch.
I'm happy to say that there is no decline in charisma and he's just as entertaining 100% sober as he is with some of the devil water in him. His voice is strong throughout the night and he still leaves it all on the stage for the audience as well as his bandmembers. It doesn't matter if there are three listeners at Harpoon Harry's or three hundred at the Grand Prix. You are guaranteed a great show with a great frontman. I can't think of many other instances where I have laughed as hard as I have in this band while we were nailing a song to the wall.
On a sidenote, I've actually enjoyed some additional benefits to Kenny's abstinence. My gear receives quite a bit less abuse. Gone are the days when glasses of liquid amber or shots of firewater were handed over my now vintage Yamaha Recording Custom drums with quavering hands, spilling their corrosive contents on my lacquered beauties. I no longer have to navigate a veritable boneyard of empty glasses and bottles strewn about the stage as if some member from the insidious insurgent group Bourbon al-Qaida had laid booby-traps for me to trip on throughout the night.
At the end of the night, when the audience is satiated, we're still going to tear up the Jack regardlesss of whether we drank alcohol or not. So we've got that going for us... which is nice.
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