Ice Breaker Ship - aka Singer

Sometimes, life has a crappy way of imposing its will on you. You're making an omelet but you're thinking about a safe that's about to drop on your head. You're painting the fence while a poison-tipped spear's been thrown at your noggin. Or, you're getting ready to play music in front of strangers who expect you to entertain them for a few hours, but you're getting beat up by life's ill-timed shrapnel.

That's the thing, right? Keeping focused on the job at hand - but sometimes that's close to impossible. I have a gig this Friday with one sub and one new member (luckily, both are excellent musicians). These type of weird gigs need a higher concentration level - no skating here. Keeping two strangers and the other 60% of the band on the same page will take some doing, but I just ain't there yet.

The day gig. The fam. The muse who's suddenly gone MIA. All of this is nipping at me like a squirrel eating a buttered corn cob. This is the the danger of having two professions, and although I can normally keep them in opposite corners, I'm having no luck doing that this week. Whereas music is often an "escape" - even though it's actually MORE difficult than the day gig (I'll explain this in another blog) - I'm having trouble getting my head around what the band needs to do because of the heinous stuff unrelated to music soaring around me like Pig Pen's little cloud on speed.

So - I asked myself how to get through this, and my demented head shot back: "Ice Breaker Ship." For those of you who think I've totally fried my noodle - or don't know what I'm talking about - icebreakers are used to punch through and break up thick Arctic and Antarctic ice. They have a steeped hull to rise on top of the ice and then, using the ship's weight and gravity, crush downward through it. Inside the hull is a huge support structure so the hull itself isn't crushed, and powerful engines keep pushing it forward so the ship doesn't break under pressure.

(Yes - you're all gagging because the metaphor's so damn obvious.)

Anyway, that's where my head's going to be for the next day - trying to break through all the crap that's keeping me from focusing on the gig. And if I need help, I know Rob and Joey (Party Jones' esteemed rhythm section) are there to keep me smiling and help the band nail the gig.