Holding On

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I’m grabbing some straws from the server’s station, hurrying with a tray of iced-waters to my next table. The restaurant is full and the computers have been crashing all night. Customers are waiting for their checks and other customers are waiting for food. Still other customers don’t realize that their order hasn’t yet been put into the computer and they are going to have to be told that they might miss their movie if they wait because computers suck. It’s not a good night and it’s that very moment, as I’m pulling five straws from the straw box that I’m struck with this thought, “I went to college for 7 years for this.” In fact I say the thought out loud much to the amusement of Toto, my fellow server, who happened to be standing close enough to hear.
Later as I munch a mouthful of noodles with the enthusiasm of a very hungry man Toto laughs again and says, “Angry makes you hungry!”. Anger does indeed make one hungry. On certain days I do get angry and that anger feeds my ambition. It makes me hungry for success.
They say that Rome was not built in a day. Most things that are worth anything were not built in a day. It’s easy to look back and say, “Well, it took time and hard work but just look at it now. Amazing!” It’s a little more difficult to do that when the first bricks are being laid. Sometimes you have to just hold on and be patient. I hate that that is true. I don’t like waiting. But it is true… so what can you do but hold on?
There are days when I have to repeat this sentiment to myself as a kind of mantra. “Hold on, Tim.” “Be patient, Tim.” I feel like that fish in Finding Nemo that likes to say, “Just keep swimming.” over and over again.
This is a song about a guy asking his girl to be patient. He wants her to know that she is awesome and that he wants to take things to the next level but he doesn’t want her to suffer for his dream. He’s asking her to hold on.

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In 2007 I played a gig at a small club called Tanz Café which is Bryanston in Johannesburg, South Africa. After the show I started talking to a guy who introduced himself as Tibi. To this day I still don’t know his full name. He liked my stuff and wanted to record some songs with me so a couple of months later I went back to Johannesburg and spent a couple of days in Tibi’s flat recording. While I was there he played a guitar riff for me and asked if I could write some verses for it. And so the song, “Holding On” was born.
When I was planning the album in 2008 the track “Holding On” was pretty high up on my list of songs that had to be on the album. I was going to include Tibi as a writer in the album credits but it seemed like it wouldn’t do any good since “Tibi” isn’t a definitive name. After trying to contact him several times by phone and e-mail I gave up. I figured that if the song ever went anywhere Tibi would hear it and contact me.

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Yellow Dress Girl

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There’s a photograph of me and her. I’m standing in the back yard of my brother’s home in Johannesburg, South Africa. I’m dressed in blue jeans, a black, button-up shirt with blue pin-stripes and a black suit-jacket. My arm is around her. She is wearing a yellow summer dress with a floral pattern. We are smiling.

I met her at the airport. I was waiting for my mom who was coming back from visiting my brother when she walked through the gate. I knew her from university. We’d both attended the same classes for four years and had hardly spoken to one another the entire time. Roughly 9 years later we met again at the airport.

I liked her. That’s probably the main reason I never talked to her. So when I saw her at the airport I called out after her. She was focused on getting home and didn’t see me. I had to chase her down a bit. I managed to secure her attention and I think for a moment she didn’t recognize me. I had my musician hair and my 3 day beard going (which is equivalent to about 1 ½ days growth on most guys). At university I had always had short hair. I was clean cut. I even went through a phase of tucking my t-shirts into my shorts. I was being the unconventional American at a foreign University but I think I just looked like a doofus.

Anyway..she did recognize me after a moment and we talked the way people do when they don’t really know each other and have never really been friends but who know each other enough to stop the other at an airport and say, “Hey! Gee whizz, it’s been a long time! How are you? What are you doing with yourself these days?”. We exchanged numbers and she had to go. I sent her a text later to ask if she was still single and if she would have coffee with me. I liked her.

When we started dating I was full of myself. I mean that in the best way possible; I had recently begun my journey of being a full time musician. The year before I’d been working with a volunteer organization and I’d toured South Africa as the leader of a team of teens-through-twenty-something-year-olds whose mission it was to save the world from STDs. So I was full of free-spiritedness and the excitement of a new adventure. I’d also discovered that I liked the artistic me more than I liked the versions of me I’d tried on in my previous occupations. I was comfortable with who I was.

Maybe it was my confidence that made the first few months with her so good. I really liked her. I knew then that I was falling for her in a way that I’d never fallen for a girl before. I wanted her in every sense of the word. I wanted to be with her. I wanted to touch her. I just wanted her. I wanted to make her fall in love with me.

That photograph was taken during that phase in our relationship when everything was perfect. I was perfect. She was perfect. We were perfect. So I wrote a song about making that yellow dress girl fall in love with me.

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Are You Coming?

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I’m an impatient person I think. I want all the things I want in life right now. My album is called “beautiful frustration” because I spend a lot of time being frustrated with where I’m at and trying to figure out how to change it for the better. I like to spend time thinking. There’s probably nothing worse for an impatient person to do than sit and think, but this is who I am. I’m learning to be a more patient version of me.

In November of 2006 I turned down a job with the volunteer organization I’d been working for earlier that year because I wanted to pursue music. Although I’d been writing songs since 1996 I had never tried to make it a career. A lot had to happen before I felt like I could legitimately hope to be a songwriting artist for a living. So I moved back to Durban to live in the spare room at my parent’s house so that I could keep my overheads low enough to survive as a musician. I went to all the open mics and I found a couple of regular gigs by handing out demos to restaurant managers everywhere in town. I produced and recorded my first EP, “Believe” that year. I got paid to play music and even though I didn’t realize it I was making progress. I should have been happy with what I’d accomplished.

A little over a year later and I remember writing this song out of complete disgust. I’d been pouring my heart and energy into music for all of a year or so and I felt like I wasn’t getting anywhere and I really wanted my reality to be something different than it was. I like this song a lot. If I hadn’t been impatient or if I wasn’t the person that I am I wouldn’t have written it. So I’m happy for the experience. But I also like the fact that I can look back at this song and realize that I was a bit of an idiot. It’s an angry song. To be honest I was talking to God in this song. I was asking Him if He was damn well doing anything about my situation. How dare He make me wait for everything I always wanted. Right?

In retrospect it was ridiculous to have expected huge changes after only a year. Stranger things have happened but usually they don’t. A year used to seem like a very long time. These days a year is just long enough to do a couple of really good things. I’m building a career and my goals for this year read a little different than they did in 2006. Back then it would have read something like, “Monday – prepare to take the world by storm. Tuesday – Get ready world. Here I come”. Let’s just say I’ve downsized my goals a little. I believe in aiming high but if I’m going to achieve high I’ve got to do all the little things that high requires. So I’ve got to do the nitty gritty. I’ve got to plan to do the nitty gritty. I’ve got to shift my focus from the big dreamy goal and concentrate on the tiny little steps that make dreaminess happen.

When I was studying my masters degree I had several conversations with my supervisor, Barbara Huckett. She turned out to be as much a life mentor as she was a supervisor. I’ve always had a great deal of respect and fondness for her. She told me once that I was a dreamer. Oh but she was right. Like everyone else we dreamers have our strengths and weaknesses and it’s taken me a while to start to understand what the weaknesses of that really mean. I love being a dreamer. I love being an artist. I love to create songs. I love to imagine what all this seemingly thankless work will amount to in ten years time. But thanks to people like Barbara and thanks to the wisdom that comes with experience (and I know I need a lot more of that) I’m learning to be aware of the pitfalls too. Do dream big. Do everything your heart desires. Do enjoy the things that you enjoy. Do work hard. Do work smart. Do everything you need to do to get to where you want to go. Don’t worry about how long it’s taking because that sucks the very life out of you and destroys the thing you love.

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In the coming weeks I'll be updating this site with more songs and stories from the album "Beautiful Frustration". Check back regularly or 'follow me' to get the latest updates.

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Kevin Costner Eats Sushi

It’s Thursday night at RuSan’s and Denny is all excited about something… “It’s him! I can’t believe it’s really him! Kevin Costner is here!” I’m thinking, “Sure Denny. Sure.”.

Today is the official first day of the weekend in Restaurant-Land and that means I have to work an hour later and there’s too many servers on schedule…. Because it’s still Thursday…people have to work tomorrow….mostly they don’t want to be eating sushi at midnight. An hour ago I was wondering who I could call to get out of work tonight. But here I am so hopefully we WILL be busy and I’ll make some money tonight.

Well, shoot me! It is Kevin Costner. Unmistakably, the man sitting in the corner of RuSan’s really is Kevin Costner. I’m trying to remember the movie’s he’s been in. All I can think of is “Dances With Wolves”. My brain starts spitting out Indian names for RuSan’s patrons… Grabs With Chopsticks, Sits With Sake, Makes Noise With Chewing. Robin Hood, Water World, The Post Man, Tin Cup; all these movies don’t pop into my head for some reason.

We are pretty busy tonight and it’s a little bit awesome that no-one seems to notice that Kevin Costner is here. They say that music celebrities appreciate Nashville because they don’t get hassled here. Well I guess it’s true.

Santo is asking me if I will ask Kevin if he will take a picture with him before he leaves. Santo is a sushi chef and he’s awesome but I don’t want to be the guy who approaches the famous movie star and attracts attention to him. Pretty soon we’ll have a restaurant full of people clamoring to get a picture with Kevin Costner and all he wanted to do was eat some sushi and go play some music with his band. Yes….if you weren’t aware Kevin Costner is the front man in a band called Kevin Costner and Modern West. Listen to him sing here (http://www.myspace.com/kevincostnerandmodernwest).

Kevin is getting up from his table and getting ready to go. So I approach as nonchalantly as possible. I realize as I approach that Kevin Costner is taller than he appears in movies. He’s wearing boots which add a bit but I think he must be at least 6’3’’. So I look up and say, “Excuse me, our sushi chef wanted me to ask if he can have a picture with you before you go?”. “Where is he?” Kevin replies. I say “He’s the short Asian at the front… Also I wanted to give you these” I hand him my EP, “believe” (with card cleverly slipped into the sleeve) and my album, “Beautiful Frustration”. I follow that up with this amazing statement, “You can listen to it in your car…I hope you like it.” He stares at the CDs for a few seconds and says, “That’s cool. Thanks Tim.”

I’m not making money from music yet. I’m pretty sure that Kevin Costner is. Even if he isn’t, it probably doesn’t matter for him. I hope to one day make a living at this but for now I can say what probably few independent musicians can say; I gave my music to Kevin Costner. Judging from the tour schedule on their myspace page Kevin is a busy man but I hope he finds time to listen to it.