Take My Hand

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Love songs are strange. They are a testament to a deep emotion that once was and may or may not still be. Emotions are not static. They change. I imagine that’s the reason that a lot of love songs get classified as ‘cheesy’ after a while. When you are high on love you say cheesy things. You say all the clichés from a thousand songs and poems and you think that they mean something when you say them because you actually mean it. They don’t feel like a cliché when you are the one saying them. The song though, remains the same as it was the day it was recorded. Whatever happened to the girl (or guy) and whatever happened to the feelings, the song stays the same.

There’s a song on Dave Mathews’ latest album in which he says, “Someone’s broken heart becomes your favorite song.” It’s true that we don’t always get the whole story when we listen to a song and we don’t always care. We just like the way it sounds. Maybe we like the story that the song evokes in us and that story may be far from the actual one.

They say that true love isn’t so much about feelings as it is about doing. Love is a verb. The kind of love that makes people stay married or makes people give money to poor people is probably a more important kind of love than most of what gets sung about. That’s because that kind of love seems more boring. It’s not as exciting as the emotions of new love.

As a songwriter I’m continuously desperate for something to write about. There’s plenty of stuff out there to write songs about but it’s always obvious when I’m trying too hard to write about something that’s not real to me. So when love comes along it makes for a great muse. Suddenly clichés come rolling out of the abyss and present themselves in ways that seem normal, and even good, even though they are mostly the same things everyone has been saying and writing and singing for hundreds of years.

“Take My Hand” is a love song. I suppose it’s a little cheesy, and more so to me because I know the full story. I’m not going to tell you the whole story because I’m tired of that particular story and the telling of it. I hope that it tells a good story for you.

As a songwriter I hope to write lots of cheesy love songs that are so catchy that people can’t help but buy them. As a person I hope I get to write a love song one day that I won’t look back on and wish that the love was as enduring as the song.

Response...Something Inside Me

This is a response to the previous blogs comments. I had originally intended to write something about this in the previous blog but it didn’t seem to pan out. After the comments I realized that I didn’t quite express myself accurately so here goes….

I picked up a guitar one day and began learning to play. Another day I wrote a song. Another day I stopped watching t.v. and wrote another song instead. After that I played my guitar most days and became better at it. Some days I wrote songs and in the past 14 years I’ve gotten better at that. Another day I played my first song for an audience…I kept doing that and got better at that too.

When I was in college studying Biology and later while getting my masters in Biotechnology I was completely distracted by music on a daily basis. Whenever I had a minute free I’d be writing or playing or trying to figure out how to get enough money together to record an album. One day I started recording my own songs. I kept doing that and I’m still getting better at that too.

One day I made a decision to make music my career. I stopped teaching so that I could do that. I turned down a job with a missions organization so that I could do that. I started playing lots of shows in my hometown. I got better at playing shows and got better at promoting myself. Later I turned down a job with the company I’d been stationed at during my masters degree so that I could move to America and continue pursuing music.

The examples above are the highlights but the point is this… For the past 14 years I’ve been working steadily in this direction. It has been said that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become truly successful at something. I don’t know if I’ve reached that mark yet but I’ve certainly put in a few. Over the span of 14 years a person makes a lot of decisions… In my own life my decisions keep drawing me further down the path of a career in music. It doesn’t happen all at once but when you look back you realize that returning to where you once were would take almost as much work as it took to get to where you are now. When you stop using a path it stops looking so much like a path and becomes a faded remnant of a trail that once was. Bridges get burned and bottles get broken on your back trail. To go back might sometimes be necessary but it’s not going to be any easier than putting your head down and slogging it out with whatever is ahead that keeps making yesterday look so attractive.

What I’m saying is this… I am where I am on purpose. It’s no accident that I do the job I do or that I live where I live or that I’ve made the decisions I’ve made. Little by little, one decision at a time, I have burned bridges and broken bottles for 14 years to get here. I’m not sure just anyone would want to live in my shoes but I do want to live in them. I don’t expect everyone to understand what I’m doing but I do understand it. In general I’m excessively happy that I’ve made it this far and that I’m on the path that I’m on. There are specific things about the current moment in the path that I don’t like and I’ll admit that I probably spend way too much time dwelling on those things and preaching my woes for the world to read. I’m a complainer…so sue me.

In writing about the songs on the album I’m trying to capture the emotions of the songs and of the album in general. Sometimes that means putting myself back in the moment of whatever I was feeling at the time. The song “Something Inside Me” was written when I was absolutely confounded and frustrated and ready to throw in the towel. I wanted to give up. I wanted to stop trying. I even tried to give up music. But I found out that my passion for music and writing is something that is deep within me that I can’t control and which will never die. It’s too deeply ingrained. Perhaps it’s by design that I am this way. So I wrote the words “I’ll never give up because I don’t know what those words mean.” At the time in my life when I was utterly frustrated, completely depressed and most wanted to give up I wrote a song about not giving up. When I say I can’t give up… I really mean I can’t give up.

The album was titled “Beautiful Frustration” not because I thought it sounded like a cool name but because it captured the sentiment of everything I’d been through to get the thing done. It was the overall emotion that I was feeling during the writing of that album. I was frustrated but it was the kind of frustration you get when you are continuously working on a project that seems to progress too slowly. But there is progress and that’s why it’s beautiful. It’s the knocking of yourself against a problem over and over again that makes you stronger and eventually leads to a solution. I imagine that the guys who built the space shuttle, or Einstein (no I’m not comparing myself to them) would understand ‘beautiful frustration’ completely.

I am beautifully frustrated. My apologies if I let off steam about that too often. But I am determined and I am stubborn and I am committed to this thing I’ve set out to do. I’m investing in a future that I can live with instead of fixing my present to be satisfied now.

I will reach 10,000 hours. I will reach my goals. Say what you will or think what you will, I am realizing that I don’t much care anymore what people think because it doesn’t matter and it doesn’t change what I’m going to do. When I find myself in those moments of complete disgust and frustration with my reality I remember this song and I tell myself that “I’m trying…come try with me. I’m fighting…come fight with me. I’m flying…come fly with me.” I sing those words to the heavens as a kind of challenge. I sing those words to the walls that seem daunting as if I were a boxer squaring my shoulders to my opponent, bouncing lightly on the balls of my feet, glint in my eye, jaw set and saying, “Alright. Let’s do this.”

Something Inside Me....To Thine Own Self Be True

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I’m worried about where this is heading. Is it heading anywhere? Am I deluded? Should I just ‘get a job’ and do what everyone does? Maybe I should. But I’ve been down that road. I know what happens to me when I’m stuck in a job that I don’t want to be doing. I start to become someone I don’t want to be. I start to come unglued and disheveled. I start to become a bitter old man and I’m not even an old man. I become unhappy about pretty much everything. I start to die….just a little bit….every day. I lose that part of me that loves the sunshine. I forget how much I like to be outside. I forget the joy of feeling wind in my face.

I studied Biology in University. During our third year we went on a “field trip”. It was one of the most gratifying experiences of my college career. I remember coming home after ten days in Itala Game Reserve with scratches all lover my arms and legs from walking through thick African bush. Each day after we’d finished in the field we’d walk down to the river and sit in a small pool of water and check ourselves for ticks. We’d let the tiny fish nibble our skin. Each day we ate lunch off the back of a truck. It was horribly wonderful. At night we’d type our data into computers and then sit by a fire and talk.

The scratches hurt but I was kind of proud of them. I said to someone that walking through the bush, riding on the back of a truck, sleeping in a tent by a river, cooking in a makeshift kitchen for ten days, getting scratched and tick-bitten made me feel alive. I don’t remember most of what I studied… I remember that trip. I remember conversations and truck rides and scenery and moments. I remember it because for those ten days I was more alive than I had been during my entire time at University to that point.

We had to stop working one day because a rhinoceros was too close and the game guard thought he looked agitated. Walking with rhinos makes you feel alive. In 1996 I learned how to play the guitar and I wrote my first song. I still don’t know why or how but something about writing a song; something about performing it for people makes me feel alive the way working too close to a rhinoceros does.
I’ve had people tell me that I should be using my degree instead of working as a waiter. I’ve had people tell me that I shouldn’t be doing what I’m doing. To those people my response is this song.

I don’t like serving sushi one bit. I’m not even sure I like Nashville one bit. I don’t like worrying about money and whether I’m going to earn enough this month. I don’t like the demeaning nature of the job. I don’t like picking up after people and dealing with their “I deserve everything NOW!” attitudes.

I spent seven years in college studying something that I didn’t really want to do because…well..I had to study something. But the moment I wrote that first song I knew what I really wanted to do. There is a deep motivation in me to make this happen. It simmers in my soul. It’s a glowing coal that never dies.

I could give up and go make money designing pharmaceutical drugs, or working with genetically modified somethings. But I don’t want to do those things. I want to write songs. I want to play them for people. I won’t stop trying because…honestly…I can’t. Something inside of me won’t let me.

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.

_________________

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.