Since 1991 he has made 20 albums and toured the American continent, Europe and Asia with Hagfish and Only Crime. For the past 13 years he has been the bassist for Texas favorite the Toadies. He began writing his first book “Even If It Kills Me” (YMAA Publications) while on the road in 2015 about his black belt journey in Taekwondo. Upon release it was a Silver Winner for the Benjamin Franklin Award.
When he’s not writing he can be found drinking coffee, trying to learn Rush songs, training in martial arts and drinking coffee .
He lives in Amarillo, TX with his wife Shelley and, since his bass guitars are his children, their 13 kids.
- The Partial Artist - October 13, 2021
- The Harder We Fall - September 8, 2021
- Am I My Brother’s Keeper? - September 6, 2021
Discipline, hard work, integrity spring to mind when you think of martial arts. We have been inundated with images of karateka, judoka and juijiteiro fighting adversity with sweat dripping from their body, making their Gi wet from practice, diligent in their quest for perfection. I think of wrapped fingers, bloody appendages and a look of disappointment because the task – excellence – has not been reached.
But can’t this apply to music as well?
The typical scenes from stock rock ‘n roll biopics come to my mind when the life of a musician is brought up—cocaine, midgets, orgies, orgies with cocaine midgets. The population at large think of musicians as modern day buccaneers: screwing your way around the world and getting into sword fights at a moment’s notice.
Sure, that does happen; just not with actual swords.
Unfortunately the word ‘musician’ is ascribed to, as my Grandfather Noel called them ‘Gitar players’. But not all guitar players are musicians. Sid Vicious was a bass player. Was he a musician?
Not even close.
See my point?
I think of Thelonius Monk, Itzhak Perlman, Frank Zappa. Those guys were musicians.
Bill Stevenson and Stephen Egerton from the Descendent’s are musician’s. They will not only engineer and produce a record but write the music and perform every instrument better than you can, all by themselves. Are they talented? Of course, but it took a long time to get there and that was only by discipline, hard work and integrity.
I learned life lessons from these men on how to make myself better. It didn’t matter what the subject was; just become great. Who cares how long it takes? Eventually you will get there.
I have a friend that likes to use the phrase ‘In the spirit of rock n roll’. To be honest I have no clue what that means. I was raised on Black Flag and the Ramones, which translates to hard work and bitterness. My friend’s application for the idiom is used for gigs, making music or spending hours at band practice which means ‘beer assassination’. Any second not used towards your goal is a waste. Instead of dreaming about being a black belt in karate, join a karate class and work your way towards that objective.
If your dream is to be a musician, then spend every day not at work or school practicing until your fingers bleed. Some people might say that Johnny Ramone is neither a musician nor a guitar player. Those people should get one across the chops. He wanted to play music for a living, so he did it. There was not any ‘daydreaming with headphones in my room, grooving to the far out vibes’ situation. He had a goal and pursued it. My goal was to obtain a black belt in TKD. I got up everyday and went to class and practiced until my Master, Inseon Kim, wrapped it around my waist.
When you stop to think about it’s not that hard.
There is no difference between running scales or going through kata. Both are sequences that prepare you for a demonstration of your art; repetitions are repetitions. On any particular day my focus could be working on my lead leg axe kick or trying to set up a Crucifix choke. Others days might be where on the fretboard is the best option to get a smooth Jaco type harmonic. All are tools in the tool box, ready to used when the moment calls for it. Now some of you might be reading this and saying to yourself “great observations, Kid Copernicus” but since this is my article, I can belabor if I feel a need to.
Nowhere is discipline utilized more than when you encounter adversity in your life. Sure, getting up everyday and maintaining a set schedule isn’t the hardest thing to do. You make a list of things to do…and just do it. But what if adversity comes or something goes wrong? An injury? A schedule change for your job or a trip that will make it harder for you to train? What do you do then? Well, most quit, at least for a while then maybe, maybe they return to their previous program of study.
Take Bill ‘Superfoot’ Wallace, one of my favorites. He began studying Judo first in 1966. So to Wallace, he was going to be a Judo guy before turning his focus to Shorin-Ryu. We all do that, begin a martial art and think to yourself “Hmm, I’m a Karate guy now”. It makes you feel like a part of something bigger, a sense of belonging. I imagine ‘Superfoot’ doing the same, he had found home: judo. Eventually he was forced to discontinue his training because of an injury he suffered to his right knee during practice.
Think about that, you are involved in an activity that could define your identity and the way you see yourself—the kind of guy that koshi-waza’s the hell out of anyone who messes with him. Then it’s taken away. What is the next course of action? Quit and eat Dorito’s, I guess.
But Wallace decided to continue.
He began to study karate and figuring out that his right leg wasn’t up to par, trained his left leg to be the main weapon; using it to block, side-kick, hook kick and roundhouse kick. It worked out since he became a 10th Dan black belt Soke and fought 23 fights for the Professional Karate Association losing zero matches. That’s adversity, or taking lemons and making lemonade. But I like my lemonade really sweet and that mars my analogy since lemons are pretty bitter.
I didn’t care for kids almost crippling me with roundhouse kicks, nor do I care for strangers smothering me in a sea of Gi until I can no longer breathe. I briefly come up for air and pulled back down again by closed guard. It’s not fun so why do it?
In those moments of wanting to abandon everything, walk out the door and go get ice cream, I realize it takes encountering adversity and using your discipline to overcome that counts. I learned it by getting my heart broken; the lesson was taught to me by booing crowds; I learned by wasting $500 an hour in a professional studio because I couldn’t learn my bass part. When my left leg felt like it was broken and I couldn’t train I took a page from Bill Wallace’s book and switched to my right. I didn’t win any championships but I did continue to train.
To me, there was no difference.
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