**I have sat on this little piece of writing for a few days, uncertain as to whether or not I should publish it. Just know that I held my breath for quite a while and said a little prayer just before hitting the “PUBLISH” button”. When you choose to be an open book, people can take what you say in an infinite number of ways. I hope that the intent and spirit in which this is given is quite apparent.**

One of my dearest musician friends has a nickname for me. He stopped calling me by my actual name a long time ago and now refers to me simply as “Truman”, a reference to that now prophetical movie starring Jim Carrey.  Yes, I embraced the idea of living publicly through social media way long before it was chic or commonplace.  When I began BrianStephens.com back in 1997 and started writing editorials on my life in the business of music, many people I knew thought it was a bit self-indulgent.  ‘A website… about you… a place where people go to read things solely about you.  Sounds like you love yourself a whole lot and think you’re pretty interesting, Bri!’ was typical of the responses I got way back then.  Flash forward more than a decade to what is now the culture of social media meccas like Twitter & Facebook and the paradigm of posting your every thought or deed in 140 characters or less. Talk about self-indulgent! ;-)

Today, we live in a culture of what I like to call “Parallel Me-ism”. Put another way, we live and interact inside a constant cyber dialog of “I want to tell you about me and share what I want you to know about me. Next, you should do the same thing and then I’ll tell you what I think about what you’re thinking or doing because what I think is pretty funny, insightful, or helpful.”  Even though we interact regularly with each other using these web-based technologies, it is from the standpoint of Self and through the lens of the collective “Me”.  When you think about it from an outsider’s prospective, sort of like being an alien who is visiting Earth for the very first time, it is all incredibly selfish and self-indulgent… not that there’s anything wrong with that.  (**Click "READ MORE" to see the entire 2600 word posting)

So, last week, I took a whole day to work on a drum track for Lance Price's new song, "Hey Margarita".  Now, when I say I took a whole day to track the song, what I really mean is my studio intern (Ron) and I took a large part of the day getting sounds and setting up to video the session.  The actual recording part of the day took less than an hour total.  This song has a strong TexMex flavor to it and I wanted to bring a slight Lo-Fi coolness to the track like A Tribe Called Quest's "I Left My Wallet In El Segundo" or Sublime's "What I Got"... only bigger.

As much as I dig my website, the video section of my site has really never really satisfied me. Well, today, we rectify that situation.  I have a ton of video content in my archives that will now begin to make its way to the website.  As for new content, I am currently finishing up a 10-minute long video on remote drum sessions.  It was originally meant as a promo video for prospective clients but I think it has given a format for doing all sorts of new in-studio informative video. So, stay tuned!

If you stop by my Thursday night gig with singer/songwriter Lance Price (and sometimes including his fiddle player Wes), you will immediately notice something different about my drum set-up.  In fact, most people’s reaction is, “Where is the drumset?!”  The gig is basically a duo (acoustic guitar and drums) that is augmented by Lance’s looping pedal [*the pedal digitally records Lance’s rhythm guitar playing and then can play it back on a continuous loop] along with some added color from Wes’ fiddle/violin.  When I decided to take on this gig, I knew I should change my approach to the drum component of the duo and try some new things.

This past year, over the Thanksgiving holiday, I was having a discussion with my Dad. Now, I don’t know how we got onto the topic, but as if from nowhere, my Dad said emphatically, “You know, I really thought you’d be bigger than you are by now.” Understand for a moment just how important my father’s opinion is.  As I was growing up, my father worked 60 - 70 hours a week to provide for his family.  He was also there to play catch with my brother and me, had time repair our bicycles, and even prepared dinner for the family when Mom had to work late.  Dad was as good to my mother as any man could ever be to one woman.  He was a very good template for the kind of Dad and husband that I wish I could be.  So, you can see how I might be nearly crushed by any statement from him like, “I really thought you’d be bigger….”

It was only within the past few years that my Dad could really even wrap his head around what all I do for a living.  In his world, you get a job doing a specific task for a particular company, with specific hours and/or specific days, for a specified amount of money, and with a foreseeable future that could planned for with little or no effort.  In his world, that is THE example of gainful employment.  But, when you look at the life I live from day to day, you’ll find almost none of those things.  It is almost the complete antithesis of those qualifiers.  The only two things I am certain of are that I will wake up each day to do something that I enjoy and that the people I work for find my skill and efforts of a high enough caliber that they pay me well for them.  Other than that, all bets are off on what any given day with hold.

Over the past 15+ years, I have worked very hard to get to the place where I currently find myself.  I get to work with some amazing people and do work that I can be very proud of in the areas of music, audio, and drumming.  Over time, the work I do has paid for a very nice commercial-grade studio facility that just happens to be located in my home.  Despite the global economic downturn we all witnessed in 2009, I experienced the best professional and financial year of my career.  That doesn’t mean that I can retire or just sit back and coast, but it does mean that all my additional networking and marketing will generally yield favorable, tangible results even in the present economy.