Why I sing very little....

Once upon a time, I had several house gigs here in Toronto. At some of these gigs, I had the luxury of singing a few tunes that I'd always wanted to do, but hadn't had the opportunity to (yes, some of them were Coldplay songs). I wasn't awful, and I was getting better at it. Then, at the very moment it became apparent that the crowd was actually enjoying it, a strange thing started happening. All of the singers who were fronting these bands that I was playing in, started restricting the songs I was "allowed" to sing. The singers in question were predominately female, some good, some not so much. It wasn't like we were going to "lose the gig", these were open mic jams and such experimentation was apparently allowed at such events, or so I thought....


Now, I'm still withered by a comment a relative made about my "dancing" that I'd done on a drunken night, many MANY years ago, so obviously, I'm more than a bit fragile about some things, lol....hey, I never said I was or ever wanted to be a dancer, quite frankly, I've always shunned any attempt to "drag me onto the floor to boogie". I just don't express myself that way. But I actually like to sing. I did anyway. So when I was becoming more and more censored(one bandleader actually put her HAND TO MY MOUTH when she decided that I wasn't to sing a backup part at that point during the performance, another, who was a bartender, would actually shout across the crowded bar:"NO COLDPLAY!", and another, a male "friend" of mine, said that a Joe Jackson song I sang one night made him shake with rage, and asked me never to do it again)....my confidence took a nosedive.....and resentment followed...and I started hiding the fact that I could sing a bit, "forgetting" to take a mic stand to gigs, saying I didn't know any songs to sing(I'm not versed in the "Brown Eyed Girl/Mustang Sally/Sweet Caroline" school of useless audience pandering, I will gladly play these songs with a band, always to the best of my ability, just don't ask me to sing them....) and just HOPING someone else would sing the whole night.


Now my brother, he can sing, in his raspy-what's-left-of-his-voice style about a billion different songs, and I celebrate that. So, when I do gigs with him, he NEVER says " Hey, don't sing", as a matter of fact, he would encourage me to do songs I love to do....then, I would see one of the aforementioned "vocal censors" appear out of nowhere in the room, seemingly there(in my mind at least) to make sure I wasn't about to horrify them with another melodic offering, and COMPLETELY withdraw, sing badly...and die inside. Man up you say? Don't pay attention to them you say? Fuck you...you have NO IDEA how this made me feel...


Now, I understand that at times, vocal monitoring situations aren't always the best, and, quite frankly, the jury is still out to whether it was me or not singing sharp or flat out of the 3 or 4 vocalists that may have been singing at that point....no tape was made, and the moment is the moment, hard to go back and do it better when you're live. But there were clear cases to me that it was "the other guy" that may have been out....just like when a bass drum or floor tom is ringing into a mic, feeding into a system, everyone assumes it HAS to be the bass player(hell has a special place for these people).

So, fuck it, until I can "man up about it", I now assume that I can't sing, shouldn't sing, and will never sing on your gigs, should they ever happen again....happy?


p.s.: I actually cannot find my CURRENT mic stand, so, I'm not trying to "bailout" of bringing one, lol