Eight years ago I sold my soul for a measly $100 a gig playing with a discombobulate excuse for a jam band called Wooden Satellite. The name itself was a god dam oxymoron. I mean if you built a satellite out of wood it is surely going to burn up in the atmosphere. That is what for the most part happened in our case.
The group was myself on the saxophones, a guitarist, drummer and bassist. Practices were spent with a three way drunken fight among the three while I blew Coltrane on my horn. The fights always ended with a good old fashion bong rip session. It did not take long before I stopped going to practices.
The gigs were a joke always at dive bars, but they had a following and I always got paid. Finally it all ended because we lost a very lucrative running gig at a local bar. The three idiots did not want to pay their bar tab. I felt like I was in the movie Blues Brothers sans Aykroyd and Belushi and the talented players. Lets loose a $400 a week gig over a $100 bar tab real fucking smart fellas. Rip another hit.
It was at that moment that I vowed never to pick up my saxophone in pursuit of pleasing the ears of others, who did not deserve to hear what I had to offer. Fast foward eight years later. You can only begin to imagine the gigantic internal conflict I was faced with when asked by my friend Ken to get up on stage with his solo project and blow.
I had been playing my horns regularly again and thought why not take a risk? I spend more time then not preaching to everyone here to go out and lay it all on the line. Since I hate hypocrisy I made the decision to put myself out there vulnerable for all to see.
What the fuck am I talking about you ask. Well as most of you know by now I have been working with a small nonprofit theatre company here in town called Proximity. Last night we had a fundraiser at this quaint music venue here in downtown Santa Barbara called Soho. Initially I figured I would just go for support but then found myself up on stage with three saxes around me just like old times.
The music as Ken put it was “Electro-Funk-Pop” a very unlikely combination, but when all was said and done it came out awesome. I had a few very close friends show up to the gig and the room was plenty packed with all sorts of cool cats out to support a good cause. I showed up and did my usual pre performance routine. I put myself in a corner away from everyone where I could get in the zone and be alone with my thoughts. Focus on the task at hand so to speak.
Normally I would have had a drink or two to set my mind at east, but I promised Ken no drinking before the show. Then it was time to take the stage and my mind was a complete blank. I knew what needed to be done and I was completely focused like the pinball wizard. I was just a side man, but the thing about my playing is once I get going I never seem to be able to stay in that role
I looked out at the audience just as we were about to get started and I remembered how much I loved looking out from the stage into the lights, just barely being able recognize faces. That moment of anticipation right before that first note is blown. I recognized a new person in my life whom is steadily becoming an important character in Lisanti Land. I was glad she came and could share that moment with me (look for more on this mystery woman soon, Im not quite ready to expose her to you folks yet).
The first two songs kept things mellow for me, a few easy riffs, some long tones and melodic lines. The next few began giving me some room to blow. By the end it was guns a blazing I had fully remembered why I got into music in the first place. The crowd was on their feet. I did my usual non-committal eye contact, half bow, turn of the shoulder thing that I always used to do on stage. Got my horns and stepped off.
The whole ordeal was eight years in the making and it went down in a mater of 35 minutes. In that short time I was reinvigorated. Any doubts I had about my life after all the bullshit I had to cut through the last few months were gone. I remembered exactly who I was and why I exist. I define who Chris Lisanti is and no one else.
As I got off stage everyone was hugging each other and celebrating. Turns out while we were performing my theatre company reached our goal of $20,000, the reason the event was happening in the first place. The gnarly thing was we had only raised a little over $13,000 before going on and there was only about 16 hours left. If we did not make the full quota we would have gotten nothing at all. Big things are about to happen and just when I thought the golden age of Lisanti Land had passed we go and enter an even stronger age. Cheers everyone.
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