Storage Solutions
I woke up today and Google was practically shouting at me from my phone screen. Something about.. I had used up too much space and I wouldn’t be able to receive emails after a certain date.
I had options though. I could either purchase some storage from Google or “clean up space”. I chose to clean up space as it seemed like a better option from a financial standpoint.
This led me to looking at “large attachments”. There were a bunch of old videos in this section that dated back to 2017.
I had been hoping to see something from last year when I wrote FTE so I could hear how bad it must’ve sounded. It was almost a year ago when I first wrote that song, and my vocal ability has come a long way in that time. It is me vs. me, after all.
There wasn’t really much there of me or my music because I had stopped music in 2015 and didn’t resume until mid-2023. I always wish I had some of the stuff from the 2013-2014 years, but it doesn’t go back that far.
But what I found was even better. I found a video my old friend, Jon Tierney, belting out one of his classics, Uncle Sam, on stage at an intimate venue.
If you didn’t know him, Big Jon was an exceptional songwriter with a powerful voice. The kind of guy that brings silence to the room the moment he starts to play. Once he started singing though, that’s when he really had you.
Sadly, Jon passed away a few years ago. Today I was reminded of how fortunate I was to know him. I was even lucky enough to get to spend time alone with him a few times. Just us.
I must’ve done something good during a performance because he asked me to hang out with him and play music at his apartment. He saw some potential in my songwriting and he wanted to help me get better. We had gotten together a few other times, years later, as we did share some other common interests, but that was the only time we ever had the guitars out.
Jon played and jammed with a million guys, but that was a moment for me. I remember being excited by the prospect of being mentored by a songwriter of that caliber.
Jon was a big dude, but he always had this way of making everyone else feel big. There were plenty of talented musicians around that were great at making other people feel small. And then there was Jon, the best of the best, and he gave back all of that love and then some. He was great to be around.
I never really did get to play anything with him, outside of that one day, but I studied the way he played and I’’d like to think that I took some things from him stylistically.
The video of him that I found while trying to clean out my phone, turned out to be just 15 seconds long. That left me wanting more. So, with the history of recorded music at my fingertips, I headed on over to stream some of his music. Even now, all these years later, I still can’t help but be inspired any time that I hear that voice and that guitar. It still makes me stop what I am doing and listen. Most of all, it makes me want to play more. I’d give anything to have just one more opportunity to play with him, maybe write a song together, it would be epic.
I’d like to think that he’d be proud of what I’m doing and what I’m trying to build. I think he’d probably just say, “dude, it’s about fuckin time”.
So, I guess you could say that looking for storage solutions led me down the rabbit hole of listening to Big Jon all day, and left me more inspired than ever to write songs.
Music is powerful
DR
