You’re grooving to the rockin’ band at your local bar. The band’s hot and laying down a great set. The lead singer comes up to the mic and says “Hey! We’re so & so. We’re going to take a quick break. Be right back. Don’t go anywhere.” You clap. And, then you watch the band disappear. I mean, they walk right out of the club. What the heck do bands do on their breaks? Calculus?
I graduated high school and had a couple of thoughts. One was that I loved music. Another was that I’d go to college. But, I watched my big brother go to college, continue playing in the band, and then decide he’d leave college to play in the band. So, my third thought was “I’m going to get this music thing out of my system before I go to college.” These days, I tell folks that I took a year off after high school to become a rock star. When that didn’t work out, I went to college.
Fast forward a year after a band breakup, unsuccessful attempts at landing a day job, and “Hey! Maybe it’s time for college.” I enrolled at a local Penn State campus. At the same time, Lynda, my girlfriend, was singing in a lounge band that needed a guitar player. This wannabee rock star was now starting college and playing in a six night a week lounge band in a ruffled shirt complete with vest.
Thankfully, the lounge band didn’t last long, and my friend Carl dialed me up and asked if I’d like to join his band. “Hell Yes!” I was rockin’ the Top 40 scene in a band called Radiance hitting the local clubs in Delaware County, Northeast Philly, South Jersey, and the Jersey shore. I rocked and rolled at night, got home, slept, got up, headed to school, slept in my car in the parking lot between classes, went back to class, went home, studied, headed out for the gig, and repeated.
I was doing well with studies, still rockin’, and transferred to Drexel University. My schooling may have started the wheels turning for the rest of the band. Carl enrolled at Temple for engineering. Bob, our leader took the itch to further his psychology education. Dave, our bassist, said “What the heck?” and enrolled at Temple for music. Linda, our singer (and not my Lynda), enrolled at community college. I’d like to think that I was the spark, but based on all of my bandmates’ successes; it was where they were headed.
So, back to the club. Carl always had a nice van with club seating in the back. We would finish up a set and do the “Hey! We’re Radiance. We’ll be right back!” and out the door we went. I have to believe folks in the clubs figured “There goes the band to go get high and wasted.” They were wrong! Into the van we would go, and, drum roll please, we would study. Yea. I remember one week where Carl had a term paper due. He was writing it out, Linda was typing it for him (since he had electric in the van too), and we were all just hanging studying. So much for drugs and rock and roll!
As I look back, that was a good period. People talk about their college experience. They talk about the partying, socializing, fraternizing, etc. I didn’t need all that since I was in a bar or night club 3-6 nights a week already. I was at school to study. I was in the bar because I loved music. It was actually a good mix.
And, maybe all of that calculus and the rest of the stuff we were studying was a good investment. While researching for this blog, I saw multiple post-graduate degrees across my bandmates. And, they’re successful. Linda is a Marine Transportation Specialist and retired Naval Reservist. Dave is a Temple music professor. Carl is now running his own audio monitoring/network company at www.Aviom.com. I’m in the engineering telecommunications world. Bob was really the only one that decided schooling was nice, but it wasn’t heading him towards a day job. He enjoyed a long career as a DJ before unfortunately passing away a few years back. Here’s to you Bob!
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