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To sink or swim

I've played in many bands in my life. In only one of them I knew going into the final show that it was the final show. That band was the Pull Tabs as of last Friday night.

The great thing was, the show wasn't an awkward, painful, or estranged sort of matter. The band got together as a fun outlet for playing music and I'm happy to say it ended that way too. And I'm really happy to say that the door is still open for Mike and I to play with Kyle again. When that will be, I don't know, but I'm glad the door is still open.

Many years ago, I distinctly remember the first time I felt a certain sinking feeling about a band situation not working out. I was at a large pro audio place with my father as he looked at buying some gear for his business. There was a lot of time to wander around, and there was plenty of space to wander about. I kept thinking about this "band" I had going where three guys I knew came over to my house with guitars and we jammed.

At no point in this band did we ever write songs. We'd play on riffs one of three guys had and never really finish any of them. Eventually, one of the guys stopped showing up. A little while later, the other two stopped showing up as well.

I wasn't sure where this band situation was going since I wanted to write songs and they wanted to merely jam. Not knowing where this was going made me feel uneasy.

Luckily, a year later, I ended up joining a band that actually wrote songs and wanted to play shows. Thanks to a referral by one of the guys I had jammed with in the prior year, I got to do what I always wanted to do. I proverbially hung in there and never stopped playing even when other guys stopped.

There were other times in college when the band I was in seemed to be off the rails. Shows were big trainwrecks, and communication was very strained. I wondered where this was going. Either I was fired from the band or the band stopped practicing/playing shows and that was the end of that.

Once again, that feeling came back, and then I moved on.

The exciting thing about this temporary break is how Mike and I have some ideas about what to do next. Knowing that, the sinking feeling isn't around.

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