Professionalism

Mike’s
Pith & Wind cont.
..but it couldn’t make up for the subsequent psychological scarring – it was
an utterly humiliating night.
To give you an example: there was a farcical minute or two when this guy tried
to engage me in a meaningful conversation, blissfully unaware that I was actually
playing at the time!
So, maybe it’s time for a couple of blokes, who have been in the rock
music biz for forty years and are on the cusp of their sixtieth year on the
planet, to re-evaluate the meaning of ‘professionalism’. Should we perhaps adopt
the rather extreme position of Bob Dylan, in whose presence the very word cannot
be uttered? Having suffered one and a half indifferent Dylan performances and
having read and heard about some of his other notorious efforts, I would hazard
that the audience deserves at least equal first consideration with the artist.

Should the employer be the arbiter of how a performance should be presented?
Our most recent experience would suggest not, and historically it’s a fact that
agents and promoters are not the best judges of how an artist should be presented.

The kind of wisdom required in these situations that might be described as professionalism,
can only be acquired through experience, and we’ve got a ton and a half
of that. So, professionalism in our case might be defined as the application
of all that experience we’ve accrued over forty years or so, with a dash of
resoluteness mixed with sensitivity.
Sound meters are definitely out, that’s all I can say for absolute
certain.