I’m just back from the Metal Masters Tour with Judas Priest, Heaven & Hell (Black Sabbath with Dio), Motorhead and Testament for the entire month of August, followed by a van tour with AST which I’m on now. There are so many new stories to tell but the travel and performances have made it nearly impossible to capture everything at the moment. So for now, I’m leaving you with little anecdote from the past which I wrote a few weeks back. This blog came about when I recounted the story at dinner to both parents (with pangs of embarrassment from my mom, who totally gets it now).Enjoy!
1983. I’m fourteen years old, standing with my mother in a large crowd. We’re at a political rally in our hometown of Berkeley. It’s for the presidential nominee Gary Hart, who hasn’t shown up yet. I look at my watch. He was supposed to arrive at 11am. Now it’s after 12 and we’ve been here almost two hours. I have very limited time because at 1pm, I’m supposed to have a guitar lesson, my first with a new teacher, Joe Satriani. I explain this to my mother. She tells me to reschedule the lesson.
” I can’t” I say.
“Why not?”
“Because it took months to get scheduled for this lesson. He’s one of the best in the Bay Area, and has a long waiting list. If I cancel at the last minute he may not want to teach me.”
“Alex, I really want you to see this man speak. He may be the next president. This is a very important thing to experience.”
“I’ve been experiencing it for two hours and this jerk isn’t even here. I’m getting on the bus and going to my lesson.”
“Just wait. He’s going to show up. This will be a valuable experience” I can’t understand why she’s imposing this on me. It’s as if she thinks a passion for politics will suddenly take over my passion for music. She doesn’t know how wrong she is. She will soon, though. The longer we stand here, the more resentful I am of her and this annoying politician who is threatening my guitar lesson.
I wait ten more minutes, then start walking away from the crowd and towards the bus stop. My mother follows behind me “Alex please. Make your lesson another time. This is important.”
“No! This is important!” I said walking off in one of my first acts of parental defiance. I’d disagreed with a lot of rules and decisions on my behalf from both parents, but this was one of the first days I knew I was right.
When I arrived for my lesson with Joe, I was about ten minutes late. I explained what had happened. He told me that since it’s the first day, it’s ok, but it can’t happen again.
“It won’t” I assured him.
I studied with Joe for the next two years. Although unknown outside of Berkeley at that time, he would soon be gracing covers of music magazines worldwide and being one of his former students would turn out to be a valuable credential- like the private guitar lesson equivalent of the Juliard school of music. To this day, international Guitar magazines and. Daily newspapers ask about my experience as one of his former pupils a group that includes guys like 8 string jazz wiz Charlie Hunter rockers Kirk Hammet, Steve Vai, Larry La Londe and pop guitarists from bands like Third Eye Blind, Smashmouth and Counting Crows.
Gary Hart meanwhile, turned out to be a political has been, someone whose career ended before it began. He eventually showed up to that rally over two hours late. A few months later a photo circulated of him aboard a boat with an attractive woman on his lap (not his wife). The name of the boat was ‘Monkey Business.’
That day I learned the value of being somewhere on time, something I admittedly had to work on at other times in my life. More importantly, I learned about making my own decisions and following my own instincts no matter what anyone else says is in my ‘best interests.’
