Follow your heart while chasing your dreams`
How Almost Famous changed the course of my life forever
Recently, the cast and crew of the film Almost Famous got together and recorded a podcast for their 20-anniversary reunion. My friend Angela posted about it and I mentioned that it had made a massive impact on my life. She said that I should think about sharing the story on this show. This week’s solo episode is that story. I talk about my early days as a DJ and the impact music has had on my life, the dark moment that obliterated my naivety and showed me that not everyone will support you, no matter how well-intentioned you are, and how a movie about a band on the rise and headed for implosion could change the course of my life forever.
LINKS
20th Anniversary reunion for Almost Famous
Shawn King’s podcast interview
TRANSCRIPT
[0:00] Music.
[0:08] Welcome to artful, a community committed to championing artists and creative misfits from all walks of life.
This show gives you an insiders look into the rial scrapping lives of artists creating with purpose,
including interviews with beatboxers, graffiti writers, DJs, chefs, photographers, designers, illustrators, filmmakers, and music artists from around the globe, as well as insights and inspiration from yours truly.
I'm Gabriel if an award-winning artist, coach, entrepreneur and fellow misfit. All right, let's do this.
[0:40] Music.
[0:51] My friend dying, Gibbs says that I'm a good storyteller, So I thought for this week's episode, I'd share an inspiring story that was one of the most pivotal points in my life.
You may or may not have heard of the film. Almost famous.
He came out in 2000 and was directed by Cameron Grow.
It's about a 15-year-old boy named William Miller, who gets to go with a band called Stillwater on their tour so he can write an article about them for Rolling Stone magazine.
It's a great coming of age story where William learns about himself in the power of music and relationships along the way, a bit of film trivia.
This is actually ah semi-autobiographical story about Cameron Crowe. He was actually a teenager writer for Rolling Stone back in the day.
As many of you know, from listening to this show, I love music and have had a deep connection to it since I was quite young.
[1:45] The early days in my elementary school where my teacher, Mrs. Haines, taught us about classical music and all the different instruments I'll never forget.
The first time I heard the danse macabre and watched that animated cartoon with skeletons dancing and the cats coming out of their skin. And it wasn't that creepy. By the way.
I remember playing air drums to the police in my living room while I listened on my dad's stereo with that big dial, which I learned was later called a potentiometer.
Starting my Journey is a drummer in middle school, which would take me to marching band competitions all over the region, concert band, orchestra gigs, and even the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade in front of 80 million people.
My senior year, when I was quad captain, my time in colleges of percussionists in a rock band called Well to being a radio deejay at the college radio station for four years and running a successful Saturday night spot with my roommate Chris, as well as several guest DJs from the region.
[2:50] I worked hard on my craft and earned multiple residencies as a young DJ coming up in the scene in a small college town in Tennessee.
My crew and I were playing in promoting shows all over Knoxville at the time, and we're slowly building a name for ourselves, especially after our first couple of raves in a cave, as they recalled.
[3:12] And there was a small group of regulars that came to our nights that quickly became very close.
Friends still are close friends, and my friend Teresa and a couple more friends finally became known as our trance dancers because they loved our ethereal, pad filled trance music.
That, for me, was all about spreading hope and inspiration to the inclusive community of misfits that I had finally found a home with and called my family.
In those days, the mantra is what we called player peace, love, unity, and respect.
That was the mantra of the rave scene and the club kids that followed after and still runs deep in the counterculture all these years later,
As a drummer, I connected with the beats and the rhythms and the ethereal sounds that, like classical and ambient music, have helped me with focusing is I have attention issues.
[4:09] I started to see the benefit of listening to this music that most people thought was a fad at the time.
It helped me to connect with others and provide a singular thread for my brain to latch onto when working on art projects or writing a paper philosophizing about why we're here on this planet,
with all the things in the universe there, things of the light.
There can also be things of the dark as we've seen, especially over the last couple months,
because we had offered up our home to support other DJs, learning and growing their skills, and had open mic type nights toe let them play for a crowd.
This also allowed the potential for riffraff to come into our lives and into our home.
One night I came back from the art building to find the turntables that I begged my mom for months and months and months so that I could have decent equipment to learn on, as well as my fellow deejay friends.
[5:09] Well, those tables and hundreds of records had been stolen from us.
That was one of the times in my life where I felt like I lost a bit of my soul.
[5:22] As soon as I walked into the room, flipped on the lights, I realized what had happened.
I broke down right then right there. I dropped on our couch, falling in tears.
I just couldn't believe someone would do this to us.
How could someone still from us when we were so openly sharing our equipment? You know, ourselves, our home.
[5:51] I know it was naive, but at the time I knew I had found my people and wanted to serve them because they were family.
And we shared a love for music and dance and community of connected with people in all kinds of groups.
Since I was young but felt like I was finally at home like I found this group of misfits and the thing that connected us was this music.
[6:16] After that happened, I didn't know what to do and was completely lost.
I felt betrayed, and I was sad and angry and most of all hurt.
I had worked at music stores for a while at this point and wanted to open my own shop someday.
[6:34] After all this happened and I finally got over feeling violated and taken advantage of, I decided to lean into my support of the community.
But in a different way, I knew that our area really needed to be bringing in more dance records because it was really starting to take off in the States.
We didn't have many shops in that area, and the ones that we had didn't carry much more than the big artists on labels like Astral Works or Network and other major labels that had electronic artists on it.
Needless to say, the pickings were thin, so I went to a local mom and pop shop called Lawson, Found Records.
They're still owned by Mike and Maria Armstrong, who took me in, gave me the opportunity to share my love for this genre and the community.
Within three months of bringing dance music to their store, I increase their profits 300% so they were pretty ecstatic about what I was able to do for their store and,
you know, to honor what I had proposed to them when I first came to them.
I'm still very proud of the little bit I was able to accomplish in that time in my life and for what I was able to give back to the community while there got to give a shout out to Mike and Maria.
You guys, you guys rock and I miss you so much and I hope you're doing well.
[8:01] Now you might be asking Where does almost famous fit into all of this?
Well, it's in my top 10 favorite films for many reasons, mostly because it changed the course of my life forever.
I went to see this movie at the theaters with my dear friend Teresa. I mentioned earlier the night we went to watch it.
It was an important night for me because I was being groomed by the owners of one of my primary residencies in town to act as their head talent with more promotion and marketing and all that good stuff.
They were offering the opportunity that I thought I had been dreaming of.
[8:39] We were doing really well at the record store, and I was slowly beginning to heal my wounds from the burglary with the help of my close friends.
But I felt like something was missing. I wanted more and knew that this was not the place for me to continue on my path.
My really and I had done a month-long road trip to the four corner states in the west the summer before, and I felt like I was being called to the West.
I really connected with the vibe, the people, the music scene, the culture and the overall environment.
So I chose to go with Theresa to see a movie about a band on their way to stardom and begin to split apart and implode,
until they got right to the tipping point and chose each other and the unique bond they had through music.
[9:33] We walked out of the theater and I declined the path the club owners offered me and shared that we decided to move out west to Colorado, which is where I met.
My wife was a member of two national touring bands with albums on iTunes and Spotify and CDs and record stores,
won an award for the experimental film are banned produced that accompanied the album I Got to Play at Red Rocks Amphitheater twice, DJing at world-class clubs like Beta Nightclub, the Church and Bar Standard was music buyer at Arts, Final Attic and Bolder and Twist and Shout Records in Denver, a world-renowned record store.
[10:15] Where I got to me. Artists like Afrika Bambaataa, LTJ Bukem, Jack Johnson, The Fray, and DeVotchka. Who?
The drummer from the vodka Shaun King is the very first episode of this show.
He and I met many, many years ago, became friends and have continued to grow that friendship over several years now.
And it was also the city where I met some of my best, his friends in my life.
And I said bestest. So, like I said, almost famous has had an impact on me.
All of this to say, Follow your heart. Kids, listen to your intuition.
Go play an experiment. Find your community. Keep creating, keep practicing.
Keep sharing your craft. Know that there are people out there that may not have your best interests at heart. But keep going anyway.
Keep sharing your love and light with the world.
I'm out here to support you along with the rest of the artful community.
This is one story of mine that I hope can inspire you to take that leap and invest in yourself and your dreams.
I've been reminiscing a lot lately, and this felt like a story that might speak to you and where you are right now. Whether you know much about the dance culture, electronic music or not, I hope that maybe this could apply to you regardless of that.
[11:45] I am curious, though. Do you have a movie that impacted your life too?
I'd love to hear about it. Reach out. Let me know. I'd love to share some more inspiring stories like this on the show.
I mean, that's why I'm here for you.
So keep being artful. I love you.
[12:03] Music.
[12:10] Well, that's it for this episode, whether this is your first time listening or you're already a fan.
Thanks for being here. I hope you enjoy the show. All links and show notes for this episode can be found at the artful dot co slash podcast.
If you haven't yet, please subscribe to the show and leave it rating a review on iTunes. Spotify. Wherever you listen about guests.
If you like what you hear and want to be a guest or know someone that's a good fit, go to the artful dot co slash guest.
And if you want to leave me a note about an idea or topic for the show, go to the artful dot co slash speak pipe.
Thanks again for listening until next time. Keep being are full.
[12:50] Music.
