John Rockwell

The "band" is me.I'm part of a newish generation of adult musicians who have given up on the idea of "making it" and who have resigned ourselves to making acoustic music--get this--not for fame or fortune or the love of a woman--but for ourselves, because we enjoy it.That was a long sentence, but it got the point across.I have loved music since I was in preschool and I played the autoharp.I hated music when my mom tried to teach me piano. We fought. I took it out on the instrument.In sixth grade, my mom resorted to guerilla parenting and signed me up for piano lessons against my will. That may have been the greatest gift she ever gave me. My instructor, Glen Crocker, was more like Yoda or Obi Wan than a whip-driving classical player. He let me be creative, write songs, love the instrument. I played classical, but only enough to make the parents happy. Only enough to observe that pretty much the same harmonic patterns exist in all Western music, no matter where you look. There were a few that deviated, but I didn't really listen too much to them. Schoenberg, anyone? No thanks.I wrote sappy love songs well into college, and even a bit after college. Today, those songs do not resonate with me, probably because I've found true love and I'm not looking for dates anymore.After college, I almost gave up on music. It all sounded the same to me. A lot of pop music still does. Same forumulas and production qualities. Boring, boring, boring. I have no angst, no desire woo women (wooing's done), so again, it doesn't resonate with me.Then I met Terry Boyles. We were beer-brewing buddies (another hobby). He convinced me that singing songs was really about communication with others. Singing a message. Folk music. That gave me some new avenues.In 2004, I bought a ukulele at the urging of a colleage, Mr. Jeff Odien. Now that is a real instrument. I dropped the guitar for almost a year, and when I came back to it, it was fresh to me. The ukulele made me hear, even more, the essence of songs.Now I strive to write entertaining, socially and politically enriched acoustic folk music.