The Talent That I Did Not Inherit

You know how every family has that black sheep family member that just doesn’t quite fit in? In my immediate family, that’s me. My parents and my siblings are all hippies to the max – beaded earrings, cut their own hair, vegetarian/vegan, socks with sandals, honest-to-God hippies.

Then there’s me, a suburban mom working for the man in a white-collar industry, with a sarcastic sense of humor. A sense of humor that I think totally appalls my sweet father most of the time – and I keep it PG around him!

Anyway, my dad raised my younger brother, sister and me from when I was age 4 until I was 18 when he married my lovely step-mom. For as long as I can remember, my dad has always written his own music and played guitar to it. Growing up, I would go to bed in my room upstairs falling asleep to the sounds of my daddio playing his 12 string and singing. It was pretty awesome and a cherished memory.

My dad plays lead guitar and a little bass as well as writes all original music. My step-mom plays flute, keyboard, and percussion with focus on the mridanga (a clay two-ended drum). They usually have a regular bassist and a drum kit player but the members have changed over the years and they generally play acoustic for gigs. The style is alternative folk rock.

My brother played lead electric guitar on their first recorded album and still jams with them quite a bit. He can pretty much play whatever instrument he picks up and all through high school he played a mean alto saxophone. He was the guy you called when you needed taps played at a funeral. He’s a year younger than I am and was a heck of a lot better than I was on the sax, I ended up switching to baritone saxophone from alto as I was much better than the only other player - a freshman who was cringy even to my tone-deaf ears. My fragile, adolescent ego couldn’t handle the competition.

Then we have my little sister, eight years my junior, who is an excellent singer, writer of poetry and another of those lucky ones that can literally play whatever instrument she wants to; drums, guitar, piano, etc.

Me? I’m tone-deaf to the max. I faked my way through high school band at 2nd chair on the alto sax. I’m not kidding. I was in jazz band and a trio of us went to state competition my senior year and we kicked ass! What I mean to say is that, I literally pretended to play while the other two members laid out some soul. How the judges missed that, I have no idea. I love to car dance and sing, sing in the shower, sing while I putter around the house and I usually have to stop and just laugh at myself at some point. I’ll sing along at every concert I go to and with every live band in a bar but it’s not good. It’s so bad. I guess it’s a good thing I lean towards rock and heavier alternative music so it maybe drowns out my garbling. I refuse to karaoke but if I am drunk enough, I will serenade you as I rap every single word to "Shoop" by Salt-N-Peppa.

Right now, my dad is in the final stages of mixing his third album. If you are into some laid-back folk rock and enjoy Neil Young, George Harrison or REM, you might enjoy The Primatives! Their first album is called the Lovers of Kali Yuga and the second is Primative Spirit; both albums and samples of most of their songs can be found below. “Never Again” and “The Ballad of One Time” are my favorite tracks.

Both albums get equal play on many of my road trips.

https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/theprimatives
https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/theprimatives2

Love,

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