G.A.S.

Music stores are like candy stores to me. Not the big-box music stores but the little ones that have charm, great personal service and all the little boutique items that big-boxes would never carry. I have a favorite store in Nashville, right down from Baptist Hospital, across from Exit/In, called Rock Block that I love to visit. I have to bring a pocket full of parking meter quarters if I am gonna stay a while.

Musicians are a funny breed. Guitar players especially have a disease called G.A.S.-- gear acquisition syndrome. We are always on the prowl for that illusive tone calling out to us from classic records, favorite players and gear that we lust for while perusing our guitar magazines. GAS is a condition that makes wives suspicious every time we take a trip to our little music store. While there, we are tempted with new, shiny boxes filled with switches and lights--all promising the journey's end in a lifetime of searching for musical gold like Cortez in his pursuit for El Dorado (minus the pillage and mass murder, of course). There will never be an end to our gear lust.

This quest for great guitar tone started with my first electric guitar and amp. Once the volume was dimed and that first wind-mill strum was cranked on that open-voiced G chord, I was hooked. Power, creativity, dreams and girls were now possible. The once invisible, mild little Harvill boy now had a promising future (...well that's what I fantasized, anyway).

As I started down that path as a musician many of my friends joined me. We all wanted to be like the Beatles. As we moved into Jr. High and beyond, friends traded the music bug for baseball or something else. It's interesting that as I made my choice to continue playing and pursuing music as a profession, I eventually found myself alone in the endeavor. Playing music for a living is expensive and almost never pays off like the dream promised in the beginning. In fact, the original fantasy of power and girls is supplanted with a real passion for the instrument and the incredible satisfaction that performing, writing and singing brings. It was never for the money, really--because there is so little money to be had (ask your guitar-virtuoso waiter next time while visiting a Nashville TGI Fridays!).

I love living in Nashville where so many of us with the dogged-determination to make a living in music reside. You can spot us a mile a way by our hair style; our car's rear bumper making sparks in the road from too much equipment piled up in the back seat; or just the silly smile on our face from GAS, headed to Rock Block.