First, this…
…for which I am soulfully grateful at something new to hear.
I don’t have anything else to say.
Normal service resumes beneath this line.
Sharpening The Saw is a phrase I read somewhere years ago that means whatever you do in your life, don’t take it for granted that you’re great at it or will always be seen as being great at it. You should keep working at being better at it just like the days when you were Hungry Like The Wolf to prove yourself… or else some young gun with a beard/boob job*, a custom made espresso in an eco-friendly cup and an iPhone the size of my windscreen may well come and snatch it all away from you.
*Delete as applicable. Or not.
It’s a good thing to pay attention to - and here’s a good example…
My buddy John sent me a message this morning asking if I was going to see Kiss on their final tour over here - which I assume has just been announced because that was the first I ever heard of it. I thought about it and decided, no. I don’t think I will. The band that meant more to me than anything for more years than I care to remember are looking tired. Love them as I do, last year’s tour was a little like sitting at your mothers hospital bed… waiting for the inevitable. And it kinda hurts to say that.
It doesn’t need to be that way. The train of thought is “nobody buys albums anymore and nobody wants to hear new material”… but this is not true, unless your only motivation is money. And I know it’s not true because my other great love - Alice Cooper - brings it every single time. The Cooper band is not going through the motions just because the motions are there to be gone through. The Cooper band is having a good time. Alice is having a good time.
Anyway, the point is, the Kiss saw is blunt. The Alice saw is super freaking sharp. When Mr Simmons does a radio show for Radio 2, it comes across like one of those Classic Rock For Dads albums some idiot at a record company thinks is a good idea around Father’s Day. Alice’s syndicated show (Nights With Alice Cooper) however is superb. It’s fresh, exciting, funny, interesting and he plays songs I’ve never heard before… and I have heard a Lot Of Songs.
It didn’t need to be that way for Kiss… and yeah, frankly I expected more.
Damn it all to hell… it was them who trained me to expect more.
So… the saw thing. I believe the original quote runs along the lines of: ‘you must never be too busy sawing that you can’t stop and sharpen the saw’… or something like that. The best thing about sharpening the saw is that you can’t ask somebody else to do it for you. You can’t get somebody else to eat properly so you might feel up to a five hour rehearsal tomorrow… you gotta do that yourself - and so on.
You’re on your own. As most of us have found out already, when it comes to the things that are important to you, you always are.
I’m not sure where I was going with this originally - I’m sure I had something in mind but you get the gist. The most important thing to remember however is: there’s a big difference between stopping to sharpen the saw and putting the saw down.
Motivational psychobabble over. Maybe I just wrote it all for myself.