The China Question

A few weeks ago I was offered a gig in China with a friend of mine who sings and plays piano. The gig is in a Four Seasons near Hong Kong, the pay is decent with the perk being that all meals, internet, dry cleaning, etc. are covered. It would be six nights a week, three hours a night playing at the hotel bar. The gig itself would be pretty sweet. But there's a catch, it is for four months from May through August.

I agonized over the decision. It would be really great for us to bank all of that money (times are lean for everyone these days and musicians are no exception, why not make some dough in another country?) and the music would be a lot of fun. Of course the major drawback would have been missing my family but Carrie and Milo could go to Indiana for nice long visit and we could Skype, I would also be missing some Tyrell gigs but getting them covered shouldn't be a problem. I didn't know what to do. I kept thinking "I will have serious regrets whichever decision I make." I'm very lucky to be able to play music full-time but decisions like this are what make the career difficult. I decided that I was approaching it with the wrong mindset and instead told myself "whichever decision I make will be the right one." I decided to take the gig.

Then things changed. The gig was moved up and no longer started in May but started in mid-March. This would mean that Carrie and Milo could not go back to Indy as she would be working the entire time and I would be missing even more work with Tyrell. It was a sign. I told my friend I could not do the gig. She really wanted me to do it and tried to work around my schedule asking the agency putting the whole thing together if I could do part of the gig, only two of the months, but it didn't work out.

This decision made last week quite a roller-coaster but it all worked out for the best in the end. There will be another opportunity like this in the future that will work better for us. Until then, I'll just keep doing the L.A. hustle.