ACED Magazine

Music Is Communication. As a musician, ultimately what you are striving for is that communal feeling with your audience. You want them to hear you, feel you, see you, and yeah Tommy, touch you. And vice versa. In today's faster-than-the-speed-of-DSL world, this can happen literally in an instant, which is exciting. However, in making musicians more accessible than ever, technology has also left us more vulnerable.

For example. How was somebody gonna get a letter or note of any kind to Robert Plant back in '76? Tuck it in the bell bottoms of a willing underage groupie? Pulley it 14 flights up the TV cord to the balcony of his room at the Riot House? In ‘08, there are 20 ways that make it easy for anyone to get their message across, what with e-mail, IM, text, YouTube, and everyone having access to some kind of camera, phone, video, etc.

Now don't confuse this month's column for a 900-word My Chemical Romance-like rant. Ya see, it's not just teenagers scaring the living s*&t out of people. And the thing about it is, those doing the scaring aren't creeps. Well . . . maybe they are, but they just don't come off that way. They don't stare too hard. Shake your hand too long. Generally give you the feeling that underneath that hoodie might be 40 sticks of dynamite and a very short fuse. Nope. They're just like you and me, well maybe not like me, cause sometimes I do stare too long, but that's another column entirely.

Staying on point, this kind of abnormal (now there's a good group therapy word for ya) behavior has been going on forever. Webster's defines a "base or servilely attentive flatterer and self-seeker" as a sycophant. What about ‘sycofans'? I'm sure that even the o'est of the O.G.'s, Mozart and guys like that, had to deal with their share of these types...showing up at their castle unannounced...sending them way-crossing-the-line dirty or violent portraits, you know, that kind of thing.

I'll go out on a limb and say that every important, to shall we say, less important, entertainer of the past 50 years has, at some point, had their own disturbing experience. Stick your neck out far enough at the breakfast table, and eventually someone's gonna try and egg ya. Personally, I like mine scrambled, with maybe a little salt and pepper.

Bottom line, what people do on their own time is their business, right? That is until you ARE their business, or should I say, they're up in YOUR business. Now I mean that both figuratively and literally 'cause when someone begins to trespass on your freedom, it's a headache. When it's your freedom of expression, the pain comes from a much lower place. When the intrusion goes farther than that, it's dangerous.

The tragic shooting of guitarist ‘Dimebag' Darrell Abbott while playing at an Ohio music venue in 2004 was a heartbreaking wake-up call to musicians everywhere. What happened to Dimebag could have easily happened at any point in rock and roll history. The Beatles at Shea. Elvis in Vegas. U2 on the rooftop. You put yourself out there in some way, and the sad reality is, you're a target. A lightning rod. And in this game of celeb-Marco Polo, lightning only has to strike once.

Now yours truly here has also been the unfortunate recipient of a form of harassment, albeit on a very small level. Actually, it was on a very eerie level. Believe me, I'm not one to cry wolf, so when I say harassment, I mean the whole nine, and then the back nine. Here's the rough sketch. I'll let you paint the rest of the picture.

Now taking a cue from both the Kiss Army and Frank, Dean, and Sammy, my band Red Carpet Rats has its own world-wide fan organization called The Rats Pack whereby members get all kinds of interesting RCR goodies and surprises with membership. It's the kind of thing that bands do to promote a feeling of unity. However, on this one occasion, the ‘unity' line was crossed by one particular unsavory character and had to be, uh . . . shall we say, redrawn.

I'm here to tell ya that you never really know how you're gonna act or react until you're faced with the prospect that someone out there has a problem with you. Or just has a problem and has decided to take it out on you. Makes you ask yourself questions. The kind that you never saw coming while practicing all your cool Flea or Gwen Stefani moves in the mirror growing up.

Serious questions, like, "Man, do I really want to live like this?"; "Is it gonna get easier to deal with?"; "What if it gets worse?" And not to get all Tenacious D on ya, but it's in searching for those answers that I began to realize just how much, both with others and myself, music truly is communication...

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mack   |2008-01-28 18:08:58 cool article like the angle keep it up Reply 0   0

Ambrosia   |2008-01-25 18:57:52 It's not just rock stars, any girl with an ex gets stalked all the time, especially strippers or maybe its just a southern thing Reply 0   0

Martine   |2008-01-24 20:52:32 Alright Uni, Who's been stalking you? Reply 0   0

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