[Traditional_Ale]

I guess I'm lucky in that my debt-load isn't huge so I can work a day job and still have the gear to go do gigs as much as I do. It gets harder as you get older. I notice that when I was 20 I could party at gigs very very hard and still perform well and get up the next day. Now at 26 I can't party hard, especially if I have to play sax on top of run the gear and tear down at the end of the night. I find weddings don't suck as much because they pay a lot more and you get respected well. Never thought this way five years ago...wedding were for washed-up losers!!!

I went to audio school, and now I'm happy living the starving musician life. I'm lucky to bring home 2500 in a month unless I manage to have solid gigs every weekend, which after doing it for a long time now gets to suck and be old after a while. But gear is gear and it doesn't pay for itself.

So I'll be out of debt in a couple more years and probably be able to secure even another grant (first loan was $30,000, and I only had to pay back $5,000) and go for a music education degree. Be a band teacher. I don't mind going back at 28/29 to be done at 34-35. By then I think my body will have been destroyed from too much dirty blues and rock n roll, and I'll need a real job.

Do whatever the hell makes you happy, man. You couldn't pay me any money that might get me away from being able to eat/sleep/breathe music.