Over the next few months, you’ll see EricHansen.tv going through some (hopefully) exciting design changes. Expect to see an increase in content covering a much broader range than before. The main goal of the site is Production Education, but it will also follow more closely what I’m doing right now with more regular (and shorter) updates. These may or may not be related to Production. Just this week I’m adding 2 new features to the site, the first of which is the addition of a Music blog.
I’ve been playing music off and on for most of my life. We had a piano in the house growing up. Although, “banging” is probably the best word to describe my piano skills. In middle school I started playing drums and taking lessons. I later dumped drums for guitar, mostly teaching myself Led Zeppelin and Dave Matthews songs. Yes, I’m not embarrassed to admit I played Dave Matthews songs and learned most of their catalog. I still practice many of the songs as they’re very good finger exercises – so good that Mr. Matthews will probably develop a severe case of carpal tunnel before he’s 50. I should probably point out here that I in fact did NOT join a frat in college. For some reason people think these 2 things are related.
I played Open Mic nights with friends and even recorded tracks for the student films I made. Since moving to Wyoming over 7 years ago, I have only been musical in fits and spurts.
A year and a half ago, after much badgering from a bass playing friend, I bought a drum set. A small Roland electronic mesh-head kit. I got it instead of an acoustic set because I liked the fact I could play late into the night and not bother my roommates or neighbors. A few of us started jamming together and after the addition of an incredibly talented guitar player by the name of Jeremy Cohen, we decided to form a Grateful Dead tribute band called The Deadlocks. For those that don’t know, the original name of the Grateful Dead was the Warlocks.
This has been an interesting musical journey for me because as much as I enjoyed listening to the Grateful Dead growing up, I never drummed to it. I learned a few songs on guitar and that was the extent of it. I was more into Phish and hacking Trey’s style than I was into Jerry. So now, 15 years later, I’m learning Grateful Dead tunes while at the same time re-learning how to drum. I joke with friends that being in the Deadlocks has been more of an academic experience for me than anything. I also thought it would make for good content for a blog.
The point of this series will be to share my experience playing in this tribute band, and what I’m doing to become a better drummer and musician. My hope is that writing about it will help me progress faster in this journey.
I also hope this means I’ll see more of you at the shows 🙂
The Deadlocks website
Like the Deadlocks on Facebook