Jamie Moyer
N/S Stickist & Bassist
San Diego, Ca.

The Journey

Part VI- Return to Southern California

After a few months looking for work, I landed a job at Rancho Vista National Bank (RIP) in Vista, CA, got settled in and began looking for a band. The seemingly never-ending search for good musicians was getting old and San Diego’s entertainment weekly, The Reader, was leading me to a vast pit of wanabees. I would lug my equipment all over the county mostly to find that those who talked the most had the least talent. I met a guy in Vista who fit that profile, but he introduced me to an accomplished guitarist named Lance Jacobson. Lance and I began auditioning musicians. However, all we could find was a procession of unreliable drummers with alcohol problems. By 1998, Lance became disillusioned and wanted to concentrate on his original music. Lance was a graduate of Hollywood’s famed Musicians Institute and had a recording studio in his house. After mourning the death of the cover project, I decided to help him with his music asking only that he help me with mine. When I left the East Coast in 1990, I decided that I should be a songwriter and began writing tunes. I had accumulated a dozen or so, and needed to see whether I had any talent for songwriting. I helped Lance by writing lyrics and main melodies for his musical ideas. He helped me shape my songs. Ultimately, we were musically incompatible. I do thank Lance for helping me to decide whether I was a songwriter. The demo sessions from his house allowed me to determine that some of my songs were good and that I should continue my efforts. I was disappointed that we never got to write any music together since I feel that my best writing will come co-writing with others.

As my partnership with Lance ended, so did my desire to search for that elusive band. After a few more Reader misses, I stopped playing music for the first time since I started performing in 1969. I was nearly 40 years old and realized that I was too old to make it in the music industry. After two years of inactivity, I bought a 16-track digital recording machine and slowly began to write songs again.Going to see bands was painful for me. Some of the acts would inspire me (like Venice), but most of the acts depressed me when I would look at the stage and see/hear an average bassist.Then I would wonder why I was not playing.

To complicate matters, I had met a beautiful woman in Las Vegas - after I decided to return to SoCal - and spent the next eight years in a long distance relationship. I was not willing to return to Vegas and was not successful in convincing her to move to San Diego. Although she became my muse for several years, this relationship took its toll on me physically and emotionally. I was not able to play in a band while driving back and forth to Vegas every few weeks.By 2004, I ended the madness.

Suddenly I found myself without a significant other and had stopped writing music. I needed to return to what I did best – play bass on stage with other accomplished musicians. The timing was right and I began auditioning. However, a few years had gone by where all I did was play guitar sporadically. I only played bass briefly when I would record a bass line for one of my demos and my bass skills had diminished. Another thing that I had not considered was that I was frequently much older than the other musicians. I had gone from being the youngest member of every band that I ever played with to being the oldest - how distressing! I only wanted to play original music and I found two San Diego singer/songwriters, Tod Howarth and Scott Wilson, in early 2003 whose music inspired me. I worked hard to learn all of the songs on their CD’s and auditioned. In both cases I felt that I did a solid job, but never heard back from either one.

In reality, my bass skills had not fallen that far, but doubt was settling in and I began to question whether I was good enough to play the caliber of music that I had done my entire life. I thought that both Tod and Scott were unimpressed and stopped auditioning. It was disheartening to give all I had and get nothing in return – no response at all. I thought that maybe it was over and that I didn’t have it anymore, or maybe never did. Ironically, I received an email from Scott Wilson nearly a year-and-a-half after my audition. He wanted to know if I would be interested in playing with him at the Acoustic Music Night as part of the 2004 San Diego Music Awards. He had not found a band during the 2003 auditions and that he remembered me. In September 2004, I played my first gig since 1997 New Years Eve.

Just before I had sent Tod Howarth an email to find out whether he was performing anywhere. As I said in the email, “even though you turned me down as a bassist, I truly love your music and wanted to hear him perform”. He responded quickly that his hard disk crashed shortly after my audition and that he tried unsuccessfully to find me. He thought that I did a great audition. I was also re-connecting with some of the wonderful musicians throughout the country that I had performed with in various bands. When they would ask me if I was playing and heard no, I would get an incredulous response and an earful. They could not believe that I had given up music. Hearing words of encouragement from these astonishing musicians really helped me to re-launch my musical career.

I no longer have aspirations of a full-time career, but have come to realize that musical performance is in my blood and a God given talent that I need to nurture. My comeback began in 2005 as a member of the Scott Wilson Electric band, with whom I continue to perform. I also played some of the best gigs of my career. I performed with a San Diego singer/songwriter named Tiamo at Hollywood’s world famous Whiskey A-Go-Go and LA’s El Rey Theatre. We also opened for Asia at the famous The Belly Up Tavern. Tiamo recently won Best Male Vocalist in the AAA category at the 2006 LA Music Awards - helped by the buzz created during our 2005 performances at The Whiskey and the El Rey.

In March 2006, I performed with Scott Wilson at Humphrey’s celebrating the premier of his Coffeehouse 101 video that featured 50 San Diego musical artists lip-synching lines of the song and we once again performed at the Acoustic Music Night as part of the 2006 San Diego Music Awards. 2006 was also the year that I joined a cover band - something that I had not even considered for the past ten years. I decided to return to country music, the genre of my greatest success to date, when I became a member of The Ranch Rockers. The Rockers are one of SoCal’s best country acts and was nominated for Best Country Band at the 2004 and 2005 San Diego Music Awards. Perhaps we can win that award in future years! The two female lead vocalists of the Rockers, Gwyn Sanborn and Sandi Capel, produced the first performance of Temecula Live! - Southern California’s only country music review. The inaugural performance was held during August to a sold out crowd at the Temecula Old Town Community Theatre. It was a rousing success and could well be the beginning of Grand Ole‘ Opry West. We also performed for large crowds at the Temecula Community Amphitheatre and at the Promenade Mall for country radio station KFRG. Look for more performances in 2007.

2006 was also the year that I recorded Right For Me and Wings, the first two of my original compositions to be recorded for real. I could not have done this as little as two years ago. I have met numerous quality SD musicians since 2004, many of which helped me to record my songs. I want to extend special thanks Bill Ray, Neil MacPherson, Scott Wilson, Dave Gladish, Robert Ninow, Miff Laracy and John Nicolosi (my former Crosstown Bus colleague now living in Clarksville, TN) for their extraordinary performances on my songs, and to Piyasu Komaradat and Santoso for inviting me to record at MiraCosta College

Hopefully the story of Jamie Moyer, the musician not the baseball player, will continue for many years to come ...