People Like Us

Echoes are the essence of power. Aside from the physics, dynamics, and acoustics of the space required to create an echo, echoes are powerful all on their own. As large as the entire world is, and as minute as we are, our voices can somehow find a space to grow to be much larger than ourselves. It takes a unique space to create an echo, but more importantly, it requires a voice that finds the perfect space.

I grew up without parents, but I never grew up without passion. As a boy I spent most of my time watching my grandfather flip through TV stations. I would listen to him talk about the past and what could have been. I would study the look on his face as he recalled his much lamented passions that he was never able to chase. I would watch the way he held the sat in his chair channel surfing, the way his legs would shoot up from the floor when he laughed, and the way his shoulders dropped when he sighed. I would sit there listening to his stories about how much better life could have been, letting his words permeate into my conscience, but to this day only a few words have stuck with me; only one phrase found a place in my mind where it can echo for an eternity. He would flip past the music channels, MTV, VH1, or CMT, and catch a glimpse of true, un-trifled passion. He would see a video of Eric Clapton, Carlos Santana, or one of the other greats playing guitar and he'd sit up only to say, "if I could play guitar like that we wouldn't live here." His smile would always say much more than his words, but they somehow found a way to cement themselves into my head. "If I could play guitar like that we wouldn't live here."

Life was never great or filled with riches for us, but it was stable. I'd never go hungry again or wonder if I had a place to sleep thanks to my grandparents, so I wondered what was worth changing if we had all the money one of the great artists of my grandfather's generation had. It only occurred to me when I got older, but a life without passion is a life without fulfillment. Maybe my grandfather could have learned to play guitar like Eric Clapton or written music like Paul McCartney and he would have never become an ironworker, but that was not the case. He lived his life to support his family instead, and let his passion be something that also echoed throughout his mind for his entire life. Had he been one of the great musicians of his time, he may have never even been discovered, but knowing how passionate he is for that connection to music I now understand that he would rather have lived with his passion than age with a dream.

Years since I first heard him express his regret at not becoming a musician, I still heard his words in my head daily. I challenge myself every chance I get to be something that he never got to be. I adopted his passion as my own, and I let his words motivate me. I let his missed opportunities motivate me, his dreams push me, and my own hunger for a life better than I had yesterday drive me.

My battle to become great began in high school, when I met a true musician in Will Gillespie. You would never find videos of his playing on MTV, VH1 or CMT. He never had tour dates, meet-and-greets, or sold out shows. He had a passion and the heart to tell anyone and everyone what it was and what he did. Gillespie was my high school band teacher, and he taught me what it meant to be a musician and, more importantly, he taught me how to play saxophone. He was always real with me when it came to music. As virtuosic as he was, as educated and experienced as he was as a saxophone player, the life of a musician in our day is not one of riches. I heard it from him even through his tutelage. The is no money in being someone smaller than Eric Clapton or Carlos Santana.

By the time I got to college it was even more apparent that mastery of music was possible with dedication and passion, but the life my grandfather was never able to achieve was almost nonexistent. "Record sales are at an all time low!" I would hear. "Tours only sell so many tickets!" they would scream at me. "No one likes jazz anymore," is still a personal favorite. People would scream these words at the world whether they were musicians or not as if they were trying to keep the market small. The issue with what people say to musicians is the fact that most of it is, in fact, true. The market for independent musicians has ceased to exist in the past few decades and even "successful" musicians never reach stardom. I accepted the fact that my passion may never lead to the lavish lifestyle I hoped to have. I accepted that I might be great and mediocre at the same time. My grandfather's passion and my own, were still driving me, but in order to someday tell my children "I was able to play music so we live here," I understood that whatever market there is, will never be enough.

At a recording session I overheard a drummer say, "there really isn't a market for playing anymore," and I agreed with him at first. The numbers that did exist were not in the favor of jazz musicians, and we took the full force of the COVID-19 pandemic as performers. The tiny market of live playing was swept out from under us overnight as social distance and safety protocols closed most venues that had live musicians throughout the world. I agreed with what he said, but then my own voice echoed in my head for the first time. "I'll create my own market." I was driving home and imagining a market where people played musicians to play music and I started listing, to myself, the reasons a company would pay musicians. Musicians get paid when they sell their own merchandise and flat fees to play gigs at events. Only two revenue streams are not enough. I looked out the window and saw a billboard and I found the third revenue stream; I thought of a way to incorporate advertising for any company into playing. If a great group of musicians was willing to hold a show for free, but accept a sponsor for the show, the audience could be considerably different from the audiences that gigs get now that have a charge to see them perform. The catch would be to advertise for the sponsor of the event. A QR code on every single table, every single chair, and everywhere you can stamp one that leads users to the sponsor's website for merchandise, promotions, or even coupons would encourage anyone to sponsor an event. Gigs would suddenly be paid by a company wanting creative advertising. From this idea blossomed my company, Starving Students Advertising. We host events with the same exact concept with the eventual goal of having a following from our newsletter so vast, that when we send notifications of our jazz quartet performing we get hundreds of participants to interact with our passion and a sponsor's brand. I found a way to create my very own market in advertising as well as an outlet to funnel my passion into a bright future.

The Starving Students Advertising group will host car washes free to the public that ask customers looking for a clean car to scan a QR code and sign up for our newsletter and then view our sponsor's brand. We will host model airplane building competitions with a QR code on every box of materials, we will wrap gifts in the mall and hand out flyers for holiday sales, we will find a creative way to get people involved in any brand and build a following that will run at the chance to see us play music. We will usher in a new era of advertising in music, and I will show the entire world that one man's passion is worth sharing.

I named the company Starving Students to remind myself that I will always be starving for a better life, but thanks to my grandfather's passion and his words that echo in my head daily, I will never be hungry again.

Visit Starvingstudentsgroup.org to watch us change how money is made from passions.