[Jakedog]

I wish I could say this sounds scripted, but sadly, it does not.

My father was extremely encouraging with me about music. My mother, was not so much. But she wasn't anything close to this bad.

I had a friend I went to school with though, who went through this sort of thing regularly. I often had to sit through it with him. Can you say uncomfortable? The kid was an absolutely amazing bass player, but his dad could not see that being useful for anything. I heard this kid get berated to hell and back, and called every name in the book, on a regular basis. Because he liked to play music, and wanted to have a career in it.

His father once sold his gear. His father twice destroyed his gear. Smashed it to pieces. It got to the point, where he kept all of his music stuff at my house, and just spent all of his time there. The police would routinely show up to my house then, having been called by his father. His dad would tell them we were drinking, or doing drugs, or selling drugs, or all kinds of things, and send them over to "break up the party". We were never doing any of those things. Eventually they caught on.

He ended up getting a half scholarship to Berklee, but couldn't pay for the rest of it, and his father flatly refused to contribute any tuition money to a music school. He joined the Air Force, just to get away from his old man, and ended up playing bass in Tops In Blue, all over the world, for years. I lost track of him a long time ago, but I hope he's still playing. He was an amazing talent, who succeeded in music in spite of parental support that at times was far worse than anything in this video.