On a recent Friday night, Brian Smith shouts into the crowd at East Andrews, “Nobody comes to Buckhead before 10:45 except Tron Jackson fans!” Hoots and cheers follow. Hands clutching cell phones spring up around the stage, snapping photos.
Is he being sarcastic? It’s hard to tell with this band, really. The devoted audience likely contains movers and shakers in Middle and North Georgia’s real estate law community. It could be a dig at their 9-to-5, nonclubbing schedule. Or it could be praise for their allegiance to coming out for live music. Either way, the bodies are packed into the little club to see Smith, guitarists George Greer and Zach McElveen, drummer Alex Sanders and bassist Baxter James blast through spirited set lists of rock music from the '70s up.
Tron Jackson, named after the Georgia football player with an homage to a Dave Chappelle character, Tron Carter, is a rock ‘n’ roll cover band that performs sporadically around Atlanta and Macon. The main thing the band's members want you to know about them is that, because they are all lawyers by day (plus one banker), they’re just here to blow off some steam from their day jobs and have a little fun.
But when Smith opens the show, belting out “Baba O’Riley” into a vintage mic, backed by a big, tight sound, it’s obvious these guys take their hobby seriously.
They’re part of a growing group of workers who make down-to-earth choices about earning an income in a tough economy while fueling activities that deliver a gut-level joy in the off hours. For many, post-work creative yens require just as much labor and energy as a real job.
“Moonlighting can serve as a creative outlet for jobs that require rigid roles,” said Holona Ochs, a political science professor at Lehigh University whose books she co-wrote with Richard Seltzer about tipping and commissions, “Getting a Cut” and “Gratuity,” take a people-first perspective on work.
“Moonlighting and commitment to hobbies also allow people to have control over a project from beginning to end, which is particularly important for people who describe their work as part of a process," Ochs said. "People like to feel the emotional costs of labor are purposeful and personally rewarding. Of course, some people just like to do things to see if they can.”
That kind of self-dare might describe the inspiration two Atlanta business consultants with foodie temperaments stumbled into while working on a marketing campaign for Food & Wine magazine’s popular festival in Aspen, Colo. Every year, Dominique Love and Elizabeth Feichter would come home wondering why Atlanta didn’t host a similar event. So they decided to create one themselves. This May's Atlanta Food & Wine Festival will offer guests more than 200 ways to experience Southern food and drink in a format that involves elaborate tastings in a street-fair-influenced festival in Midtown and dinners and events throughout the city.
“We were inspired, but we were just talk until February 2010, when our friend chef Shaun Doty said, ‘Stop talking, and just do it,’ ” Love said. “We started putting ideas to paper the next day.”
Some of the region’s most accomplished chefs will be participating. And it all started with wanting to pass on their personal experiences rubbing elbows with chefs to others.
“The first time I attended the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen, I found myself at a laid-back, late-night private party surrounded by culinary greats. I was talking to Tom Colicchio on my right and Marcus Samuelsson on my left, and then Mario Batali tapped me on the shoulder and gave me a truffled grilled cheese sandwich he had just made. It was one of those once-in-a-lifetime moments for a food lover and an experience that has influenced what we’re trying to offer with the Atlanta Food & Wine Festival."
Not everyone wants to blaze such high-profile paths. For potter Barry Rhodes, an after-hours pursuit can be as low-key and quiet as a day spent in his Decatur studio just sitting and thinking about his next design.
Rhodes works as a computer scientist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Pottery has been a passion since the late ’70s, when he was a graduate student in physics at Emory. It was then that he took some pottery classes at Callanwolde and has been hooked ever since.
"I don’t want to say it’s an escape," he said. "People ask me if it's relaxing, and honestly, it's not. But it takes your mind away from work, and that's vital. A lot of people have that activity. Mine's just a little more intense."
Shifting from a day of math and science to nights and weekends filled with art and aesthetics would seem to encompass a sharp left- and right-brain divide. But to Rhodes, whose multipatterned and textured pottery and sculpture are on display March 11-13 at the American Craft Council Show, a passion and a paycheck work together on a deeper level.
"They complement each other,” he said. “Obviously, the materials are very different, clay and computer systems, so your skill sets are different. But in the end, what you’re doing is putting pieces and parts of a puzzle together in a way that makes sense. And that actually comes together into something one would call beauty."
About the Author
