People in the Neighborhood: Lane Murchison
When Bimbo's met Legos
By Melissa Broder

In this day and age, Lane Murchison is a rare breed. He actually makes his living doing solely what he loves: playing music. A jack of all trades in the realm of rhythm and melody, Lane creates music for children as well as rock and roll. By day, Lane is a music teacher at Calvary Presbyterian Church School, offering private music lessons and playing children's birthday parties on the side. Yet when night falls, Lane rocks out with his two bands. Ape is a cadent hybrid of Hawaiian and Caribbean sounds, featuring a live Tiki carver onstage and Lane and the Badass Chickenbones focuses on singer/songwriter Lane's soulful lyrics, blending rock with a bit of bluegrass. Lane currently has three CDs out, each representing different facets of his life. While he makes his various incarnations seem effortless, his path to fulfillment was neither easy nor direct, either on an emotional level, or in terms of finances.

Lane, born and raised in Long Beach, California, found himself suspended from school in the fifth grade for frequently banging on his desk. When his mother came to pick him up from the principal's office, he assumed he was in trouble. Instead, his mother drove him directly to a music store and bought him his first set of drums. He joined his first band, Images, at the age of 13. Yet Lane always wanted to play the other musicians' instruments as well as the drums. When he received a guitar as a gift, he began writing his own music. To this day, Lane continues to write music for his various endeavours, including Bulldozers and Bugs -- his children's CD.

Lane visited San Francisco shortly after high school to audition for a band that already had a development deal with a major label. He scored a role as a drummer, and immediately moved into the band's Pacifica recording studio, but when the deal soured, Lane was stuck in the Bay Area with no money. So he borrowed a bike and got a job as a bike messenger. Within a few years, he became a sales manager within the company and then worked for another company as well. He eventually began making $100,000 per year, all the while playing music in various bands including a popular group called The Swamis. Despite his musical success, as well as a six-figure salary, Lane was unhappy.

"I was taught that you go to school, you get a job, you get a house -- that you probably don't even want but at least one that you can afford -- you get married and you have kids. For me, that was all so wrong. When my company moved out of San Francisco, I had a two-hour commute every day to think about how much my life sucked. I would literally come home every day and cry my eyes out, wondering, 'what am I going to do with my life?' I had this great apartment, great salary, all of the stuff that everybody wants, but I was miserable."

After two years of maintaining the same job, Lane walked into his office one day and quit. From that point on, he was determined to make his living making music. Many of his artist friends at the time were commercial photographers, writers and musicians. So Lane followed their example and began writing music commercially, with a great deal of success. His clients included Levi's, Lexus, Coors and Nike. Yet despite this new integration of music and finance, Lane was still dissatisfied. He felt like the corporate control of his art robbed him of the integrity and creativity of composition.

"I had to do it their way," he says. "So then I was really miserable. Because here I was doing what I thought I wanted: making money by playing music, and I was still unhappy. It was almost worse than the sales job, because the thing that I loved most -- my music -- was being distorted. I had run out and chased my dreams, but my dreams were not what I wanted. So I became very depressed and hit rock bottom."

With the savings that he had, Lane lived frugally for a year and barely left the house. He was playing fewer gigs due to the breakup of his primary band, The Swamis. His friends tried to reach out to him, offering money and advice, but Lane was determined to figure out his situation on his own. But when his money finally ran out, Lane accepted the invitation of one friend that would change the rest of his life. This particular friend ran a kid's camp and he asked Lane to fill in and work as a counselor. On the first day, Lane found that the experience was the change he needed. He couldn't remember how long it had been since he had swam in a swimming pool, done arts and crafts, and had seen the world through the eyes of a child.

"That afternoon, when I returned home, I saw a billboard with a picture of a young girl with red hair that read: 'The cure for depression.' I don't even remember what the ad was for. I just remember feeling happy. Like I had gained a part of myself back in that one day, by stepping outside of myself."

Lane continued to work at the camp that summer and brought his guitar along every day. The kids loved his music, and he found that he was able to engage them in singing and dancing. However, he also noted an important distinction between children and adults: while his "grown-up" audiences would clap at every performance, kids were not conditioned in the same way. Kids were a tougher, more rewarding audience.

When the fall came around, another of Lane's friends asked Lane to fill in for him as a music teacher at Calvary Presbyterian. Because of his experiences at the camp, Lane understood the psychology of children. Eventually he became a full-time teacher at the school, and the kids loved him. When word spread home to parents about the fabulous Mr. Murchison, they invited him to the children's birthday parties. At first he simply attended as a guest with a guitar, which his girlfriend found amusing. Soon thereafter, Lane was paid to attend as The Tiki Cowboy: the primary entertainment.

"At first it was hard to rectify," says Lane. "Here I am a rocker and I'm working with kids. But I soon came to a realization that I didn't want to end up a VH1 special. Maybe for the musicians with families it's different, but for a lot of us it's a crazy lifestyle. Knowing that I have these kids to return to keeps me centered. I don't even know if I ever wanted that rock and roll lifestyle anyway."

Lane has found that his children's work bleeds into his rock world in more ways than one. At a recent benefit, where Lane and the Badass Chickenbones played for over 1,000 people, the band engaged in a rowdy version of "Bulldozer," the title track off of his kids' album. The adults in the crowd loved joining in with the chorus and chanted "Bulldozer" at a booming volume. Perhaps someday, the kids in Lane's classroom will attend the gigs at Bimbo's, Last Day Saloon, and the other "grown-up" venues where Ape and The Badass Chickenbones play. For now, it's Itsy Bitsy Spider in the classroom.

"If I have one piece of advice," says Lane, "it's keep doing what you love and keep an open mind. You may not end up exactly where you expected...But sometimes I walk around the Fillmore neighborhood and the kids say: 'Look, there's Mr. Murchison!'