7-20-09 Winthrop Blues Festival
I arrived in Seattle on Friday evening, picked up my rental car, and drove straight to a Radio Shack to purchase a cord to connect my iPod to the car stereo. I was to drive 4 hours across the North Cascade Mountains by myself and needed the company of Mance Lipscomb, Henry Thomas, and Rev. Lous Overstreet- you know some good country blues and gospel to fit the scenery! After driving through many winding mountanous roads with absolutely no signs of human settlement for a 100+ miles, I arrive in the gold rush era town of Winthrop. I was hoping to make it in time to catch my friends in the Rick Holmstrom band play a street dance pre festival concert, but 4 hours really turned into 5 with all the stops I made along the way.
The next day to my surprise as I was setting up to play my 11am slot at the festival, I hear three hooligans call out my name as they are rushing the backstage. It was Rick Holmstrom, Jeff Turmes, and Stephen Hodges- the backing band for Mavis Staples. I was a little self conscious while playing my set with these guys sitting directly behind me onstage. But it was fun having them there to egg my on, and heckle me. The current Mavis Staples band is on my top 5 absolute favorite live bands out there today, and I am always inspired for weeks after seeing their show!...The next day I again had a 11am slot at the festival, and as I was getting ready to perform I see the massive tour bus belonging to J.J. Grey and Mofro pull up. To my surprise later on in the day, I learn that J.J. was also sitting onstage during my show, and was raving about my foot drumming grooves I was laying down on my Skyway suitcase. This meant a lot coming from one of my other absolute favorite live 'groove' bands out touring today!
Along with meeting many new cool people on the road, this is always an extra bonus to run into other musician friends you look up to and admire while getting do your thing! This is what it's all about.
9-17-09 "It All Comes Back Full Circle"
Forget about all the praise and compliments from people you look up to and admire...There's always the extreme other end of the spectrum of feelings from experiences of being out on the job for me.
Tonight I was playing one of my regular local gigs, that shall remain nameless, but rhymes with Feach Bire. I was feeling good and excited to play as a true one man band with kick drum, hi hats, and a newly rigged up coffee can snare set up next to the hit hats. I had eaten my favorite gourmet pasta and had taken a walk to the beach and back before starting. So I start into my first tune and was not even 5 seconds into it when I am approached by an extremely "over decorated" woman wearing a striped zebra dress. So she comes over looks at my tip case filled with cds, then comes around the side and opens her beer soaked mouth to tell me something. As I was concentrating on trying to continue my job which was occupying all four limbs, she tells me something in a completely slurred voice that I swore was something to do with me knowing something from Soul Train. I quickly say "no, sorry". After this she walks over to the tip case and takes out two cds, as I try to inform her about my pricing. She then walks back to her table to be with her eager date. They sit there at the table and look over their new find, and continue to cuddle and talk. I am instantly suspicious but am hoping to see her "big spending" guy take out his wallet to give her some money to bring back to my store.
Well, as I finish this first song which was distracted from literally about the first note, I quickly segway into my next song as I had planned. As I try to recapture my focus that I was robbed from on the warm up tune, I see this loving couple continue to get more into each other and get more comfortable. At this point I think of a clever way of hinting to them that it was time to pay up, or return the borrowed merchandise. I start talking on the mic as I am playing (which is a challenge when you are doing the one man band thing) and tell the audience welcome, and my name is...and if you like the music then I have cd's available for FIFTEEN DOLLARS EACH. I made sure that last part was pronounced louder and clearer than anything else I was spatting out. Well...a few minutes later I end the song, and these people were not coming forth with money or my cd's.
So now, I start directly talking to this chick loud and clear on the microphone. I keep my cool and ask: "Are you going to pay me for those?" "Usually when somebody takes one out while I am playing, they walk back up with payment". The bartender looks over at me and sees that something is going on. The zebra clad woman walks back up to me with a mean face and says something about her thinking that I had given them to her for her to give to "so and so (someone famous I was supposed to have know about)" whom she was related to, for a demo. I don't hesitate to say NO in a strict voice!! She then is offended and asks if I know who "blank blank" was. I argue with her and say "lets talk about this on the break- then I'll decide if I'm going to give you not 1 but 2 cd's". She gives the extremely offended look while telling me that she is not interested in promoting me anymore, and stumbles away!!
Oh well, you win some and then you lose some......
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