Boy Wonder: Professional Musician 153

Day 152 - August 10th 2009

So I got a call at 4AM this morning.

It was a guy calling me about wanting a gig at Lickety Split. I had just had a pretty relaxing Sunday with my family where for the most part I kept my phone and internet off to focus on family time and what not. I ate ribs and watched wipeout and had a grand time. When I got home I went to bed early, slept like a baby and I was in this good deep sleep so you can imagine as the phone rang loudly on the coffee table, I almost fell off of the couch. My thoughts ran along the line of, “No one would be calling me this late/early if it wasn’t an emergency” I was scared that something had happened to one of my friends, family (the nieces and nephew particularly), or the house down the street had been fire bombed again, I answered the phone without hesitation, without even looking at the number. I’m wider awake now as I hear some stoner’s voice through my phone.

Me: Hello.

Stoner: Um hey, so I heard you were the guy that books at lickety Split so I wanted to give you a call to talk about my ba-

Me: Okay I’m gonna stop you right there. First of all what time is it?

Stoner: Oh it’s like 4:03 me and my boys figured we’d try to give you a shou-

Me: Ok guys it’s NOT OKAY to call me at 4 in the morning for any reason. It’s the most inconsiderate, inappropriate, and most importantly unprofessional thing you can do, What’s the name of your band?

Stoner: **** ****

Me: Ok you have succeeded in never playing a show with me because I don’t book people that call me at 4AM. What the hell are you thinking about? What the fuck is wrong with you?

Stoner: Um my bad dude

Me: Get the hell off my phone before I trace this call and find out where you are.

I hang up

I hate to be like that, but sometimes it’s gotta be done. As I’ve mentioned several times before, for three years running I’ve been booking shows, it started off as me just wanting to control the quality of music whenever I played somewhere by booking all the acts, and eventually grew into something that resembles a booking agency. I’ve been blessed with the ability to be able to open doors for people, if I dig the music I can give bands opportunities to get themselves to a level where they no longer need my help. Now by no means am I suggesting altruism, this is part of what I do for a living now I’ve gotten pretty good at it I love it. But with this 4AM conversation it’s become apparent that it might be time to set some boundaries. I’ve made it a point to try to be as accessible as possible but that’s going to have to change.

I woke up with Philly Rising being the only thing I really needed to do today. I really like Mondays, Philly Rising is a pretty sweet event.

Our line was shorter than it had been in previous weeks…probably because of the heat. I kicked the night off and I played Baby One More Time for the first time in like 3 or 4 years (Toxic has been my Spears song for choice these days) We had some quality acts though. Particularly our standouts last night, Mike Short and Downtime. A bunch of teenagers playing country music, it was pretty awesome. We don’t get a lot of country music at Philly Rising and it’s something I wouldn’t mind seeing more of.

It’s really given me a lot of insight as to how talent is evaluated by the general public and has helped me in general in terms of seeing problems in my own performance and correcting them. A lot of artists have great voices, or great songs, or both but often don’t give the audience something visual that makes you want to look at them. Even if it’s a band standing there playing their songs at least there is the feeling of activity. Presenting something for the eyes goes way back before MTV. Look at The Motown Groups with the choreography, The Beatles with the wardrobe, Elvis, Hendirx Playing with his teeth. We should stop undervaluing how important an audiences eyes are as far as this whole music thing goes.

We’re off next week for the Beta Hi-Fi Festival but will be back August 24th hopefully the weather will be a bit better and we’ll have some more folks. I’m digging all the new faces I’ve been seeing as of late. I have guitar lessons tomorrow and am preparing for an old school Boy Wonder stretch of shows. Starting Friday I pretty much have shows everyday until the following Saturday.