Day 224 - October 22nd 2009
The Sun rises on the open road. Brian’s driving, I’m in the front seat, Jake’s looking straight ahead Rob’s sleeping. There’s always a feeling when I’m looking outside of a window watching the road pass by that I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be. It never takes long for me to realize that I like it out here we’re in a van going to a show, I can’t think of anything cooler than that. Maybe I’m built for this, looking back over these 200+ days I realize that I’ve spent quite a few of them outside of Philadelphia performing. We talk about The Phillies’ NLCS victory and their (seemingly) impending meeting with The New York Yankees. Jake tells me that there were riot police outside of his job preventing him from going downtown. We’ve been driving all night, so we stop off at a bob Evan’s, grab breakfast and keep going.
I have one main objective with this mini tour…to generate interest in Boy Wonder in this region of the country I understand that these things won’t happen overnight and that one has to keep at it in order to achieve any success, but if we can get the right person/people to feel us it could be a start, I don’t care if we only get one name on the mailing list, sell one CD, get one pat on the back, it’s gotta start somewhere. But first we got to get to the hotel.
We arrive around two for check in as me and Brian walk inside to grab the rooms. We get in and settle in our rooms waiting to figure out what the next move’s going to be. I call to find out our time slots been changed to 11:30 and then she asks how much time we can fill, out of reflex I say that we can play for a while so we end up with a 90 minute set, but that’s several hours away, next call goes into my cousin betty, apparently I have relatives here and they’ve already been told to come to the show, she tells me about Monument Circle so we’re gonna go there to kill some time.
As we arrive we marvel at the differences between here an Philadelphia, it’s cleaner for one, the pace is slower, people are more laid back (even the two homeless guys I saw weren’t really all that pushy) there were a lot of bar/restaurants in this section of the city (as opposed to the straight up bar/bars in Philly) and that Philadelphia has better looking girls per square foot. Jake wants pizza so he stops inside of a spot as the rest of us explore, we happen upon a sweet looking BBQ spot so we plan to hunker down and realize we should go grab Jake, Jake has no phone and I immediately start to freak out. I treat every place I go with a band like Mexico, everyone needs to stay together or else something bad happens, I know I’m a tight ass but it just makes things easier especially when people don’t have phones. We at some BBQ and checked out the sports bar, which had the most awesome Dyson hand dryers I’ve ever seen.
We walked around downtown for a while until it was time to get to Lizards. Tom Tom got us there but it didn’t tell us it was behind the actual place with the address. We circled many times before arriving at the venue. As we walked in it was something out of a movie, all the redneck stereotypes were there, trucker and NASCAR hats, mullets, people in sweat pants, Only Miller Lite on Tap, even a pregnant bartender. They certainly were more of an older crowd. They seemed to be staring at me as if I were an alien, I’m wondering what exactly I’m walking into at the moment. Brue (from Grey Matador who helped us book the gig) and Liz (the owner and booker at Lizards) wouldn’t have me performing somewhere that would potentially be hostile, even violent would they? I doubt it, but until something happens here either way to ease it, I’m probably going to be tense. Then I hear something over the loud speaker
I’ll take you to the candy shop
I’ll let you lick the lollipop
Go Head Girl Don’t You Stop
Keep Going Till You Hit The Spot
I never thought a 50 cent record would ever ease my mind, but when I saw the guy in the Jeff Gordon hat dancing in his seat at the bar I realized that I wasn’t in any real dangerying out . One of the disadvantages of growing up in the north is that you don’t really run across anyone from the more red parts of the map, the more rural areas of south or the Midwest unless you have the opportunity to get out. All you know is what you see on TV, Bill Maher’s comments, the folks on Springer, etc. so when you do run across them you assume that they’re going to lynch your black ass as you walk in the door, when more often than not they’re just good down home, no nonsense folks that have more in common with Black Folk than one might realize.
I sit back and relax as The Wil Woodrow project starts setting up. Wil seems like a cool ass dude, he doesn’t say too much but from what I hear him say it sounds like music is his life. I turn to see a cute girl behind the drum kit, striking eyes, legs for days, tough as nails from the looks of her, this is Liz, drummer for Wil Woodrow, owner of the bar, impressive…seeing as though she doesn’t look any older than me, I need to be doing more with my life…lol. I shake her hand and thank her for having us she‘s very warm, making me feel even better about being here tonight. I get out of their way as they launch into their set.
Theirs is a unique sound, sure it has elements of funk and rock, blues and hip hop, but the way it was set up was quite interesting. Wil’s bass is really the lead instrument with the drums locking in and the guitar player adding top and staying out of the way. I very much liked Wil’s energy and passion and Liz smoking a cig and laying the beat down on the drums at the same time is right on my top ten lists of sexiest things I’ve ever seen.
As they are finishing the doors swing open and a bunch of black folks in church clothes walk inside of the bar, they have to be my distant relatives. It was good to see betty whom I probably haven’t seen since I was 9 or 10. It was very good to see them and it was awesome of them to sit the whole time.
Wil was done and it was time for us to get goin. We set up and got it in
Superhero
(Oh) I wish I loved You
The Way You make Me Feel
Always Giving Me The Blues
How Can This Be Love
Electric Love
Body
Feels So Good
Wasted
Covered in Rain
(I Think We Should) Breakup
Walking on the Moon
Destiny
As we started the strangest thing happened, instead of taking a beer bottle to the face…people loved it. They were dancing and grooving, one girl was even shaking it directly in front of me, before her boyfriend grabbed her as hard and fast as he could. I had to really work the stage because of the awkward place it was in the room and just as we were about to launch into the more rock parts of our set Jakes Low E string broke. Luckily Wil had an extra one and I decided to go nice and easy for the remainder of the set. Thigns were going wrong, my guitar amp was waaay too loud, and there were some small mistakes early on but these folks didn’t care, they loved it. Few people bought CD’s so I signed him, one guy seemed really fixated on Rob so he was talking to him a lot really fast.
Liz seemed to really like us as well and wants us to come back on a better night with better crowds and what not. I’d love to have them at the Split sometime if they could make the trip. At least I know whenever we’re here we have at least one place to play. Wil even offered to put us up and take care of us. These guys were really awesome, whenever you are in a seemingly strange place it’s great when people are warm and friendly, especially in this business.
I leave the club like we just pulled off a bank heist, that went better than any of us could’ve ever expected. We get back to the hotel and I think about tomorrow. I can tell I’m getting sick but I think the band’ll be super tight and it’ll be a better show tomorrow than it was tonight…Minneapolis here we come.
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