Boy Wonder: Professional Musician 248

Year Two Day 5 - Marh 14th 2009

Long drives

Hopefully when we're more well known we canplay more citites and the drives won't be as long. I don't do any of the driving that's left to Brian but sitting in a cramped vehicle for hours on end can be rough on anyone.

We pulled into the parking lot by the stage for the Rock and Roll Marathon in Dallas around 3 in the morning. We've played races for the same company in Philadelphia for years so when I was sure that we were gonna play in Austin i contacted them about doing their race in Dallas. We play in front of 14,000 people (I mean they're runnign by but they still hear us) and it pays so it's a win win. We slept in the van and waited for people to get there to set up. This would be the inagural run here in Dallas so we probably have more experience with these types of events than anyone else playing. Even though the sound people

We set up the gear and the first band played, your general bar band, some cool covers cooler than the Bon Jovi heavy cover bands that play back at home. A lot of blues and classic rock. We hit the stage around 10:30

Playing the marathons require a different approach, it's not about stringing a bunch of tunes togeher for maximum emotional effect, it's about keeping the runners motivated and with a lot of our songs being mid tempo and slow I didn't have much of a game plan going intot his gig. It's not like me, but I've been distracted.

Bad gigs are funny, because generally you know it at the outset. Something major will happen and everything will begin to unravel. Today it was my guitar's inability to stay in tune, I'd put new strings on before I left and hadn't really had the time to stretch them and what not. I used my backup strat but I couldn't get the sounds that I wanted out of it so it was a bit strange. I was I made way too many mistakes. We played for about two hours and didn't snap back into step until about the last 30 minutes.

I'll qualify this by saying that the term bad gig is relative at this point. I don't think we've played an actual bad gig in a while, I just know how good this band isand when we don't play as good as we normally do I'm dissapointed. The people around us thought it was great which is alwys a relief. We haven't really gotten a bad reaction anywhere we've played around the country. Often I feel like my music is taken for granted at home overshadowed by skill as a promoter and my position in the scene as a personality, when I felt that the quality of music that I make was key in being able to establish all these other things, I don't think any of my peers would have played shows with me if my music sucked.

I spent most of the afternoon frustrated mainly because I've been burning the candle at both ends for the past few days. I didn't feel like I was focused enough on the task at hand.

We pull into the best western, the owner of the place says the rooms would be ready in half an hour so we go get Mexican and return ot the hotel. As I run to use the bathroom I noticed that the top sheet wasn't on the bed straight but I thought nothing of it till Rob entered.

Rob: The bed isn't made, I don't think they changed the sheets

Me: I'm sure they did, they were just rushing to get the room cleaned on time.

Rob: Clean my ass! There's a condom wrapper ont he floor.

Me: What?!

Rob: Yeah.

I walk outside of the can and there it is...The Trogan Magnum wrapper standing stright up by the bed the sun's rays made it shine as if to say..."How the hell did you miss me standing here?!"

I immediately walk to the front desk

Me: Yeah um I'm gonna need a new room

Clerk: What is wrong my friend?

Me: Yeah uh the sheets weren't clean and there was a condom wrapper on the floor

Clerk: We will clean immediately

Me: I'd feel better if I had another room

Clerk: Right away sir.

We move into the new room and I turn on my laptop to find that the screen had been cracked, fortunately we found a guy that fixes them in town. His store was closed so we had to find him at the Traveler's Village a huge open air Bazarr outside of town. Not much there but a whole lot of Rim and Grille places, Sound System stores, DVD stands and Mexican people, took a while to find the guy but we did and would be ok to have the laptop back by tommorrow.

Upon our return we went to Arbees, watched South Park and I went to bead early. There's free in the hotel lobby tommorow morning so I'm gonna mke sure I'm up early. We've got to pick up the lap top then head to New Orleans tommorrow.