Jeff's First US Tour of 2011 – blog #3 (day 13)

Miles Driven - 1840
Average Speed - 48 mph
Miles Per Gallon - 32

I am playing at least one show every day during this show, but today is a bit like a day off - I have little driving to do, and will only be playing for about an hour later this evening. So I have been able to get some things done today, like booking work and getting to this blog entry!

We left off after my first visit to the small town of Forest, VA, and a coffee shop there that I rather liked, called The Good Cherry.

After the show, we would hit the road to Charlottesville, VA, where we would spend the night. There were thunderstorm warnings all over the place for the night, but we didn't drive through anything worth mentioning. I have driven through some bad storms, including one about the same time last year, but the weather has thankfully been very tame so far. We caught up some with our hosts in Charlottesville, and called it a night.

Thursday the 24th was set to be a busy day. We got up in the morning, had a quick breakfast, repacked the car, and head out to Dulles Airport near Washington, DC. My wife would be leaving for a conference in Chicago, and her week on tour would come to a close. It was pretty great having her along for the first week. We were invited to have lunch with a former family at my wife's school. The family had relocated to the DC area, and we went to a Japanese restaurant. It was delicious.

I dropped my wife off at the airport, and then had some time to kill. I headed out to Alexandria, VA, where I would be staying the next couple of nights. I unpacked my car, and put food from my cooler in the fridge. I didn't have too long to unwind there, as I would be performing in Fredericksburg, VA that evening. So I did a bit of backtracking to go there for the evening's show.

I met up with one of the other performers for dinner at the venue, a couple hours before the start of the show. After eating, I posted the first Tour Blog for this current tour. Then it was time for the show to begin. I have not been playing in Fredericksburg long, and am still figuring out the venues there. The venue I have been playing at gives a demonstration of one of live music's paradoxes: Oftentimes, higher attendance at shows results in fewer people paying attention. The last time I performed, attendance was rather slim, but I mentioned to sell several cds. This evening's show was well-attended, but I didn't sell any cds to anyone in the audience, and it was a pretty loud environment. Not the best thing for live music, unfortunately.

The following 4 nights of the tour would bring back to back to back to back Listening Room shows, and one of the better weekend(+)s of my entire touring career.

Tune in for the 4th blog to read about those 4 shows!

Jeff's First US Tour of 2011 – blog #2 (day 11)

Miles Driven - 1455 (approximately)
Average Speed - 48 mph
Miles Per Gallon - 32

We left off in the wee hours of Sunday morning, the 20th of March. We arrived in Blacksburg, where I would be staying with a high school friend and his wife. We took them out for brunch on Sunday, and then went to Rita's for dessert. Rita's Italian Ice locations give out free regular ices on the first day of spring. This would be the second year in a row that we would partake of this magnificence while on tour.

We would watch the Penguins lose to the Rangers that afternoon. The Penguins are doing remarkably well this season, given the myriad of injuries that have befallen them. They are threatening to win the top seed in the Eastern Conference, with just about 5 or 6 games left in the regular season.

On Sunday night, I performed at The Cellar. Sunday nights at this place are an enigma. A couple shows there have been good, but some of them have been scanty in the attendance department. This night was unfortunately of the latter ilk. But every time I play there, there are at least a couple people who are really into the music. This was no exception. A couple was there to listen, and even came back to my show a couple nights later. At least there was that... but this has been the worst show of the tour so far. Sometimes Sundays aren't the best. But here's a cool pic:

On Monday, I was a bit wary of the gig that I would be doing. I used to perform at Starbucks locations pretty regularly back in the day. Many locations used to pay performers, and it was actually a pretty decent venue for live music. Ever since I started touring on a regular basis, both of those aspects started changing. Paying locations dropped, and it was very hard to tell if anyone was paying attention. I would still sell cds, but it always took me by surprise because no one would applaud after the songs. The lack of response is one of the worst things a performer can experience. Thankfully, I seldom play in these types venues any more.

I was set to play at the Starbucks in Christiansburg, which is a stone's throw from Blacksburg. The manager was excited to have me play, and he used to live in Nashville. Unfortunately, the response was nearly typical of most Starbucks shows for that night's show. It started off with some decent applause after songs, but that tapered off, song by song, until there was none. But I could tell that people were paying attention, as several people tipped, and I sold 4 cds. It's just a weird thing to have the same people who weren't clapping be interested enough to buy an album or two. So it went well, and they fed us dinner, too, in the form of breakfast food (Starbucks sells breakfast sandwiches now). I was asked to come back for a shorter morning/lunch performance on that Wednesday, and since I wasn't doing anything else, figured I would give it another go.

On Tuesday night, I would perform at a hookah lounge near Virginia Tech, called She-Sha.

When we got inside, I immediately noticed that they had an 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System set up. They offered to move it for the show, but I liked it, so it stayed.

Tips and cd sales were rather slim, but the room was almost full of people who came out specifically because I was playing. So it was a good night emotionally, if not financially. The couple from The Cellar came out, as well as someone from the previous night's Starbucks show, and a VT student who saw me a year or so ago.

Wednesday the 23rd would be out last day in the Blacksburg area, and would be my first of several 2-show days. We went back to Starbucks around 10:30 am, to set up for an 11 am start. This time, I had a couple in the audience who had looked me up online, and came out to hear me. They had come the previous day (which I was originally scheduled for), and came back on Wednesday after the date was changed. I apologized to them, and assured them that it wasn't my fault. So it was good to have people on my side for the start of that gig. I believe there was some form of clapping after every song I played. I played for about an hour, and sold 6 cds. So it was definitely worth the return visit. We were also fed some breakfast sandwiches again, this time for lunch.

Laundry was done for the first time on Wednesday, and we had to sort clothes from the dryer and repack before heading out from Blacksburg. That evening, I performed in the small town of Forest, Virginia. It's near Lynchburg. There is a well-sized coffee shop out there called The Good Cherry. A student from the nearby Liberty University, named Todd Picht, opened up for me. He brought some folks out, and it was a nice, intimate show for about 10-15 people. I think a return to this venue in the near future is likely. I sold 6 cds. This tour has been going surprisingly well in the cd sale department. People always talk about cd sales plummeting, but they seem to be getting better for me (knock on wood). CDs have much better sound quality than mp3s (at least the standard ones available on iTunes, for example), they can include lyrics and liner notes, as well as other artwork, and they can be signed. They also can include a whole album's worth of material. The move to mp3s is largely killing the concept of the album, as artists are putting out singles more and more these days. It's like we're back in the early 1960's. Anyway, I am on pace to overwhelmingly beat my old record for cd sales in a single tour. Eat that, mp3s!

Jeff's First US Tour of 2011 – blog #1 (day 7)

Tonight's show is about to start, but I wanted to get a blog out for this tour, since it's almost been a full week.

Here you go.

Welcome to the new (well, old – actually the original) home of the Tour Blog! While I liked the features associated with the MySpace blog, I just don't use MySpace any more, and don't appreciate the new layout and look over there. I hope you find this site to be just as good of a home for the blog, if not a better one.

Miles Driven – 1075
Average Speed – 52 mph
Miles Per Gallon – 33


Things got started off in a town outside of Atlanta, Georgia, called Roswell. There, I would make my first visit to the Land of 1000 Hills Coffee House.

When this tour (which includes 30 shows over a period of 24 days, and might therefore include fewer blog entries) concludes, I will have played 11 shows at previously unvisited venues. That's a high percentage for someone who's been at it for a while in this geographical area. Hopefully it's a sign that I am reaching some new listeners, as well.

Back to Roswell... or Nashville, I guess. My wife is a teacher, and is currently on spring break, which has enabled her to be with me for the first week of this tour. That's pretty awesome. She taught for half of a day on Friday, and came home. We quickly ate lunch, finished packing the car, and hit the road early in the afternoon.

The venue I was playing to kick off the tour was not feeding us dinner, so we ate a bit on the drive south. We got there about a half hour before the start time. Upon arrival, I was told that the venue did not have a sound system. In my email communication with them, I was informed that they did have one, but it was apparently on loan to them or something, and they no longer had it. I had been looking forward to not having to set up my equipment after the long drive. Ah well... I was also informed that music, which was usually held indoors, would be outdoors on their patio that night, because the weather was unusually nice. So I needed my full PA, rather than my small amp.

Needless to say, the show did not start on time. But I had some people coming out to the show who had not yet arrived, and the manager at the coffee house didn't mind the late start, so it was probably for the best. The weather was pretty wonderful; I never would have guessed that my first outdoor show would be a night time one on March 18th. But it stayed nice out there on the patio, well past 10 pm. The turnout was pretty good, too, and I got to catch up with a few friends who have relocated to the area, and some fans who came out for the show.

I enjoyed my first visit to 1000 Hills, and am hoping to hit the Atlanta area a few more times this year. If you have some venue suggestions, or live in the area and would like to host a house concert, let me know!

My wife and I were rather hungry after the show, so we accidentally stopped at Taco Bell on the way to our hosts' home. I missed a turn on the GPS directions, and happened to turn around in a parking lot where a Taco Bell was. I usually make a point to have one Taco Bell meal on each tour, and it looks like we got that out of the way early on. We stayed with a former coworker of my wife's that night. The next day, they were having a yard sale. This is otherwise not worth reporting, except that it was the second time that I had experienced a yard sale while staying with a tour host. The first was several years ago, as my parents were selling my childhood memories at the house where I grew up in Pittsburgh, before they moved to a different house.

The Sunday before the tour began, I got a really bad pinched nerve in my back, near my left shoulder. I was concerned that it would make setting up and tearing down my equipment a painful effort. That pinched nerve is still present, though it doesn't cause nearly as much pain as it did at this time last week. However, on Friday night / Saturday morning, something happened while I was sleeping. I was using a rather thick pillow, and it probably would have worked well I slept on my side. But I usually sleep on my back, and apparently slept that way this time, as well. When I woke up, the right side of my neck hurt pretty bad. That issue is still pretty painful now, almost a week later. I don't have to set up my PA for the next few shows, and hope the pain subsides over those next few days.

Back to the shows. On Saturday, we would make the long drive from Canton, GA (north of Atlanta) to Lenoir, NC (northwest of Hickory). We did a similarly-long drive during last year's first tour, but I had forgotten just how long it was. We made it to the venue with ample time to spare, though. I played here last year, and had hoped to come back at some point in 2010, but the timing never worked out. The owners are great people, and fed us when we got there. They unexpectedly offered us some apple pie a la mode when we were done, too. It was delicious. Unexpected deliciousness.

A friend from the Pittsburgh area, who had moved to Hickory, came out to the show. We had a good chance to catch up before the show. Unfortunately, the show was low in attendance this time around. But there was some stand-up comic performing at the Civic Center nearby, which I think really limited the attendance. Lenoir is a small town, I believe we were told that its population is maybe 20,000. So any big event happening in town is likely to impact the attendance of other events. But a few other people came out, and it was still a good, intimate show.

This venue in Lenoir is in the middle of a battle to keep its doors open. To read about them and perhaps offer support, check out http://www.visiononmainstreet.com/press-media/press01.html



After that show, we made another decent drive, of about 3 hours, to Blacksburg, VA, where I would be staying and performing over the next 3+ days. It was nice not to have to drive 100s of miles each day over those few days. We'll pick up in Blacksburg to start the next blog entry.