2011 Fall East Coast Tour - blog #6 (day 32)
Driving Stats:
Miles Driven - 3362
Average Speed - 42 mph
Miles Per Gallon - 32.5
We left off in the middle of my western PA portion of the tour, after an unusually nice Tuesday. Any touring performers out there know that Sundays, Mondays, and Tuesdays (and sometimes Wednesdays) can be particularly tricky days to book with good shows. This is no secret. I have lost count of the number of times that venue staff people have said to me (after apologizing for turnout on an off night) that I need to come play on a Friday or a Saturday. If only every day of the week was Friday or Saturday, this would be a simple thing to work out. As it is, there are seven days in each week, and because I do shows for a living, I need to be playing more than 2 shows a week. I also don't think that most of my hosts would appreciate me being in their home for an entire week! That being said, Tuesday was a wonderful exception, and the challenge for me is to find genuine music-centered events to schedule on the weekdays that I am on the road.
Wednesday was not as exceptional as Tuesday. I had two shows in Pittsburgh, both of which were more or less background music gigs. The first was at a bar/restaurant that hosts music several nights a week, and I have actually had some decent nights there, when I've gotten a core of fans out for the show. But that wasn't the case on this particular night. However, after finishing my first set, I was called over by a couple sitting fairly close to the stage area. One of these people, it turned out, works for an entertainment booking company in Pittsburgh, and I was asked about doing shows in the future when I was in town. It also turned out that this same person is the mom of a good high school friend of mine, which was pretty cool. They also bought a couple of CDs, and that...was...pretty...cool.
After my second set, I sat down to eat some dinner. If you've known me for a while, you probably know that I have a soft spot for Taco Bell. I usually eat pretty healthily, but I usually also indulge myself this guilty pleasure at least one time per tour. I did not go to Taco Bell for dinner after my set; however, the place I played had nachos on the menu, and I had a hankering, so I ordered them. They were easily the worst nachos I have ever had. The chips tasted bad, and the cheese (if, indeed, it should be called that) poured on them was ballpark cheese. No sour cream, no salsa, no guacamole, no tomato. I was sad.
The second gig of the night was at a bowling alley. This is almost always a really low-stress gig. I know people are bowling, after all, so I don't expect much. I'm asked to do two 30-minute sets during the evening, and I get half of the cover charge after the first 4 paying customers come through the door. So it's actually a pretty sweet gig. I say it's "almost always a really low-stress gig" because every time that I've played there, it's been smooth sailing, except for this time. People generally aren't paying attention, so they also don't heckle or ask for covers. But on this night... between two songs, someone came up and asked me if I knew "Werewolves of London", which is a song that I have an extreme dislike for. I said that I did not know it, and I think the girl asked me some other songs, and I told her that I do mostly original material, and that I probably wouldn't know most of the stuff that she asked me. She seemed okay with that. But after my first set was done, another girl came up and asked me if I knew any Bret Michaels songs. I laughed a little bit, and asked here if she meant the guy from Poison. I laughed for a couple of reasons: 1) I had never been asked to do a Bret Michaels or Poison song before, and 2) I thought it was kind of unusual from someone to request Bret Michaels (as opposed to Poison). Either way, this apparently offended the girl, and she began to interrogate me. She asked me what songs I knew, and I explained again that I do mostly original material, and not necessarily much Top 40 stuff. She then said, "Oh, so you don't do rock music?" I didn't know why she asked that at this point, or how to reply, so I asked her if she was listening during the first set (the night is called "Rock 'n Bowl", so I play my most rock-ish songs when I perform here). I told her that she would have to decide for herself if it was rock or not. Anyway, I wasn't trying to be confrontational, just matter-of-fact - I found her question to be strange, and I meant literally that if she was listening, then that should answer her question. But she took it as an insult. The situation was extremely awkward and uncomfortable. The "right" thing to do, I suppose, would have been to explain that I realize that I am playing at a bowling alley, and that most people aren't really paying attention to the music. With that introduction, and with that fact in mind, maybe I could have asked her if she was able to pay attention to any of the songs. But I feel like anything I said would have come across as an attack of some sort. I always try to be as short and to-the-point to avoid this very thing. When people ask if they can request a song, I tell them that if I know it, I will play it, but that I do mostly original music. Usually, people understand and maybe ask about 2 or 3 songs (or ask what artists I cover). If things go badly (and usually it involves alcohol consumption on the part of the request-asker), then I am bombarded with songs from a genre or genres that I don't have a liking for, and am basically told that I need to know certain songs. Anyway, I tried to apologize for the situation with this girl whose musical tastes were insulted, but she wouldn't have it, and proceeded to go over to her friends and tell them how big of a jerk I was. I was a little concerned that some of them would start heckling me during the second set, but fortunately that didn't happen. I got the feeling that her friends felt like she was overreacting. But it certainly made that gig an awkward, bad experience.
Anyway, here is the view from lane 13:
Thursday was a great day. I would return to The Underground on campus at Carnegie Mellon University. But before that, I would find out the gender of my expected child, via Skype! Crazy stuff, this technology. My wife and I are officially expecting a boy. And I refuse to say "baby boy" or "little boy", because that is silly and obvious. During this process of getting Skype set up and communicating with her, I also was on the phone with someone from a Charlottesville radio station about getting promo set up for a show coming up there this Friday. It turns out that the person I was trying to contact was only in on Thursdays, for tow hours, so if I missed him this day, it would basically be too late to be worth trying the following week. Long story short, things went well on the phone with the radio station, and nothing was interrupted with the ultrasound (I'm thinking of some witty uses for "ultrasound" in relation to my music, but I'll spare you). So it's apparently going to be a boy, and not a train or an alien.
I got on the road to CMU a little later than I planned to, but still in time to get set up and start on time. The crowd was better than during my first visit, and the whole show felt very good... it was one of the best shows of the tour, for sure. You should have been there. There were a couple of highlights. I played at my high school alma mater during my Spring Tour in March, and one of the students who saw me there is a freshman at CMU. He saw a poster for the show earlier that same day, and came out and sat right in the front row. He was excited, and I was excited that he was excited about the show. It was exciting. I should have gotten a picture with him.
Instead, I got this picture:
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
This is Josh, a student at CMU, who came late to the show, as I was eating a late dinner and talking to the booking person and a fan who made an hour drive out for the show (which was pretty awesome). We have the same phone. I had hitherto not met anyone else who uses this impressive machine. He was probably kind of confused when I got really excited at seeing his phone. Anyway, Thursday was a pretty good day.
On Friday, I had three shows. Three of them! But you will have to tune in (tomorrow?) to read about the only 3-show day of the Fall Tour, because I am about to go out to dinner with my Blacksburg, VA hosts.
Thank you, as always, for following along. I hope you are enjoying the ride.
Miles Driven - 3362
Average Speed - 42 mph
Miles Per Gallon - 32.5
We left off in the middle of my western PA portion of the tour, after an unusually nice Tuesday. Any touring performers out there know that Sundays, Mondays, and Tuesdays (and sometimes Wednesdays) can be particularly tricky days to book with good shows. This is no secret. I have lost count of the number of times that venue staff people have said to me (after apologizing for turnout on an off night) that I need to come play on a Friday or a Saturday. If only every day of the week was Friday or Saturday, this would be a simple thing to work out. As it is, there are seven days in each week, and because I do shows for a living, I need to be playing more than 2 shows a week. I also don't think that most of my hosts would appreciate me being in their home for an entire week! That being said, Tuesday was a wonderful exception, and the challenge for me is to find genuine music-centered events to schedule on the weekdays that I am on the road.
Wednesday was not as exceptional as Tuesday. I had two shows in Pittsburgh, both of which were more or less background music gigs. The first was at a bar/restaurant that hosts music several nights a week, and I have actually had some decent nights there, when I've gotten a core of fans out for the show. But that wasn't the case on this particular night. However, after finishing my first set, I was called over by a couple sitting fairly close to the stage area. One of these people, it turned out, works for an entertainment booking company in Pittsburgh, and I was asked about doing shows in the future when I was in town. It also turned out that this same person is the mom of a good high school friend of mine, which was pretty cool. They also bought a couple of CDs, and that...was...pretty...cool.
After my second set, I sat down to eat some dinner. If you've known me for a while, you probably know that I have a soft spot for Taco Bell. I usually eat pretty healthily, but I usually also indulge myself this guilty pleasure at least one time per tour. I did not go to Taco Bell for dinner after my set; however, the place I played had nachos on the menu, and I had a hankering, so I ordered them. They were easily the worst nachos I have ever had. The chips tasted bad, and the cheese (if, indeed, it should be called that) poured on them was ballpark cheese. No sour cream, no salsa, no guacamole, no tomato. I was sad.
The second gig of the night was at a bowling alley. This is almost always a really low-stress gig. I know people are bowling, after all, so I don't expect much. I'm asked to do two 30-minute sets during the evening, and I get half of the cover charge after the first 4 paying customers come through the door. So it's actually a pretty sweet gig. I say it's "almost always a really low-stress gig" because every time that I've played there, it's been smooth sailing, except for this time. People generally aren't paying attention, so they also don't heckle or ask for covers. But on this night... between two songs, someone came up and asked me if I knew "Werewolves of London", which is a song that I have an extreme dislike for. I said that I did not know it, and I think the girl asked me some other songs, and I told her that I do mostly original material, and that I probably wouldn't know most of the stuff that she asked me. She seemed okay with that. But after my first set was done, another girl came up and asked me if I knew any Bret Michaels songs. I laughed a little bit, and asked here if she meant the guy from Poison. I laughed for a couple of reasons: 1) I had never been asked to do a Bret Michaels or Poison song before, and 2) I thought it was kind of unusual from someone to request Bret Michaels (as opposed to Poison). Either way, this apparently offended the girl, and she began to interrogate me. She asked me what songs I knew, and I explained again that I do mostly original material, and not necessarily much Top 40 stuff. She then said, "Oh, so you don't do rock music?" I didn't know why she asked that at this point, or how to reply, so I asked her if she was listening during the first set (the night is called "Rock 'n Bowl", so I play my most rock-ish songs when I perform here). I told her that she would have to decide for herself if it was rock or not. Anyway, I wasn't trying to be confrontational, just matter-of-fact - I found her question to be strange, and I meant literally that if she was listening, then that should answer her question. But she took it as an insult. The situation was extremely awkward and uncomfortable. The "right" thing to do, I suppose, would have been to explain that I realize that I am playing at a bowling alley, and that most people aren't really paying attention to the music. With that introduction, and with that fact in mind, maybe I could have asked her if she was able to pay attention to any of the songs. But I feel like anything I said would have come across as an attack of some sort. I always try to be as short and to-the-point to avoid this very thing. When people ask if they can request a song, I tell them that if I know it, I will play it, but that I do mostly original music. Usually, people understand and maybe ask about 2 or 3 songs (or ask what artists I cover). If things go badly (and usually it involves alcohol consumption on the part of the request-asker), then I am bombarded with songs from a genre or genres that I don't have a liking for, and am basically told that I need to know certain songs. Anyway, I tried to apologize for the situation with this girl whose musical tastes were insulted, but she wouldn't have it, and proceeded to go over to her friends and tell them how big of a jerk I was. I was a little concerned that some of them would start heckling me during the second set, but fortunately that didn't happen. I got the feeling that her friends felt like she was overreacting. But it certainly made that gig an awkward, bad experience.
Anyway, here is the view from lane 13:
Thursday was a great day. I would return to The Underground on campus at Carnegie Mellon University. But before that, I would find out the gender of my expected child, via Skype! Crazy stuff, this technology. My wife and I are officially expecting a boy. And I refuse to say "baby boy" or "little boy", because that is silly and obvious. During this process of getting Skype set up and communicating with her, I also was on the phone with someone from a Charlottesville radio station about getting promo set up for a show coming up there this Friday. It turns out that the person I was trying to contact was only in on Thursdays, for tow hours, so if I missed him this day, it would basically be too late to be worth trying the following week. Long story short, things went well on the phone with the radio station, and nothing was interrupted with the ultrasound (I'm thinking of some witty uses for "ultrasound" in relation to my music, but I'll spare you). So it's apparently going to be a boy, and not a train or an alien.
I got on the road to CMU a little later than I planned to, but still in time to get set up and start on time. The crowd was better than during my first visit, and the whole show felt very good... it was one of the best shows of the tour, for sure. You should have been there. There were a couple of highlights. I played at my high school alma mater during my Spring Tour in March, and one of the students who saw me there is a freshman at CMU. He saw a poster for the show earlier that same day, and came out and sat right in the front row. He was excited, and I was excited that he was excited about the show. It was exciting. I should have gotten a picture with him.
Instead, I got this picture:
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
This is Josh, a student at CMU, who came late to the show, as I was eating a late dinner and talking to the booking person and a fan who made an hour drive out for the show (which was pretty awesome). We have the same phone. I had hitherto not met anyone else who uses this impressive machine. He was probably kind of confused when I got really excited at seeing his phone. Anyway, Thursday was a pretty good day.
On Friday, I had three shows. Three of them! But you will have to tune in (tomorrow?) to read about the only 3-show day of the Fall Tour, because I am about to go out to dinner with my Blacksburg, VA hosts.
Thank you, as always, for following along. I hope you are enjoying the ride.
posted by Jeff Miller at 6:33 PM
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