on the road

Hello World!

Well, to go along with the website I figured I would get a music blog going. It has been a few years since any attempt at blogging you will have to bear with me a bit as I get settled in.

Since I got back into the music biz and have ended up working with several different projects, I have found myself out on the road “touring” quite a bit since last Fall. The vast majority of this traveling has been done with Matt Townsend and the Wonder of the World (www.matttownsendmusic.com). While to most people the mention of “touring” with a band brings to mind posh tour buses, swanky hotel rooms, long sound checks and big shows to packed houses in major cities, let me tell you for the independent band this is about as far from reality as you can get. We are just a 3 guys, jammed in a van (albeit a nice Sprinter van) with a bunch of gear traveling from small venue to small venue hoping to make enough to pay for fuel and food…. and maybe have some spare change left over to take home.

That being said, I guess we need to change the word “tour” to simply “being on the road”. This phrase brings up a much more realistic picture of what we are doing. Being on the road makes you think of trying to find clean bathrooms at truck stops, sleeping on couches at generous friends houses or apartments (I usually sleep in the van when I can ) or, at times ALL of us sleeping in the van in a Walmart parking lot…. yup that is what we are doing. In general it is not a bad way to get around and play music every night, although I think we could all use access to a shower more often.

I usually have plenty of time during the day to keep up with my work, but there are a couple other drawbacks. One is the lack of time and space to practice. You would think that with playing every night a musician would have plenty of playing time, but this is also far from the truth. Often our set is 60 minutes or less. At best we might have 2 hours to play and only a few minutes for a sound check. Sure I can bast our rudiments on a practice pad in the van from time to time, but one can only annoy the band mates so long and access to a kit to play is non existent other than on stage at the venues. Another bit drawback for me is time and place to exercise. As an endurance athlete my body thrives on regular running or cycling and while getting out to run once in a while is possible it is usually very inconvenient. On a few occasions we have stayed in places with access to a nice park with trails…. which for me has been a lifesaver. Give me some nice trails and a couple hours and I am a happy camper.

Then there is the nutrition part of life. When I used to travel a lot for bike racing nutrition was right at the top of the priority list. While out on the road with the band it is right at the bottom. I have already been caught out thinking “sure there will be time between load in and the show” to grab some decent food. On most of these occasions I was so completely wrong that I ended up eating pop tarts for dinner in the van. I am learning though and one of the lessons is to assume there will be no spare time and to bring more healthy snacks !

Don’t get me wrong, these trips have in general been great experiences and I look forward to many more in the future no matter where I end up… I just hope the big tour bus and swanky hotel rooms are in the cards for me at some point as well

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3/13/2015