Down To Albuquerque

It happened again: another wreck on the highway that we were the first to come upon.  I will get to that story in just a bit though.  I think I’ll start this ‘journal entry’ like last weeks, just going through each day and discussing the interesting things that happened.  Then maybe branch out from there about other things. 

We had a few days off before we had to be in Albuquerque, which was good because we were pretty far away, and it was going to take a while to get there.  We had to be down there by Thursday afternoon to set up for Thursday night’s show, so we left early Wednesday morning, planning on driving all day Wednesday and part of the day on Thursday to get from Bismarck, ND to Albuquerque, NM. 

So, at 8am Wednesday morning, we piled in the van and headed south.  I mention the 8am only to illustrate that we knew it was going to be a long drive – that might not be early for most people, but to us that’s ridiculously early.  From ND we drove south into South Dakota, south further into Nebraska, then west into Colorado, and south some more into New Mexico.  We’ve had longer drives before, but for some reason this one was just about the worst for me.  I was bored before we even reached the South Dakota border, and it just got worse from there.  I don’t know why; usually I’m cool with sitting in the van all day reading, but for some reason on this trip I got extremely antsy.  We couldn’t get there fast enough for me.  We would stop for a meal or fuel, and I was jumping out of the van before it came to a stop.  Well, enough about my inability to sit still.  I assumed that the GPS would take us to Denver and then south on I-25 all the way into New Mexico, but it diverted us to some state highway most of the way through Colorado.  While I appreciate cutting off any distance and getting us to our destination as quickly as possible, this particular back road at night might not have been the best option.  For one thing, the wind was blowing pretty hard, and at times it looked like tumbleweeds were racing each other down the road; which was actually kind of funny for a while.  But then (of course) the wind picked up the dirt to the point where we could barely see the road; not only was it dark out, but we were driving through a dirt storm, on a two lane state highway out in the middle of nowhere.  Could it get worse?  Wait, don’t answer that; I don’t want to think about it getting worse.  

So anyway, the GPS finally spit us out onto I-25 down near the southern border of Colorado.  We crossed into New Mexico and finally stopped for the night in Las Vegas (the little town in northern NM, not the one with all the casinos in Nevada).  To recap day one of our driving: we drove 18 hours from North Dakota to New Mexico.  Oh yeah, and Kevin drove the entire time.  I had never seen anything like it before.  His stamina with driving long distances is incredible, but 18 hours was just wild.  He didn’t even seem that tired either.  He will always let us know when he is wearing down and will let someone else drive, but he just never got tired on that drive.  It was incredible. 

Since we drove so far and for so long on the first day, we were only 2 hours from Albuquerque.  Being so close turned out to be extremely nice for us; we got to sleep in and only had to be in the van a few hours. 

Wow, that was kind of a long description for just riding in a van all day.  Let me speed things up a bit here: we got to Albuquerque Thursday afternoon and went straight to the club to set up for that night’s show.  Thursday night was insane.  I wasn’t really expecting a large crowd, and was blown away by how many people were in the club seeing us play that night.  I posted a picture on FACEBOOK and TWITTER showing the crowd.  I have never tried posting a photo on this blog.  Let me see if I can do that here right now: 

(Wow, I think that actually worked.  That's the first time I've posted a picture on here.  I'm going to have to do a few more throughout this post).  

It was ladies night, which apparently is a big deal in Albuquerque, because the place was slammed all night long.   It was a great surprise for us, and quite the welcome back to the Dirty Bourbon Saloon.  It felt great to be on stage with so many people in the crowd. 

Friday night we were scheduled to share the stage with Bri Bagwell, so after Thursday night’s show we had to clear the stage to make room for their set up.  After they came in and set up all their gear, we came back in on Friday afternoon and set up all our stuff for our show that evening.  I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before, but I really enjoy doing shows with other bands.  If I could have it my way, we’d do this every night.  For one thing, it gives the crowd a variety, which I’m sure they like.  But it also gives us an opportunity to check out other musicians and hear their music, as well as a chance to network while out on the road.  Plus, it means we have a shorter show and thus are able to showcase more of our original music, which of course I love!  It was nice getting to watch her show after we were finished performing for the night.  Good dirt road band; and cool guys too.  We really enjoy just getting to hang out with other musicians from time to time. 

Saturday we were back on our own, so yet again we had to come back in and set our stuff up.  We had another great crowd Saturday night as well.  It ended up being three great nights for us.  I love playing large clubs like that, especially in parts of the country that we don’t have the opportunity to get to very often (it had been over a year since we had played there – far too long for us): the exposure for us to new potential fans in a new market is great – there are so many new people that we can turn on to our music.  The problem for us is that we don’t really have the chance to interact with them like we do at some smaller venues.  But that’s the trade-off: more people in the crowd – less interaction.  For venues like that we really at least need a merch person, so that if people in the crowd like our music and want to buy an album, they would have access to that while we were on stage.  Actually, it would be really nice to have someone selling our merchandise at every show.  Hopefully someday soon.  When that day comes, I’ll title that week’s journal entry “Finally got a Merch Guy!”  You won’t even have to read the post; the entire entry will be about how excited I am to have the extra help at our shows. 

Anyway, our three nights at the Dirty Bourbon in Albuquerque were great.  We all agree that we hope to get back there more and more and start building a fan base down in that area.  Oh, I almost forgot: for all you ‘Breaking Bad’ fans out there – Steve and Josh found the house where Heisenberg lived. 

We left Albuquerque on Sunday and headed back north through Colorado and ended up staying Sunday night in Cheyenne, WY.  When we were about an hour away from Wyoming, we heard that the Interstate between Laramie and Cheyenne was closed due to bad weather.  Apparently a snow storm had gone through.  (My thought – it is late April; of course a damn snow storm is going through where we are trying to go).  But we made it without coming upon any bad weather and found a hotel for the night. 

Okay, now to the wreck on the highway.  This is a good one.  We left Cheyenne early Monday morning to get into Nebraska, where we’re playing Wednesday and Thursday of this week.  We were driving along I-80 (just outside of Sidney, NE) when a semi-truck passed us, and Kevin made the comment “that truck is going to tip over”; to which I thought (but didn’t say) ‘yeah right, that’s just stupid’.  Less than 2 minutes later Kevin shouts “holy shit” – we all look out the front window to see that exact semi rolling on its side.  The wind was blowing across the interstate so hard that it literally blew the semi over.  As crazy as it was, at least no other cars were beside it or right behind it, and it was just the semi involved in the crash.  Of course we were the closest vehicle behind the semi, so we pulled over and Josh, Kevin and I jumped out and ran up to the wreck to see if we could help the driver.  A few other people joined us to help the driver as well.  He was okay, not really injured at all, which was great; we just needed to find a way to get him out of the cab of the truck.  We ended up busting the front windshield out and he climbed out of that on his own.  If I were the truck driver, I would have been in shock after just being blown over on my side in a semi, but he actually seemed to be very coherent and in control.  He even went back into the cab to see if he could find his lighter.  At that point we thought he seemed to be okay.  The police had been contacted and he wasn’t hurt, so soon after that we got back in the van and continued on down the road heading to our destination. 

Here are a few more pictures:

So, that was basically our week.  This week we are in Chadron, NE on Wednesday and Thursday, and then off to Craig, CO for the weekend.  We haven’t been to Craig, CO since playing a festival out there last summer, so we are all excited and looking forward to heading back there this weekend.  Now on to a few random things that I find interesting or important to share:

1.       1. We posted a new video this week for our song “Back In Town”.  Josh has been compiling video footage the past several months, and he and I worked together to sort through it all and put together some of the footage for the video.  I really enjoy making videos like this one; looking through all the footage, finding useable stuff, putting it all together in clips, setting it to the music.  We also enjoy making fun of ourselves a little bit in the videos.  If you’ve seen this one (or several of the past ones too), you know what I mean.  It’s just a little bit of our personality coming through.  We also realize that they aren’t the most professional or most polished videos, but I think they’re something fun for our fans out there to see, so they get an idea of what we’ve been up to out on the road. Here is the video for those of you who haven't seen it:

2.       2. To get the video out there for as many people to see as possible, we created an ‘event’ on FACEBOOK that was basically: hey we have a new video; here is the link; go check it out.  The frustrating thing about doing it this way is that to invite everyone, you have to manually go in and click on each person; that is a couple thousand people’s profile to click on – it takes a couple of hours to do.  It is just mind numbing to sit there through the entire process.  You know, if I had a Merch Guy I’d have him do it for me!  But for us, that is a great way to get people on FACEBOOK to see our new video, so I take the time to do it.   Here is what I don’t understand though: when we create an ‘event’ and invite all those people, we are basically just asking them to click on the link to check out the new video.  There is no physical thing to go to, just click the link and watch the video.  I appreciate when people will also click that they are ‘going’ to the event, hopefully meaning that they are all watching the video.  But what puzzles me is when, for something like this, people will click ‘maybe’.  Are they maybe going to watch the video?  And if they’re not going to watch it, why take the time to click ‘maybe’?  Maybe they’re just being comedic, who knows.  I actually do chuckle when I see that people are ‘maybe’ going to one of our events like this.   Either way, I hope they all do eventually watch the video; we make it for our fans, so hopefully they’re watching it and enjoying.  Speaking of, I do appreciate all the comments left by people saying that they do enjoy the video we made.  It helps us to know that what we’re doing is entertaining to people out there; so if you saw it and liked what you saw, let us know.

 

3.       3. I wanted to share a comment that someone left on a recent blog post that really meant a lot to me.  The comment was: “so far I really love the song Friends Like These. its a very candid open piece that is written and performed in the same voice as these entries. very honest.”  If you know me, you know how much I enjoy reading a comment like this.  I work really hard to lay it all out there and be completely open with my art, whether it be in song or even just these writings.  I have written before about how that song was the most open and honest I have ever been in my song writing before, and how it is probably my favorite piece of work to date.  It is so fulfilling to receive a comment like that; knowing that someone gets and appreciates what I am trying to do.  It makes it worth it to know that there are people out there enjoying the work I’m doing. 

Well, I have rambled on enough for this week.  Like I always do at the end of each post, I’d like to take a moment to promote our band and music.  Check out our website at www.themichaeldband.com.  We have several new dates posted, and even more coming soon.  If you don’t have our latest album “Back In Town” yet, go to I-TUNES right now and download all the songs.  Then EMAIL me and tell me what you think.  Lastly, if you haven’t already, go ‘like’ us on FACEBOOK and ‘follow’ us on TWITTER. 

Be safe out there.