Business; and other mundane things

So, for those of you who follow this ‘journal entry’ thing (and there seems to be a growing number of you out there), you’ve no doubt noticed that I continue to be erratic with coming out with new entries.  I keep saying that I have been so swamped with business stuff, etc. and have not had as much time as I’d like to write, which is absolutely true.  I know saying ‘swamped with business stuff’ is very vague and evasive, and while I don’t want to discuss all the ‘business’ things we are working on right now, I will mention one change that we have made, in an attempt to give everyone a little better insight as to what we’ve been up to.  Over the past several months we have made a conscious effort to run this band more like a business, in order to become more effective at meeting our goals and reaching the level of success we have been seeking out.  We have become much more serious about looking internally to see what is best for us and our careers, and trying to take steps to ensure that we will continue to move forward with our music and band.  Over the next several months we will probably continue to make drastic changes that we deem appropriate for our success, as long as we feel that they won’t change what you (as our fan base) have come to like and enjoy about us.  That being said, one change that we have already made is that we have parted with our former booking agency and have partnered with a different agency.  Our reasons for doing so were completely related to the growth and success of our business, and what we as a group thought would give us a better chance to move forward with our careers.  I don’t really wish to discuss in depth our business decisions, nor do I feel that this blog is the forum for doing that either.  I wanted to tell you about this change only to let you know that while we have switched to a new agency, we still want to (and intend to) continue to come back to those market areas where we have a solid fan base.  Two of our main goals are (1) to expand our fan base and (2) keep our existing fans.  We felt that this change enabled us to do that.  I guess the point I’m trying to make is that while we are trying to grow and spread our music to much more people, we have also made it a priority to make sure we keep getting back to the places we have been over the past several years where we have a solid following.   I just wanted people to know that we will not be abandoning those towns and places that have been good to us over the years.  We want to continue to see you in the crowd; we hope you continue to want to see us on stage!  And hopefully I’ve explained a little bit better about why I’ve been so busy and haven’t had as much time to write over the past several weeks; making these necessary changes has taken a lot of my time and energy, and causes a lot of stress.  This whole moving forward stuff is a lot of work.  Ha.

For some reason I have been on a food discussion kick lately on here.  Let’s continue that.  We stopped for lunch at Five Guys the other day (in case you don’t have one near you and don’t know what it is, Five Guys is a burger chain).  As far as chain burger joints go, Five Guys is definitely my favorite.  I’m sure it is because of all the grease, but wow, it is so delicious.  I’m sure pretty much everyone who has been there will agree.  Anyway, that’s not the point.  As I was devouring this scrumptious meal, and thinking about how much I enjoy Five Guys, I started thinking about my favorite burgers out there.  By this point we’ve been to a ton of burger places all over the country.  While we’re all sick of McDizzle and BK and Wendy's, sometimes we find a non-chain restaurant with great burgers.  So I was thinking about my favorite (non-chain) burgers out there.  I came up with my top two.  I should note that this is my top two ‘so far’, because I’m sure I will continue my search for great burgers out there. 

Number 2 (the Runner Up): The Cashew Burger at the Anchor Bar in Superior, WI.  I might have mentioned this before, I can’t recall.  This burger is a must if you’re within a hundred miles.  I tried to make these at home on the grill once.  I was nowhere close.  Ooh, I just remembered that we’re going to be near there this week.  I might have to make a stop in for another Cashew Burger. 

Number 1 (The Grand Champion): The ‘GCB’ at Marvin’s in Greencastle, IN.  For personal and unnamed reasons, this will always be my favorite burger out there.  No other options stand a chance against the GCB.  Oh, GCB stands for Garlic Cheese Burger.  Taking a bite of this burger is like ultimate happiness in your mouth (I just read that back to myself and realized how bad that could have sounded; keep the sexual jokes to yourself here).  This burger is so good that other places have tried to replicate it.  I know there is a place in Chicago that has a ‘gcb’ on their menu.  Not the same though.   Not even close in my opinion. 

Wow, I just realized I spent the past 10 minutes writing about burgers.  This blog is going downhill… I need to come up with better material.  Also, I’m now hungry from thinking about burgers. 

A few weeks ago we played a daytime festival in Park Rapids, MN, and got to perform with a local band.  They were all teenagers, just getting started with their music career, and already playing full sets on stages all over the place (much further along than I was at their age for sure).  We were able to catch some of their show, and they saw ours as well.  We were able to hang out with them some after the show as well.  I walked away from that day hoping that we (as the older veteran band that has been out here doing this thing for a long time now) were able to impart a little knowledge for them that has come with all this experience.  I remember sitting there thinking how much fun it would have been for me when I was first starting out to be able to hang with older guys that had been doing what I wanted to do.  I’m hoping that those guys were able to pick up on some things we did that could help them as they grow as musicians and as a band.  I’m hoping that we came off as professional and courteous.  We always feel that it’s important to help younger and less experienced musicians, or at least be there if they have any questions or can gain any knowledge from our experiences.  I guess what I’m hoping is that doing a show and hanging with us was a positive experience for them.  That maybe in some small way it helped keep them on their musical path.  I don’t know, I’m rambling a bit now; but those kinds of things are important to me. 

Oh, so I saw a couple funny t-shirts at our shows lately worth mentioning.  One was the infamous ‘tuxedo t-shirt’.  These are hilarious in theory, but then you’re stuck wearing a tuxedo t-shirt all night.  I had to call the guy out for wearing it though; I just couldn’t resist.  I almost gave him one of our band shirts so he wouldn’t have to be the guy wearing a tuxedo t-shirt for the rest of the night.  But no way; if you’re going to leave the house wearing it, you get to suffer the consequences.  Ha.  The other shirt we saw said this: “The liver is evil, it deserves to be punished”.  I don’t think I even need to say anything about that.  The shirt speaks for itself.  What was funny was that the guy wearing it was in his 50’s or 60’s.  Well, that either made it funny or sad; but I laughed when I saw it, so let’s go with funny.  We were on stage when I saw it, so I turned around b/c I was laughing.  I noticed that Steve was laughing too; we had both noticed the shirt at the same time.  It’s amazing the stuff we see from the stage.  Like I continue to say, I have the best seat in the house.  We see it all from up there: the people making out in the corner, the guy getting turned down when he goes out on a limb and asks a girl to dance, everything.  I’m also getting pretty good at reading lips too; which makes what we see even more entertaining.  But I think that should be a different ‘entry’ entirely. 

I’ve probably said this before, but I really enjoy when someone comes up to me and says how much they enjoy reading my blog and how they look forward to it coming out.  I continue to hear that more and more as we travel around.  I would have never thought that people would be so interested in what we’re doing, or what goes on in my mind.  So please keep telling me if you are enjoying the posts so I’ll be motivated to keep writing. 

Okay, I realize that I’ve just spent most of this time writing about burgers and t-shirts.  Wow, I really need to get back to writing about stuff that you all will find interesting.  Otherwise people will stop reading and I’ll have no one to write to.  I am writing today b/c we have the day off and aren’t traveling anywhere so I can finally just sit down and type, but I’m apparently off my game and not coming up with interesting things today.  I should just stop here and cut my losses for this week’s entry.  I’ll have to take some time to come up with much more interesting things for you all next time instead of burgers and t-shirts. 

That will be my goal for this week: come up with better stuff to discuss.  That and actually writing another entry next week instead of making you wait two or three weeks like I have been. 

So I guess that’s about it for this one.  Make sure you check out all of our online tools to keep up with everything we have going on.  We have several new venues and new towns we’re heading to soon, so keep checking our schedule to see if we’ll be close by in the near future. 

www.themichaeldband.com

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Be safe out there.  And check back for another post soon!