This past tour ended with basically a 24 hour drive
home. We finished our show Saturday
night, tore down our gear, loaded it in the van, and hit the road. I’ve written in previous entries about my
feelings of driving overnight to get to places, so I won’t go into the whole
rant again. A lot of times we drive
overnight to get back home so that we can get home at a decent hour the
following day. But this time we were so
far from home that we drove overnight, all throughout the next day and halfway
through the next night just to not lose another day at home. It was a looooonnnnnnggggg drive. And we’re only home for a few days b/c we
have shows scheduled for this coming weekend, so it was extra important for us
to get back as quickly as possible to maximize our time at home before heading
back out for the weekend. Also, when
you’ve been out on tour for five straight weeks, you really want to get home
and back to your own bed and your family for a few days. I’m guessing Josh, with a new baby at home,
was more anxious than the rest of us combined to get back to his family. But this is all stuff from just a few days
ago; I haven’t written for over two weeks, so I need to back up and pick up
where I left off at the end of the last entry.
(I wrote this first paragraph while at home fully
expecting to have more time to continue and finish this entry while at home for
those few days. That didn’t happen; so
now I’m back in the van. It’s Friday
morning, and we’re heading toward Madison, WI for tonight’s show at Red Rock
Saloon. We’re actually getting ready to
pass through Chicago as I’m typing this.
We’ll see if I can get this all done today before we get to Madison.)
Okay, now to figure out where I left off a few weeks
ago. Oh yeah. Got it.
So, our last show was in Fargo, and we were scheduled to head southwest
from there to Colorado and New Mexico.
We left Tuesday morning of that week with plans to stay in Denver that
night, and then continue to southern CO for our show that Wednesday. It was a long boring drive from North Dakota
down to Denver. No need to go into any
detail about that. I got some reading
done, and probably watched a few movies that I’ve seen a hundred times. That is one of the down sides to traveling so
much: while I have a ton of movies at home, we travel so often that I’ve seen
them all way too many times. I know I’ve
seen Lonesome Dove at least 20 times
the past couple years; and Tombstone;
and Dazed And Confused. But from time to time Josh happens to procure
a new movie for us, so that helps. The
plus side of being in the van so much is that I have had the opportunity to
read a ton more books than I’ve ever imagined.
Right now I’m actually reading one called ‘The Bluegrass Conspiracy’
that Kevin let me borrow. There’s some pretty
intriguing stuff in this book. Anyway,
I’m off topic already (go figure). So,
we traveled all day that day to get to Denver, and made it that night at a
decent hour. When we pulled up to the
hotel though, there were cop cars in the parking lot and what looked like some
shady activity going on in one of the rooms.
How do we always find ourselves in the middle of stuff like this? Ha.
Turns out the people only paid for one night and were trying to get an
extra night free out of the hotel, so the cops were there to escort them
out. But still, you get that uneasy
feeling when you pull up to the place you’re supposed to feel comfortable
sleeping and there are police cars in the parking lot.
The next day we got up and went across the street to
the Village Inn for breakfast, because the Village Inn has ‘free pie
Wednesday’, and who doesn’t love a free slice of pie. Afterward, we had about a three hour drive
south to Walsenburg, CO for the show that night. Every time I say or write the name
Walsenburg, I can’t help but think ‘Heisenburg’. It must be because we were heading to
Albuquerque the next day. So, we made it
to town and found the venue. It was a
small bar in a small town on a Wednesday night.
There are two ways this night was going to go down: either it was going
to be dead and the night was going to be a bust; or it was going to be slammed
and a blast. Fortunately, it was the
latter. Here’s what I enjoy about small
towns (and I’m sure I’ve probably written about this before too): people in
smaller towns are craving live entertainment.
We can come into a small town on a Wednesday night and people will come
out and party because it will be better for them than whatever is going on that
weekend. It is worth it for them to be
tired at work the next day. That makes
for an easy night for us; they are already excited and looking to have a good
night. All we have to do is not
suck. And that’s the way the night went;
we did our thing, they showed up, enjoyed the music and partied with us. It was a really fun night. I hope we get to go back there this spring
when we head back down to the southwest.
On a side note: the people that we stayed with
cooked for us twice. A home cooked meal
beats a fast food burger any day of the week!
From there we headed down to Albuquerque and back to
the Dirty Bourbon Saloon. Spending three
days in Albuquerque in mid-September isn’t so bad. It was in the 80’s every day with no
clouds. Gotta love that. We played there Thursday through
Saturday. Thursday is supposed to be
there big night, because its ladies night or college night or something like
that. Maybe both. Anyway, it was slammed that night. On Friday, Jason Aldean was in town at the fair
(or something), so after his show let out a ton of people came over to our
show, so Friday was slammed too. Friday
was actually uncharacteristically busy for them; which is great for us. Then Saturday night was even more busy than
their used to as well. It turned out to
be a great weekend for us. We had huge
crowds the entire time. The cool thing
about this venue is that people are there to dance. There’s a huge dance floor, and people are
always on it. The negative thing for us
as a band trying to gain a fan base is also that they are there to dance. Sure we get our name out there and our music
to hundreds of people each night, but it seems like for the most part they are
more interested in finding a partner and dancing than they are in who the band
is or how they sound. I get it, they
have a lot of good bands come through there on a weekly basis. But one of the things we like is being able
to interact with our crowd, and that’s just not a big thing for the people
there. We gained a few fans throughout
the weekend, and hopefully as we go back more we will become more popular and
gain an even bigger following. Or maybe
I’ll have to get creative and figure out a way to get their attention and set
us apart from all the other good country acts that roll through there.
We left on Sunday heading back up north. We had a private event scheduled back up in
North Dakota the following weekend, so we needed to make our way back up
there. From Albuquerque back up there is
right around a 20 hour trip (without stops).
It’s fair to expect another 2 – 3 hours added on for food and bathroom
breaks on a trip that long. Basically it
is almost a complete 24 hour day long trip.
Secretly, I was hoping that we would break up the trip into two days so
we could get a good night’s rest, but I was outvoted on this one and we ended
up driving through the night to make it back up north. We saved money on hotel rooms that way, and
it was nice to actually get to our destination and not have to waste another
day in the van, but damn those all day and overnight drives are brutal.
We made it to the last week of our 5 week tour. With four more shows to go, we were all
looking forward to heading back to our homes for a couple days to
recharge.
We had two days off, and our work week started on
that Wednesday night in Beulah at the Nite Owl.
I like this place. It is yet
another small bar in a small town, but the people here are really appreciative
of what we do. They like our music,
dance at our show, and buy our merchandise.
I always enjoy getting to the show and seeing three or four people out
in the crowd wearing our shirts. We
hadn’t been there in a while, and people seemed anxious for us to get back
there, so we had a lot of people there that night and it turned out to be a fun
show.
Oh, funny story from that day. Well, I thought it was funny. There are not a lot of places to eat in
Beulah, so we always go to Jimmy’s Pizza when we’re there. I even made up a jingle about Jimmy’s
Pizza. We think it is hilarious, but it
is completely inappropriate so I won’t be printing the words here. Anyway, Josh and I walked up to Jimmy’s Pizza
to eat, and I knew that Steve would be ordering from there and having it
delivered. So after our dinner, I asked
the lady behind the counter if there were any orders for a guy named Steve
being delivered to the hotel where we were staying. She confirmed that there was, so I explained
that it was for a friend of ours, and asked if she’d be willing to put a note
in the package for me. I needed her to
write the note though so it would be female hand writing and hopefully be more
convincing. She was on board for the
gag, so we had her write a quick note that said something like “Hey big boy, I
can’t wait to see you at the show tonight; lets hang out afterward” then she
drew a heart at the bottom. Yes, I know
this is cheesy and childish and will never work, but I get bored and like to
mess with people. Josh and I waited all
night for Steve to mention the note or see if he was at least looking around
for some woman at the show; but he apparently knew it was us the whole
time. Foiled again. Oh well, it was entertainment for me for a
few minutes.
On Friday we played up at a place just a few miles
from the Canadian border. We had played
there once before, several years ago.
Actually, this is the place where I jumped in the river naked for
$100. No, that did not happen this
time! It was a completely different
place than when we had played there before though. A flood had wiped out everything around there
about 3 years ago, and it was under new ownership and they had completely
rebuilt everything. The noteworthy thing
here happened on the load in: Josh found a snake. I am not a snake person. I don’t want to see them, I don’t want to be
near them, I don’t want to hold them.
Nothing about snakes is appealing to me.
I don’t even want to go through the snake exhibit at the zoo. Musicians like to play jokes on each other,
but my guys know that if they ever pulled a prank on me that involved snakes
(fake or real), they will be fired immediately.
I get the mechanics of how a snake moves, but it still just freaks me
out that they can move that fast and efficiently without legs. I don’t mind spiders, lizards, anything else
with legs; but snakes slither, and that creeps me out. Anyway, Josh found a snake nearby in the
grass as we were loading in our equipment, and had to pick it up to show
everyone. The problem for me was that
when we was done, he just tossed it about 15 feet away. That’s not near far enough for me. I would have preferred he took it down the
road a mile or so. But no, he had to
keep it nearby where it could just slither its slimy little body back over to
where we were unloading. Needless to say
I had my eyes on the ground in front of me the rest of the time searching for
any movement as I walked along.
Well, that pretty much takes us back to the
beginning of this entry to the long overnight trip back home.
A few more things to discuss for this entry: First,
we were scheduled to go back out to Las Vegas for the Professional Bull Riders
World Finals toward the end of October.
I found out recently that those shows had been canceled. I don’t have an exact reason why we got
canceled though. I know the World Finals
are still going to take place, but a concrete reason was never provided to me
as to why we suddenly wouldn’t be playing there this year. We have done the gig three other times in the
past, and I feel we have done a really good job for them. Hell, we even provided the Sound system for
one of their stages last year; and another year before that. I don’t mind that a gig gets cancelled, it
would just be nice to know why; and to have more than a month’s notice on
something that big and that far away distance wise. I know the other guys were a little bummed
about it too. It is not so much about
losing the gig, but Vegas is a fun place to be for a week. There’s obviously a ton to do there, and we
had a lot of free time each day. Plus,
Steve had never been to the Grand Canyon, so we were planning a trip to see it
either on the way out to Vegas or on the return trip back. I guess if I’m looking for the silver lining
though, at least we don’t have to drive all the way out there. That is a long time sitting in the van (and
you know how I feel about that); plus we don’t have to spend the money on fuel
to get out there. Anyway, if some of you
bull riding fans out there were planning on seeing us out there again this
year, I’m sorry to say we won’t be there as previously planned. Okay, enough about that.
Let’s talk about our merchandise for a minute. This is the last weekend we will have the
Pink ‘Let’s Get Rowdy’ Women’s Shirt available.
After 3 years, we are discontinuing that product. So for all of you ladies out there that have
bought that shirt and wore it to shows over the past few years, we’d like to
thank you. Oh, and in three days that
shirt becomes vintage.
Also, we have officially sold out of our “Show a
Little Skin” Women’s Tank Tops. Assuming
there is a demand for them, we will bring them back later next spring; or maybe
even come up with some new tank top idea, who knows. Hell, maybe we should have our female fan
base vote on what they’d like us to come out with next year.
For now we have a few new products coming out
starting with our next tour. We have added
a new color to our ‘logo’ shirt: a really nice blue color. Also, to replace the discontinued ladies
shirt, we have added a female cut ‘logo’ shirt for the women too. I took a chance on the color for this one, so
I’m anxious for input from our female fan base.
I’m hoping it will be well received, but we’ll see.
A lot of people have been asking about hoodies and
long sleeves as well, so we’ve been looking into that for later this fall and
the winter season. We’ll see if we can
swing it or not. I actually did find a
company that would be able to keep the price point down for us. The problem I was having in the past was
keeping the cost of hoodies low enough to make them affordable for our fans. I didn’t feel comfortable charging $45 or $50
for a piece of merchandise. But with the
new price points I found earlier this week, we may be able to do hoodies at a
reasonable cost to everyone. So we’ll
see what happens later this fall.
Well, I feel like I’ve been pretty productive with
writing this entry in the van today. We
made it through Chicago and are almost to Rockford. Less than two hours to go to get to
Madison. Hopefully after set up I have
some time at the hotel to post this. If
not, then Saturday morning for sure. But
I’m shooting for this evening.
As always, I want to remind everyone about all of
the online avenues with which to keep up with us.
As always, we hope to see you at a show soon. And keep letting me know if you’re reading
this blog. It’s always nice when new
people come up and tell me they’re reading, and that they enjoy the
writing. Until next time, be safe out
there.
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