Archive for July, 2009

This turned out to be one of the most up and down days of my life. On July 1st my band Achalachia had a show at the Fubar for the Jupiter Studios Battle of the Bands, and it should have been a: show up, do my job and go home thing, but it turned out to be a wild rollercoaster ride of ups and downs.

Let me start by saying, to play this show we had to sell 15 tickets as a band, so I personally only had to sell 5 tickets at $8 a piece. Doesn’t sound like a hard task, but it turned out to be more difficult that I ever imagined. In fact, it was about as hard for me as it is for Obama to keep his campaign promises (sorry, couldn’t help myself).

OH, did I tell you that I have no AC in my car that has over 200,000 miles on it, so it’s extremely hot driving around St. Louis in 104 degree weather, and I always have the fear that it will blowup anytime. But never fear, there is a “Cash for Clunkers” program coming in July that I was planning on taking advantage of to get a new car. As far as I can tell, it has to be a running car that you’ve owned for at least a year, with under 17 miles per gallon.

My story begins with my real job graciously letting me leave a little early so I can get a few things done for the show. So my first trip for the evening is home, to change cloths and pack up my gear. Quick, easy, and to the point.

Next stop, I thought I could pick up some Starbucks coffee for the wife and bring it to her at work. What a nice guy I am. But let me say, Fenton drivers during the day are horrible! I normally don’t have the privilege of driving around during the working hours, but my lord, they are horrible. They stop when they should go, then they run red lights. Drive slow in the fast lane, but pass you on the right if not the on the shoulder. OK, enough crying about other drivers, on with the story.

I get to Starbucks and go through the drive thru, and patiently wait my turn. No one is behind me so I don’t feel rushed when trying to make up my mind and speak the Starbucks language.  I order my drinks and pull up to the window, and the cute little girl working there tells me that the car in front of me paid for my drinks!

“What?!?” I say.

“Yeah, he does that sometimes, even if the bill is like $20 or something”

“Wow! Well tell him thank you next time he comes through.”

And off I go with my two free Starbucks coffees. I drop one off with the wife and off I go, downtown to Jupiter Studios. My goal is to meet my drummer there so we can turn in the unsold tickets and give away all of our hard earned money.

On the drive down there I call everyone that said they might go to the show, and everyone that has ever gone to a show in the past.  Of course they all know there is a show going on, I’ve been posting about it on Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and Achalachia.com for weeks, so of course they don’t answer their phones or call me back. God forbid someone pay $8 to support their friend. But what can you do, if they don’t want to go then they don’t have to go, just don’t blow a tire and have me be the only one available.

I finally get down town and have 3 tickets confirmed, everyone else that said they would go didn’t answer. We successfully turn in the tickets and head to the Fubar (where the show is at) right down the street.

Jupiter Studios required that we have the tickets turned in by 4pm the night of the show, but load in time for the show wasn’t until 6, so what do two guys with nothing but time to kill do, eat.

Right around the corner from the Fubar is a place called The U, so we thought we would check it out. Walking in the place looked great and the people were nice. I asked them what was good, and they rattled of a laundry list of all the great food they offer, so I decided upon the hot wings. And I will say, they were some of the best wings I’ve had in a VERY long time. Not too hot, but great flavor. My drummer had the Phili, and he also thought it was great as well.

We left The U and still had an hour to kill before the Fubar opened their doors to the bands to load our stuff, again, what are two guys in downtown St. Louis to do? Find a coffee house of course!

Off we went to the London Tea Room, located next CPI Corp, my old place of employment.  It’s a great little coffee/tea house inbetween 16th and 17th street and Washington. I really wasn’t in the mood for anything at the time, I just had Starbucks, but my drummer got a double shot something or other.  And off we went back to Fubar.  I parked on the side of the building so I wouldn’t have to pay the parking meter.

And then we waited.

Fubar finally opened the doors for the bands around 6:30 or so and we began the load in process.  It took all of 20 minutes, and during that time we got to meet the other bands, The Phranklyn Project and Almost Modest. Both good bands and if you get a chance to see them sometime, do it. Support Local Music!

Originally there were six bands on the bill, but apparently three of the dropped off. Why, who knows, but ultimately it screwed up our 30 minute set. Because of the drop outs, the start time of the show was pushed back to 8:30 and our set was extended to 45 minutes. So now we had to decide what other songs we were going to do.

We made our new set list and did our sound check, and waited, again. But at least this time we had beer.

The show finally started, and we rocked Fubar.  IMHO we played one of our best shows, with a phenomenal set list.  We even covered Nirvana’s Sappy. But you can read more about that on Achalachia.com.

The show was a Battle of the Bands, and the judging was based upon the crowd noise made after your set.  We only had, maybe, 25 people there to see us, but the crowd went crazy when we were finished. They seemed to really enjoy what we did. And for a while there I thought we might actually win this thing. But sadly we didn’t, the other band were good, not as good as us, and they brought a lot of friends. Ultimately, in a Battle, the vote really comes down to a popularity contest. But I am pleased with the way we performed and with the crowd reaction to us.

At the end of the show, I packed up my stuff and took it to my car. But alas, my car got broken into. Some jackass threw a rock through my passenger side window, rifled through my things and ran off. Luckily I don’t keep anything of value in my car, but I did have my acoustic guitar in the back seat, they didn’t want it. They did get a half carton of cigarettes, bummer.

I called the police and filed a report, it’s all done over the phone now, so I didn’t even have to wait around by my car very long. While on the phone, I brushed off my seat (everything was covered in glass), removed the rock from the driver side floor and started my sad trek home.

The next day I called around and found that the cheapest way I could get my car window fixed was with Safelite AutoGlass. This is not meant to be a plug for them, but they were fast, cheep, and friendly. I called in the morning, they were about to get me in at 2:30 that afternoon and I had a new window by 3:15. They also vacuumed out all the broken glass that was scattered through out my car. Now if they could only get the shards of glass out of my ass from sitting in it.

All in all, weighing both the good and bad, the experience was a good one. I got to hang out with a good buddy of mine (the drummer) for most of the day, I played a rock show and we were awesome, and even though my car was broken into, nothing important was taken and no one was hurt.

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