Road Rash

It seems natural to follow up my last blog with a reflection on the ARL band's little "Tour of Texas". It was a blast, I must say, and it was great to get even the tiniest taste of what life must be like as a professional musician. I guess it's just like anything else, but I suppose the highs are much higher, and the lows are much lower than say, an office job.

To give you an example of a low, we showed up at our first gig to find a dance floor full of 70-year-olds sipping on coffee and straight whiskey. The house music was Gene Autrey and Hank Williams, occasionally becoming so modern as a 90's Garth Brooks tune. No sweat for Los Mustangs, who saved our butts by giving them pretty close to what they wanted, although a bit louder than they wanted it. It would have been difficult to stay within the volume requirements of these senior citizens, and they let us know pretty consistently throughout the first two sets. At some point though, as if by divine intervention, the old folks cleared out, and a slightly younger audience trickled in.

The night ended up just fine. I stuck to my internal commitment to play my original songs come hell or high water, and the new crowd responded well. By the time we left, I was doing Allman brothers covers and even signed a CD for an enthusiastic, somewhat boozed up fan. A huge contrast from Tim telling me "You're gonna need chicken wire, boy" at the beginning of the show.

The last show of the tour was at a place called "Crossroads" in Fredericksburg. Talk about a high. We ate great food, they loved Los Mustangs and the place was packed when I went on, filling up even more throughout the night. Then a bachelorette party and a bridal party showed up, and things got borderline out of hand. We ended up playing an extra hour and a half to a standing room only crowd. If that were what being a road musician was like all the time, I could do it for life.

At the end of it all, I can't say I would have changed anything. To have a perfect experience would have given me doubts about my choices in life. To have had all miserable gigs would have been, well, miserable. I got a good taste of both sides, and a renewed faith that I haven't wasted my life away by working.

Sarah and I spent the Sunday we should have been driving home at what has become one of my favorite places on earth, my buddy's ranch in the hill country. We drank cold beer, floated in the Guadalupe river, and listened to some good friends talk about their days as road musicians when things weren't quite so......calm.

Texas Tour 2010

I'm glad I am the way that I am, or I would never have done anything with my life. I get an idea and run like hell with it, and it's only just before it's about to all come together that I start having any doubts at all. By then it's too late to back out, and everything seems to work out fine.

That's where I'm at with next weeks ARL Band tour through Texas; the doubt part.

It's nothing legitimate. It's just the idea of taking my band, which is essentially a big fish in a tiny pond, into one of the most competitive music markets in the united states. We're not really competing for anything, other than being invited back, and hopefully to more and bigger places. It's just that you always want to be more ready for that kind of thing than you are. You wish you could have practiced one more time.

I'm not nervous. I don't really get nervous. Since I can't really open my eyes while I sing, it doesn't matter one gig to the next where I'm playing, or who is there. The only time I've ever really been nervous playing was doing a live radio thing. That scared the hell out of me. My eye closing technique didn't work, because it was already completely up to my imagination who was listening.

We kick off at what I understand to be a true Texas Honkey-Tonk. A dream for my buddy Blake Martin and the Los Mustangs Band who opens every show for me. For a kid from Detroit, I'm not sure I'd use the word dream. Then again, I have no idea what word to use, because I've never done it. Next is outdoors on Congress street in Downtown Austin. I should be scared, but I'm not. What really gets me is the last gig of the week. A brand new, VERY high dollar music-specific venue in Fredericksburg.

Fortunately, my band is amazing before I ever open my mouth. Seasoned professionals who have paid their dues, and a lot of those dues were paid in Texas.

Hopefully this is the first of many. Cross your fingers for me, and if you're in the Texas hill country, come on out and see the show. Dates are up on musicofARL.com.