The old Chinese curse says "May you live in interesting times". Its both a curse and a blessing, because really, if you live in boring times, chances are things are pretty good all the time, you're not challenged with anything. Well, I'm really living in interesting times these days. Here's a little synopsis of my weekend:
Get off of work a couple hours early on friday, drive 18 miles to Tim's place to pick up pieces for the PA system, then go pick up Andy at his place along with his gear, another 18 miles away. Hit the road and drive to Frank's place, in South St Paul, about 80 miles down the road. There we loaded up his guitar and amp and all that good stuff along with Mike's drums, then Frank, Andy, Michelle, Mike, Marissa, and I all pile into the van (which amazingly held all that gear and all 6 of us. I was impressed). We head on down for the two hour drive to Mason City (that's Iowa, folks). We get there, load everything in, and the show begins.
Laredo's is an interesting bar, its one of only two in Mason City that has live music, and this place is tiny, it holds maybe 60 people jam packed, and it was certainly jam packed friday night. Its always interesting down there, because the bar is packed with women, which is different from your usual bunch of drunken frat boys that are at most bars. These girls get up on the bar and dance and all kinds of craziness.
About 2/3 of the way through the night, the manage of the other bar in town that has live music came in and asked some members of our band (It was one of Frank's Mason City rock projects, he brings different people down every time and comes up with a new band name. We picked "The Bad Paisleys" this time) if they wanted to come and play her bar the next night.
Not realizing the obvious huge bar-folk faux pas, we agreed to take the gig, essentially $300, free food, and free booze from the bar. Why is this a faux pas? Well, when there's only two places in town that have live music, and there's only one band in town, its pretty poor manners to skip out on the bar that's taking really good care of you and go to another bar. Essentially you're saying "All right, we're going to go make a bunch of money for your competition now". Granted yes, as a strictly business decision its not that big of a deal, and in just about any other town, especially a town with a bunch of bars and live music and such, like Minneapolis, it wouldn't have been a problem. And also, Frank, in his infinite wisdom, announced over the PA that we were going to be at the bar down the road the next night. Its bad manners to plug the competition in a bar.
Well, it took awhile, but Frank finally patched things up with the bar owner shortly before closing time, only to have the owner's extremely drunk daughter throw a drunken fit and start spraying people at the bar with water from the water tapper or whatever you call it. In the end, we didn't take any gig for the next night.
I'd put a hold on a couple of hotel rooms, but I didn't put any money on them (gotta love these small towns, you can talk people into all kinds of stuff, like giving me the keys to two hotel rooms without paying for them in advance), so I just returned the keys and we hit the road. We ended up leaving Mason City around 3 am, which means that I was in the driver's seat until almost 5, then we got back to Frank's. I was just about to fall asleep at the wheel when I finally pulled into his driveway.
The next day, we went out to breakfast, then Andy and I had to hit the road and head back up to St Cloud. I had to go back to Tim's pick up the rest of the PA, then head back to another show that night. I kind of wish I hadn't volunteered to do all this driving, but money is money I guess. So I get home, feed the cat, grab a snack, then get back on the road and head to another show, this time in the basement of this really ritzy bar/yacht club. There were about 10 people in the place, so it was kind of anti-climactic. Then back home again, and FINALLY to bed, for some well needed rest.
Then Sunday.....lay on the couch all day until I've watched all of my netflix. Mmmm....netflix.
It was a slightly above average weekend for me, and yet I managed to not get shitfaced all weekend. Its a good thing.
Get off of work a couple hours early on friday, drive 18 miles to Tim's place to pick up pieces for the PA system, then go pick up Andy at his place along with his gear, another 18 miles away. Hit the road and drive to Frank's place, in South St Paul, about 80 miles down the road. There we loaded up his guitar and amp and all that good stuff along with Mike's drums, then Frank, Andy, Michelle, Mike, Marissa, and I all pile into the van (which amazingly held all that gear and all 6 of us. I was impressed). We head on down for the two hour drive to Mason City (that's Iowa, folks). We get there, load everything in, and the show begins.
Laredo's is an interesting bar, its one of only two in Mason City that has live music, and this place is tiny, it holds maybe 60 people jam packed, and it was certainly jam packed friday night. Its always interesting down there, because the bar is packed with women, which is different from your usual bunch of drunken frat boys that are at most bars. These girls get up on the bar and dance and all kinds of craziness.
About 2/3 of the way through the night, the manage of the other bar in town that has live music came in and asked some members of our band (It was one of Frank's Mason City rock projects, he brings different people down every time and comes up with a new band name. We picked "The Bad Paisleys" this time) if they wanted to come and play her bar the next night.
Not realizing the obvious huge bar-folk faux pas, we agreed to take the gig, essentially $300, free food, and free booze from the bar. Why is this a faux pas? Well, when there's only two places in town that have live music, and there's only one band in town, its pretty poor manners to skip out on the bar that's taking really good care of you and go to another bar. Essentially you're saying "All right, we're going to go make a bunch of money for your competition now". Granted yes, as a strictly business decision its not that big of a deal, and in just about any other town, especially a town with a bunch of bars and live music and such, like Minneapolis, it wouldn't have been a problem. And also, Frank, in his infinite wisdom, announced over the PA that we were going to be at the bar down the road the next night. Its bad manners to plug the competition in a bar.
Well, it took awhile, but Frank finally patched things up with the bar owner shortly before closing time, only to have the owner's extremely drunk daughter throw a drunken fit and start spraying people at the bar with water from the water tapper or whatever you call it. In the end, we didn't take any gig for the next night.
I'd put a hold on a couple of hotel rooms, but I didn't put any money on them (gotta love these small towns, you can talk people into all kinds of stuff, like giving me the keys to two hotel rooms without paying for them in advance), so I just returned the keys and we hit the road. We ended up leaving Mason City around 3 am, which means that I was in the driver's seat until almost 5, then we got back to Frank's. I was just about to fall asleep at the wheel when I finally pulled into his driveway.
The next day, we went out to breakfast, then Andy and I had to hit the road and head back up to St Cloud. I had to go back to Tim's pick up the rest of the PA, then head back to another show that night. I kind of wish I hadn't volunteered to do all this driving, but money is money I guess. So I get home, feed the cat, grab a snack, then get back on the road and head to another show, this time in the basement of this really ritzy bar/yacht club. There were about 10 people in the place, so it was kind of anti-climactic. Then back home again, and FINALLY to bed, for some well needed rest.
Then Sunday.....lay on the couch all day until I've watched all of my netflix. Mmmm....netflix.
It was a slightly above average weekend for me, and yet I managed to not get shitfaced all weekend. Its a good thing.
addison:
Just wanted to say thank you for the comment on my set! 
sian_the_zombie:
