Life on the Road- An Actual Accounting of An Actual Band on an Actual Tour
Phil Simon
2003-07-28
This month, intrepid reader, I would like to feature a guest author. You met him about six months ago when we reported about his band Moses Guest and their flirtations with a major label. Graham and the band are still in major negotiations with the label and a management company. But while this exciting adventure underlies everything that is happening with the band, they are still operating as a struggling band like everyone else. For years, Graham has been chronicling his adventures on the road with Moses Guest. These chronicles are dubbed Lost Highway and help to explain to him and to others what it is like to be Moses Guest, and to be out on the road. The pitfalls and unexpected bonuses of life on the road are laid out before us here in great detail. I think that bands considering heading out on the road will learn a bunch about how it is even on a short tour. Thanks go out to Graham Guest for taking the time to write this out for us. Check out their website at www.mosesguest.com. More articles are in the works for the coming months, oh great jamband business student. Keep an eye on this page.
Lost Highway Entry #6 "The Pony Pie Adventure" July 11, 2003 Travel-Log of Houston-Based Rock Band – Moses Guest By Graham Emory Guest Death swung down from the trees like monkeys at midnight as I stepped upon the threshold of my door and twisted back to kiss Jennifer good-bye. These monkeys of death chattered and pointed as we kissed, and the frogs chimed in, and then the crickets and the locusts, until the whole neighborhood was laughing. Jennifer and I have been married over three years now, and it hasn't gotten any easier to leave on one of these Moses Guest-style abortions we call "tour." But I suppose "tour" is a right of passage of some type. Yes, because I would call a band a shit-addled pussy if it never endeavored to "tour." So that's why we do it: because our reputations are at stake, AND we are trying to be born. Less skeptically, though, there is the swashbuckling aspect of "tour." In a manner of speaking, a "touring" band is one that sets off on romantic adventures, into the night, over the hills and through the woods, to somebody's house we know, in some other town; or perhaps it'll be the case that we don't know who's house it is to which we are to go. I can tell you this for certain. It beats the high-flying fuck out of sitting on your fucking balls all day, administrating. We've heard this before, I know, and I'm saying it again. Millions of intelligent people spend every day of their lives going to little boxes where money is, and in order to take it home from the box, they administrate – everything. Lawsuits are always fun to set into motion. These administrative monstrosities precipitate enormous amounts of cash. Yes, mostly for the attorneys, but other parties get cash, too, you see. And perhaps most importantly, this shit takes time; and that is what we all want: for time to take place so we don't have to take it. And I thank the gods, be they whatever, for this default (administrative) program that governs so many (supposedly) intelligent people, because it keeps the fuckers off the road at midnight when I am trying to get to Memphis. So I set off out of my house at midnight, the monkeys of death chattering; the administrators, sleeping. I am sad to say "good-bye" to Jennifer, but I am happy to have created, for myself, the opportunity to bore through the midnight with a band (notice how I don't say "my band" – because it's not "mine"). Our destination tonight is Memphis, TN (aqua - "Bephufs"). I drive around Houston, picking everyone up: Spaburb, Jimbo, Rick (aka – "Beer"), and Jeremy. All in, we go. Once again, just a week later, I have trouble extracting anything from my memory about the drive that night. Possibly, this is because nothing occurred. Ah, but I do remember 59 North being very quiet, clear of vehicles almost entirely, and this was sweet. We drove it straight, no stops, and it was easy. We were in Memphis in 11 hours. Once there, as is the "the way," we located the club and checked into a motel. We had never played The Hi-Tone before, but it looked pretty good. Good stage, decent sound, and friendly employees. We knew it wouldn't be a jam-packed night because it was a Wednesday, and we really haven't secured a crowd in Memphis – at all. So the pressure was off and we were there to have a good time. The Mini-Van Blues Band opened up for us. They are a jam-band with acoustic instruments. I think they should just go ahead and electrify their stuff because it sounded like they should to me, but I'm just talking about it, so it's pointless. But they are from Memphis and had some friends out who stuck around for us, and they stuck around for us, so we had a 25-person crowd. We played from 11:45 PM – 1:30AM and it was all right. Had fun; that is, until the bar-tender handed me $17 and explained that that would be the bands take for the night. I had some trouble adjusting to the number "17," so I began to ask questions and, some would argue, unravel a touch. I went and got the "contract" (printed email) from the van and was going, like, "see here, this paper says . . . well fuck. It says we get $17." I apologized profusely to Joel (the bar-tender), who had begun to say things like, "I don't like where this is going." Man, fuck, when he started saying that little slogan, I was feeling like getting ready to pulverize somebody. What is that? "I don't like where this is going." Where are we going? Well what the fuck, whatever. I apologized and that felt better, like the right thing, because he hadn't done anything but been the bearer of bad news; and hell, no one came to see us. $17. I'll just say that, so far, in our experience, northeast Texas (i.e., Dallas and Ft. Worth) and Memphis (southwest, TN) just pay so badly. These people/clubs don't do guarantees for traveling bands. $100 at least, please; and that sucks pony, man. $200 is a real good minimum. All right, though, anyway, I thought, despite all that, that the Hi-Tone was pretty good for MG. We had learned before departing for Memphis that our show in Birmingham the next night had been cancelled. This was a huge piece of shit because it was to pay $800, the monetary cornerstone of the whole "trip" (my preferred word v. "tour," because we don't fucking "tour"). But so the cornerstone was gone, and we were cooking on the $17 we'd hauled-in the night before. We put the $17 into gas and then headed off toward Birmingham anyway, since it is on the way to Atlanta, which was our destination the next night, Friday. Road life can be hard because you are not at home. Eating foreign foods puts a mad compression on your colon; especially having to deal with roadside gas stations that even the staunchest and bravest would feat. But so while this internal compression is taking place, also an external compression is taking place. And what I mean is pretty clear, too, because we spend hours upon hours inside the little box of the van (nice enough as it is). Just so many hours. That's a lot of van compression. But to add insult to injury, whenever you get out of the van, you basically head straight into another little box, which is either the box of the club at which you're playing, or the box of the hotel room at which you're staying (and, god-forbid, the little box of the gas-station where I am not staying). So I'm really looking forward to next month when we travel west, to the Rockies, for several weeks. I think we should get some good out door experiences on that one. Maybe a little less compression. But listen. I really don't mean to knock anything here. I'm just giving you a sense of some of the realities of band travel. I have to say, on this day of travel to Birmingham, about which I wish further to speak, and from which I have digressed, I was happy. We traveled many hours and stopped, at night, at some hotel by a lake outside of Birmingham (near the Pell City exit?). It was really rather nice, pleasant. It was rainy. It felt real south, and that was good; and the lake nearby was soothing. We left Houston with $200 in the "band bank," which was now gone. The $17 experience and the Birmingham cancellation had put a crank on the bank, so to speak, so we didn't has no money no more. We left Alabama with nothing. Now we were expecting $150 from The Brandyhouse in Atlanta that night, but right: $150. I'm jumping up and down. But fuck it. Here we go. We got to Atlanta and veered around a little bit looking for the club, and then did get on the trail and started heading to it. I think it was about 2PM. As we were blinking left to turn into the club parking lot from the middle turn lane, Spaburb spotted a car sitting in the same turn lane in the middle of the road, and on whose roof sat a wallet. Now he said, "Hey, there's a wallet on top of that car." And we were drawn to the wallet, looking at it there, perched on top of the poor guy's car. And sure enough, as the guy pulled off into his turn, it fell off his fucking car, into the middle of the street. And there it was. We were the only people in the world who saw it happen. Somehow, it was meant to be. Please try not to pass judgment on your poor band here because what happened next was not pretty – but it was destiny, if you will. James jumped out of the van and ran back and picked up the now lost wallet from the middle of the busy street, and ran back and got in the van. So far, a good deed. He placed it on the center console and let it rest while we pulled into the parking lot of the club. After a moment, the inevitable: we opened the wallet. Therein we discovered $65, the exact amount needed for a hotel room this very night. There was a pondering and a guilt and a whatever which resulted in the removal of the money and a kind-of a Buddhist prayer of thanks to the man and the heavens for helping us in this way. We really did thank. And we used the money for a hotel room that very night, and it was a savior. We placed the wallet in a post box. It would have been delivered to the owner by now, I'm sure. So it was a mixed deed, was it not? A moral dilemma? Yes. NOTICE TO MAN WE SHOULD HAVE TAKEN YOUR ADDRESS FROM YOUR DRIVER'S LICENSE. WE'RE SORRY WE DID NOT. HAD WE, YOU WOULD'VE RECEIVED $100 FOR YOUR $65 BY NOW. IF, BY SOME STRANGE MIRACLE, HOWEVER, YOU READ THIS, PLEASE CONTACT MOSES GUEST (contact@mosesguest.com) AND I WILL SEND YOU A CHECK FOR $100. YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW MUCH THAT $65 MEANT TO US AT THE TIME. WE TRUST YOU GOT YOUR WALLET BACK WITH ALL CREDIT CARDS AND EVERYTHING ELSE INTACT. OUR GRATEFULNESS FOREVER. -MG- NB – ANY APPLICANT WILL BE ASKED A SERIES OF QUESTIONS WHICH ONLY HE COULD KNOW AND WHICH WILL SERVE TO VERIFY THAT SAID APPLICANT IS, IN FACT, THE VERY MAN WHO LOST HIS WALLET ON THAT FATEFUL DAY. Well, we never claimed to be a bunch girl-scouts, so, judge as you will; this is the way it happened. So we got the hotel, which wasn't far from the club, and settled in, thankful (because, seriously, we didn't have any fucking money). The kudzu in back of this place was monumental to say the least. Beautiful stuff, crawling all over everything, the rain and mist pelting it lightly. It was quite a little dream. That night we were opening for a really good Atlanta band called "Captain Soular Cat." These guys were awesome southern jam rock with a serious Atlanta sound, so we were well-matched as an opener. That night we also had a guest pedal-steel player playing with us name of Mark van Allen. It was an honor to have him up with us. He lives in the Atlanta area and plays with Blueground Undergrass, as well as many other acts. I met him over the internet when we were looking for a pedal player. It's a cool thing, meeting people all over the country like this, and having them up as "Guest-Stars" whenever we play that area. And so this is how it was. We had an hour set. Mark played on all the tunes, which might have been a little ambitious. He had to squirm around on a few tunes, but he's a pro and it was cool. I think we finally impressed Brad over there at the club, and hopefully we can go back there and open for Captain Soular Cat again. We did watch Soular Cat, and Mark sat in with them, too. They played some down-home jams, man. I especially remember an Allman's tune they ripped out that was southernly heart-wrenching, if I may put it that way. But so it was great. And what a strange night, too. A high-school acquaintance of mine, Lawrence Leopold, showed up at the show, surprising the shit out of me, and not just because I hadn't seen him in 15 years, but because, about 3 days before leaving on this trip, I had had a very particular vision/memory of him, the person, while driving home from work, and it stuck out to me then that it was odd that I was, all of a sudden and for no reason, thinking specifically of Lawrence Leopold. So I was freaked out, and in a good way. Spaburb, too, was haunted by an unexpected friend from the past. His old buddy, Doug, whom he hadn't seen in 15 years and didn't expect to see that night showed up at the show and freaked him out. And Doug was even more excellent because he is a chiropractor and he gave us all sorts of back support devices for the van, especially for the driver. Man, he gave us this fancy, pump-up back device for the driver that really does help. Thank you, Doug. But so yea, and on into that night things got even nuttier, resulting in staying up through the night, and into dawn, when I went out into the parking lot to take a photo of the kudzu in the rain (which hopefully is on the web-site by now). I then slept in the van. Later that day, we left for Hilton Head Island, SC. Yea Hilton Head! Or nothing. It was the same for us. Driving into Hilton Head is a traffic jam. You go over a bridge, or two, see a little water, and then you're plunged back into the swampy trees and palmettos of the island. If you go far enough east, I'm sure you get to the Atlantic, but we never did. We just drove down into the trees off of that bridge and pretty much, all of sudden, were at the club, which is called Rider's Lounge, a very nice club where the soundman's name is, both appropriately and inappropriately (because he's white), James Brown. But so we got all the way out to an island in the Atlantic, and never saw the Atlantic. Is it irony, or just nothing? So Hilton Head is sort-of like the Woodlands, TX. All the signage is under ordinance and can only be yay high off the ground; so there are no billboards, etc. And it's just really lush. It also rained while we were there quite a bit. And yes, I believe that this is where we introduced ourselves to "Pony Pie." Now Pony Pie is whatever you want it to be, but it's derived from the bastardization of the pronunciation of the number "45." So if you want to say, "it's 8:45," but you prefer to live in Pony Pie Land, then you'd say instead, "it's 8: Pony Pie." So that's how it got started. But so you can also say, in Southpark, "no kitty, that's my Pony Pie!" And you can say, in the land of some hell 80's band, "she's my Pony Pie," etc. Some bar-b-que (like that in Alabama) can simply be called "Pony Pie," because it sucks. So from this gig on, this trip was dubbed "The Pony Pie Adventure." The Rider's show was all right. Good hotel. Hmm, everything else, non-descript. Let's move on to the next show, which was back in the Atlanta area (Decatur, specifically) at Jake's Toadhouse (Roadhouse, Toadhouse, who the hell knows?). This show was the highlight of the trip because we were the feature band on The Dunhams Z93 Radio Show. This is a highly reputable live radio broadcast, which airs every Sunday evening in, and for, Atlanta metroplex listeners, and it's supposed to be a nice stepping-stone for up and comers. We felt honored. Mark van Allen was to play with us again this night, and he did, but this time we reined him in to playing only four songs toward the end of the set. It made sense. This was a big-ass deal, live radio show, and everyone needed to know exactly what he was doing. And so we did, and we rocked in my humble estimation. We came on around 11PM and burned up the airwaves for about an hour, and then cut it. I hope it hit some people. Hell, Spark St. Jude, a high-profile photographer for Rolling Stone, was there shooting many shots of the old MG. I have no idea whether any of the shots will show up anywhere, but hey. It was great. Spark and I spoke (sheeeeut) for a good while and had good conversation. She's cool. I hope I was. But that was it. That was great. That show made it all good. The rest of the trip was kind of a "slide," and up hill for the next show, which was in beautiful (but darkened by night for us) Boone, NC (some number of hours away). We flew up there and got there at night, but were received by the club with open arms. You gotta love the south. They were expecting us, this local group of good-time lovers, and it felt damn good there. Murphy's is the name of the club. Great place; great food. Shit, James and I had the smoked mountain trout and hmmmm was that the shit. I can just see the little trout fishy jumping in the cold stream up on the mount. Yea and there were some good and drunk people swinging around in there, which made the place feel even better. See this was a damn Monday night, right, so it's possible that having a good time should be like trying to squeeze blood from a turnip. But no, not here. We had a nice little crowd which seemed to already know who we are, and who welcomed us, and who had a good time, and who made us have a good time. Boone, NC, indeed. Per usual, though, we were up and out of there pretty early in the AM, and didn't get to soak in the beauty like we always wish we could. And it was raining again. So we gone, off to Tuscaloosa, AL, a very different place. We arrived there in plenty of time. And we know where to go in Tuscaloosa because we've been there a bunch. So we just cruised up to this place called The Booth and set up shop. Tuscaloosa, you got to be a little careful in. It's a place where it always feels like someone's going to get their teeth kicked-in, or maybe their dick chipped-off. [Their Pony Pie bar-b-que might as well be chipped-dick sammich, too . . .]. But so we did our thing there on a Tuesday in mid-summer, and for that, and it being an out-of-season college town, it simply wasn't bad. The hospitality was good, too. A dude name of Mark set us up at his old Alabama house (right down the street), and it was good. I slept really well that night (even though I still had not been satisfied dump-wise . . . just little "pencils"). We got up, had that Pony Pie bar-b-que I keep mentioning, and then slid on down to the home coast, on over to Baton Rouge, where we were to play Chelsea's, which IS one fine establishment. We got there after another 7 hours of compression in the van, and were greeted with the same warmth we'd experienced everywhere we went on this trip. And they got the best fucking food at Chelsea's in Baton Rouge. Eat there. JB will set you up. The show was all right, too, for a Wednesday. We had a few locals out, and Helena and her brother came over from Houston to hang with us, and that was much appreciated because Helena helped get people moving around in there a little. It was slow, yes, but good. It was a safe ride home the next day and we had a 3-day weekend (over July 4) to look forward to, and to rest within. And that's just what I've been doing. No big news either. All's quiet on the coast, except for maybe the hurricane that's coming.
Phil Simon has been contributing Jambands Business School to this site for over three years now. He owns and operates a booking agency and publicity firm called Simon Says Booking in Western, MA. Check out www.simonsaysbooking.com for more information.
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