1. DOING LAUNDRY WILL ALWAYS DELAY DEPARTURE. For some reason, the dryer never works quickly when you are on a schedule. A corollary to this statement is that half-dried clothes will smell really bad in about an hour.
2. DO NOT LEAVE YOUR PERCUSSION SET-UP TOO CLOSE TO THE FRONT OF THE STAGE. I don't know what it is, but drunk people seem to think that they can just get up on stage and jam on the congas. One night, I had to threaten to throw a man out of the show if he did not leave the stage alone. Some people just don't understand that the stage is for the band!
3. GOING TO SLEEP AT 6 AM IS NORMAL. We saw the sunrise quite a lot and we got used to it rather quickly. I must admit it is a weird feeling to wake up at 1 PM and it feels early.
4. MUSICIANS LIKE TO BE WHERE THEY ARE. As the road manager, you can probably see how this could be a little bit annoying. I can honestly say that I never figured out a good way to try and get everyone moving (I'm sure the guys would agree with this). My method was to give updates starting about an hour out. "Fellas, we need to leave in an hourjust letting you know." I would give reminders about every 15 minutes until the last 15 minutes when I would be extra annoying. Invariably, we would always leave about 15 minutes too late (which would actually be right on time because I would factor in the 15 minutes of being late).
5. YOU WILL FORGET WHAT DAY IT IS AND WHERE YOU ARE. On the road, things definitely get blurry. Hopefully, you won't forget what month it is.
6. YOU WILL MEET A LOT OF PEOPLE. Anyone who has traveled a lot (with or without a band) knows this to be true.
7. IT IS VERY DIFFICULT TO BE HEALTHY WHILE ON THE ROAD. Physically and mentally, it requires a lot of effort to carry over any habits you have from "regular" life onto the road. A constant diet of fast food, pizza, or junk food is pretty much standard fare for the struggling musician. The beer tickets don't help either.
8. MUSICIANS ARE NOT GOOD AT BUDGETING THEIR PER DIEM MONEY. Every so often, I would give the guys their money for a couple of days at once. This is not the best idea especially when you factor in the late night alcohol consumption (which can get costly when the beer tickets run out).
9. FRIENDS OR FAMILY NOT ON THE ROAD WILL HAVE A DIFFICULT TIME RELATING TO YOUR EXPERIENCE. Throughout the tour, I definitely had issues keeping in touch with those people who are important to me outside of the music business. I think that people not on the road really can't understand what you are going through.
10. WHEN YOU THINK IT CAN'T RAIN ANYMORE, IT PROBABLY WILL. This rule only applies to this past summer, but I had to mention the constant rain somewhere. I could not believe how many nights it absolutely poured. Thankfully, the rain actually cleared at Berkfest for AGP's set (which was a definite highlight of the tour for me). Road managers take note: rain is not good for business, but you can spin it positively. Say, for example, that your show in Philadelphia doesn't do so well but it rains all night. So, when you get paid for the night, you say something like: "Man, I bet if it wasn't pouring we would have gotten more people out here." Whether it's true or not, it can't hurt to put the thought into the promoter's mind.
11. IT CAN BE SHOCKING TO MEET SOMEONE IN PERSON WHO YOU'VE SPOKEN TO ON THE PHONE MANY TIMES. As a booking agent, I speak to a lot of different talent buyers and I always create a mental picture of them in my head. Then, you meet the guy and he's 20 years older than you thought and has the longest hair you've ever seen. I sensed that people felt this way about me as well. I would introduce myself to someone and they'd say: "You're Lee Seelig??!!" I'm still trying to figure out what they were picturing.
12. MUSICIANS DO NOT LIKE TALKING ABOUT BUSINESS BEFORE A GIG. About a week into the tour an official rule was made (by John Hall, AGP's bassist) that I could not bring up anything business related within an hour before show time. I did not always stick to the rule, but I tried my best. Damn musiciansthey're so sensitive.
13. BEING ON TOUR IS NOT ALL FUN AND GAMES. Granted, the entire tour was basically one big party, but there was a lot of work to be done every day. I found being on the road to be very stressful and quite exhausting (and I wasn't even playing music for 2 hours every night). I think it is worth mentioning that all thirteen of us on the road worked very hard and put in ridiculous hours. Ultimately, when you are on tour, your whole life is the tour.

It truly was a great experience to work on a project where so many different people come together to take on such a wide range of roles. When you see how many people there are to thank, it should give a good idea of what it takes for all of the pieces of the puzzle to come together.

First and foremost, I would like to thank every single person who came to our shows. The response we got from the audience was great night after night and hopefully both bands have more fans as a result of the tour. Many people traveled to see numerous shows and I was psyched to see tapers showing up at almost all of our gigs. The reason the bands are out there is to play in front of people, and I want the fans to know that we appreciated each and every one of you.

Without our sponsors this tour never would have been financially possible. We were proud to have Pyur.com (a great web site that sells funky attire) as our tour presenter. They even threw a pre-tour party on July 10 which was a blast. StudentMarket.com (a site for all of the needs of a college student) was another sponsor and we are thankful for their endless enthusiasm, understanding, and support. Many of you may have seen our ads on Jambands.com and Jambase.com, our final two sponsors. These two sites are the center of this scene (as far as I'm concerned) and the help they gave us was invaluable. So, a big "thank you" to Beau and Matthew from Pyur.com, Christian and Oren from StudentMarket.com, Dean from Jambands.com, and Andy and Ted from Jambase.com.

Next in line for absolute praise is all of the wonderful people who opened their homes to us along the way. We stayed in hotels about five different times and everywhere else we were able to find friends or family who were willing to put up 13 dirty, smelly guys. All of you have restored my faith in the human race. It is amazing to have someone let you stay in their home and then they also buy everyone bagels or cook us all breakfast. People were way too nice to us and it actually made me feel a bit uncomfortable at first. I got over that quickly. No disrespect to anyone, but Jack and Kat's hot tub was the clear highlight and brought "hospitality" to a new level.

Even though we were two bands, on about nine of the shows we had other bands playing on the bill. These bands were great to work with and helped us out by exposing our music to their fans. Please support these musicians/bands who we were more than happy to have associated with our tour: Sirious, Soulive, Cosmic Dilemma, Peter Prince, Aaron from Percy Hill, Tim from Psychedelic Breakfast, Treehouse Union, The Ally, Homunculus, Nomadic Design, Mori Stylez, and Everything Bagels.

Each venue or promoter also deserves kudos. Every night we were dealing with a different club and the waiters, bartenders, managers, and security staff were almost always nice to us (except for a couple of places). In the cities where I booked the show through a promoter, we were always taken care of. I do not have enough space to go through the entire list of each city, but a couple of people who REALLY hooked it up were: Alex at Higher Ground, Jake at Wetlands, Rob in Stanhope, Kevin in Red Bank, Steven at the Bullfrog, LJ in West Virginia, Stu at The Haunt, Herby 1 in Syracuse, Mike at The Rhinecliff Hotel, and Marc at Club Helsinki. All of these guys went above and beyond the call of duty for us and they deserve a special mention.

I absolutely have to thank Jeff Waful (Uncle Sammy's manager and the daily news editor for Jambands.com) and Steve Sylven who was the tour publicist. These guys worked very hard on this project from day one and they held down the fort while we were on the road. Both Jeff and Steve traveled to numerous shows and their presence definitely upped the energy level. I also want to send out my thanks to everyone at Gamelan where I worked before going on the road. I would never have been able to book all of the shows without the platform that Gamelan provided for me. Thank you to Andrew for giving both bands a slot at Berkfest and thank you to Howie for being there when we needed him. Todd Walker also deserves a lot of credit for the tour because without his help I wouldn't have known who to call in almost all of the cities. Todd is the man and there isn't much more to say than that. I hope our paths cross again in the future.

Finally, I want to express my satisfaction with my twelve traveling companions. Each person on the road had a job to do and everyone did their job well. The guys in Addison Groove Project and Uncle Sammy played their hearts out night after night and that is no easy feat. Special recognition needs to go out to Aaron Cohen, the tour's "merch-guy," and Steve Sokol, the tour's front-of-house sound engineer. In completely different ways, both Steve and Aaron made sure that things were always exciting for me.

Throughout the tour, I was especially surprised at how well everyone related to one another. The musicians from Uncle Sammy and Addison Groove Project barely knew each other and still got along amazingly. At almost every show members of AGP would sit-in with Uncle Sammy (or vice versa) and it definitely kept things fresh. Some of those moments that were created were priceless. I recommend getting the tapes from 123 Pleasant Street in Morgantown, West Virginia (7-31-00) and you will see what I am talking about. That was one of our least crowded shows and my absolute favorite.

More than anything, I loved watching the bands develop on a nightly basis. Neither band had ever played so many gigs in such a concentrated time period, and I am proud to have been a part of that. It was exciting to see the musicians feel more confident about their playing as the music got tighter and tighter. Above everything, I am a fan of Addison Groove Project and Uncle Sammy and it was a privilege to travel with them for a month. I definitely had my ups and downs while on the road, but I would not trade the experience for anything.