From the band’s monthly VoiceboxX column series; survives only in the band’s own files. The band house, and the Big Spring Jam.
Life is about surprises.
Like the surprise of us going and purchasing a band house. I know, I know. It almost sounds anti-rock. But we needed a place to store our equipment, set up a recording studio, practice all hours of the day and night, and to store our random and miscellaneous vinyl collection. Not to mention our socks. We finally outgrew our apartment, and we needed a new headquarters.
The house is nice and big, with a huge lawn, a garage, a living room both upstairs and downstairs, and strangely enough, no doors on the downstairs bathroom. Since I can't imagine that being very popular with visitors, that's one of the first things we'll need to fix.
The second thing will be getting the lawn mowed. Gabe insists that we get one of these new-fangled robotic lawnmowers that will do it all for us. To me, that just reeks of bad sci-fi movies where robots take over civilization and destroy all humanity. It all starts so innocent-sounding: "We'll just let them control the lawn". Next thing you know, we're letting them control our food supply. And "food supply" is just one word removed from "air supply". And it's all downhill from there.
Now that we've got the band house, getting the band bus is next. Most people would have done it the other way around, but I'm sure that our apartment neighbors will be happy for us to do it this way. Although they shouldn't be complaining considering their continual assault on humanity (and their apartment neighbors) fueled by the musical strains of Dance Dance Revolution.
Another surprise was our introduction to a big college town just south of Nashville called Murfreesboro (I know, weird name, huh? It's even harder to pronounce correctly). We played our show in a cool pizza place called The Mellow Mushroom, with a big hippie bus in the center of the place, and a big stage right in front of it. It was a great environment to do our Murfreesboro debut in. Better yet, they gave us free pizza.
September, though, will be even more exciting. In the middle of the month we'll be playing at the Big Spring Jam in Huntsville, Alabama.
The Big Spring Jam has been going on for years, and is a huge event. This year's notable performers include: Boyz II Men, Bo Bice, Gin Blossoms, Nickel Creek, and Sister Hazel. I'm excited about the event, but I must say that our manager is most excited about Bo Bice. Something makes me think she booked this show just for him.
We play on the alternative rock stage. Fortunately, Huntsville, Alabama isn't very much of a drive from Nashville, so this should be an easy run. (Especially compared to driving from Nashville to Clarion University in PA, on August 24th.)
And today a friend of mine who is trained in classical music shocked me with an angry rock song he recorded. We may end up doing some collaboration, or at least just bouncing ideas off of each other. It's always interesting what you discover.
* Other performers include: Kool & The Gang, Joan Jett & The Blackhearts, KC & The Sunshine Band, 38 Special, Casting Crowns, Chuck Negron of Three Dog Night, Barlow Girl, Sugarland, Jo Dee Messina, Clint Black, John Anderson, and Tracy Lawrence.