DIARY
OF A
ROCKSTAR

Just thought i’d post a quickie saying that we’re heading out to our show tonight at Joiners in Southampton.. We’re excited to play here again, as we’ve been to Southampton a few times and have made a buch of friends who will be on hand for the show.

Exciting times!

Its been a couple of days since I’ve written a post here, for good reason… we’ve been playing/driving non stop for the last few days… this is our big push of shows right now.. 7 in a row (the longest span of shows on this tour). Musicians who tour alot say that long spans of shows like this really take a toll on you… I can totally sympathize, its pretty rough, but not that rough.. I guess 7 shows isn’t a ton of shows, but its a week of playing and driving every day/night, so I guess its a small taste of what its like, and of what is to come for us, possibly in the next year.

After everything with the van got sorted out, we had a slight money scare, since my credit card was maxed out the first hour after landing in England, and the other guys arrived here thinking that they wouldn’t be spending any money at all.. I guess they had it in their heads that all of the hotels and car rental were paid for already… which they weren’t.. a mis-communication, or failure to read the fine print. This whole thing has caused some stress within the group, but we’ve been working through it… giving each other space when needed. I think we’ve stared to see that we’re in this together, and the only way we’ll get through it is by sticking together and being patient.

The shows have gone really well, we’ve been playing really well, and i’m really happy with my playing… I really love playing shows where Morgan is only playing acoustic guitar, because I think he is more suited to that style of playing, also, the music we play really lends itself to acoustic playing, with additions of my electric guitar. I try and play only when necessary, and try to be as dynamic as I can with my tones, and playing style.

The response from the crowds has been overly positive…. we’ve found that in the northern regions of England, we’re not as well received, as far as crowd involvement/dancing/clapping. We think its a cultural thing… The northern cities are more rough football type towns, and I just don’t think they get the whole Alt Country vibe that we put out, we get more of a blank stare, and the odd clapping in cities like Liverpool and Glasgow, yet, we sold out the Cardiff Wales Barfly show, and did overly well at Whaylands in Dublin. We’re expecting a great crowd in Southampton, and London in the next few days, and are currently on the road to Nottingham (Robin Hood), where we’re expecting a pretty good turn out.. Still, we’re excited about the next few days, playing in Southampton, London, and Amsterdam. I’ll be back in Toronto in a week today (Saturday)! Cant wait to sleep in my own bed again!

In case you didn’t notice… I posted some previous posts, last night, but they’re in order according to the date, so youll have to scroll to the bottom of the page to read the updates…. This is just so I can keep everything in order of how it happened.

Anyway, we landed in Manchester last night after our flight was delayed for 30 mins, which didn’t really help anything, because we werent able to collect our bags that were being stored at the airport.

Jesse and Moe decided enough was enough, and took the (new) rental car (NOT from National/Alamo) and drove to London last night. I haven’t talked to them, but I think they slept in the car, and arrived at the rental place where the car was supposto be. Aparently when they told us that the car was going to be toed to the lot, they lied, and it actually has been sitting in the same parking garage all weekend. We’ve had to pay about $30/day to keep the car there, dispite the fact that they told us it would be moved at the expense of National/Alamo renters.

Last I heard, Jesse and Moe are on their way back to Manchester to pick Morgan and I up at the airport, at which time we’re going to get on the road to Glasgow to arrive just in time for our show toinght.

Things seem to be turning around now, There will be less stress since we’re all gonna have our stuff, and clean laundry. However, we’ve had to spend a ton of extra money becuase of this whole debacle.. its been pretty rediculous. I dont even want to think of the number value.

I’m currently sitting in the Dublin airport waiting for our flight back to Manchester after our 2 night stay in Dublin. Last night was awesome… I now know what REAL Guiness tastes like…. I’ve had so many in fact, that I can still taste them! Seriously though, I think i’ve ruined any chance of me ever really enjoying a Guiness outside of Ireland… Sadly, I didn’t hvae a chance to visit the Guiness factory tour, our stay was just too short.. I think if we were here for one more day, than it could have been possible.

Ireland has been a real turning point for me as far as this trip goes… I’ve decided to just accept that i’m not going to have any of my gear for the tour, and am just going to make due with what I’ve got….. My guitar from Gibson, cables, and a guitar pick I found on the ground in Brighton (no joke).

Last night’s show at Whaylands was really awesome… Awesome venue, awesome atmosphere, lots of people, very friendly, and very drunk. Whaylands is kind of the starting point for a lot of very large musicians… Damien Rice, REM, U2 (possibly).. Aparently its the hub of all folk/country music for this part of the world, as a short walk through the bar will show you, theres plenty of history.. Pictures are posted everywhere showing who’s played there, some of the top caliber musicians, and even some people who i’ve never heard of, but i’m more than sure, that they’re iconic in their own circle.

The pub was made of up 4 stages.. One very small stage on the main floor, a 2nd floor stage (where we played): which is not huge, but not small. A larger room with a capacity of about 500, and another room that I didn’t see that is supposedly a 750 capacity room. We played well, but not our best, however, I can already see us tightening up with just these few days of playing under our belt, the next week will really be a test, as we’ve got a string of (I think) 5 or 6 shows in a row. Tiring, but exciting.

We’re off to Manchester in a few hours, and then we’ll be driving to Liverpool to stay for the night. Tomorrow morning we will be driving to Glasgow for our next show.

Hey all,

its been a rough trip, a lot of shit has been happening to us (our car keys got stolen, and pretty much screwed us over). I’ve been writing blogs on my laptop, but i’m at an interenet cafe right now in Dublin and cant use it here (figures eh?).. I’ll be posting those entries later on once I get to a wireless connection that I can use.

Overall the tour so far has been really positive, as far as the shows go. We’ve been seeing a ton of people out to the shows, and we’ve been playing really well also. As usual, money is very tight (especially due to some unexpected costs), but we’re hoping for some support from our label soon.

All is well, i’m still alive, I have more to tell, but I dont feel like re writing it on this screen (they’re long entries).

Out situation doesn’t seem to be improving much over here… Its been a really rough couple of days: dealing with the key being stolen, worrying about money, driving excessive amounts of time through traffic, and almost missing shows… Dispite it all, we’ve all been playing really well. The first two gigs have gone off really well. Our show last night specifically, went really well, we played in Cardiff at the Barfly venue. We reached capacity (I think 200-250 people in the venue), and had a great show… From what I’ve heard, there were a bunch of people from Music Wales there visiting to check us out, which is great news.

Today has been a different story, we seem to have this perpetual black cloud of horribleness following us, first with the car, money, etc etc… but now, we missed our flight to Dublin by literally 2 minutes. Traffic riding up on the highway from Cardiff to Manchester airport was fine, until we saw that there had been a really bad accident on the main highway (which we were on), and decided to get off, and take a slight detour… the detour ended up being a better route, but it was also a longer route, because other people were taking that way.

In the end we were forced to take a later flight (increased our cost by 50 pounds per passenger which is roughly $400). Since we had to take a later flight, unfortunately, we had to cancel our in store show that had been booked for us. I think it would have been really cool to do the in store performance, but we weren’t getting paid for that show, it was just for promo, so at least we’re not loosing out on any money directly coming in.