Eruption practice tonight! I’m stoked! I’m glad I can still get excited about it. We’ve been trying to get together once a week for more than 20 years! It has fallen off a bit over the past couple of years, kids make things more complicated. But I’m always glad when we do. We have a show coming up in about a month, so it’s time for us to put in a little extra work. It’s always exciting when we have something to look forward to. Our guitar player likes to refer to the incentive as “the carrot.” Obviously, I hope, referring to the carrot leading the donkey. His philosophy involves needing the carrot to get the work done. My philosophy involves people getting the work done because they want to, or like to, get the work done. I will do my best to get together every week and play, whether we have something on the books or not. I think 3 of the 4 of us feel that way, and we generally do get together every week, as much as we can. But the other 1 of us seems to only be motivated when we have an event on the horizon. And, seemingly, he doesn’t want to put too many events on the horizon. It’s a constant issue. He says “no” to almost every show. It’s frustrating, and it’s not just him. It seems as though we only want to play afternoon, or early evening shows. There aren’t that many of those. Especially for loud rock bands like ours. Acoustic trios playing covers, maybe, but not fully fledged rock bands. Oh well, we’ve got one coming up, so I’m going to stay excited. Going back a little bit, I’ve talked to other musicians about the “carrot” idea, and it overwhelmingly seems as though pretty much everybody agrees with my guitar player. Everyone I talked to said that you have to get something on the books to get the band to practice. I think that’s sad. None of us started playing because we had something on the books. Why now?
The Calvins had a show this past Saturday
night. It was okay. Originally, we were asked to play with a nationally touring
band called Electric Frankenstein. We were excited. A couple of our members had
seen them before, and thought they were good. We looked forward to playing in front
of a bunch of people with a well-known act. However, a month or so ago, we got
word that Electric Frankenstein pulled out. The rumor we heard was because no
one was flying them here to play. I don’t know if that’s true, but that’s what
we got. We decided to play the show anyway. We were booked with a band called
Broke Bastards. They are local. I had seen them around some of the places we
practice, and have been wanting to play with them for a while. Probably a year
or two. It finally happened! They were pretty good. I was entertained. We’re
playing with them again on the 10th. That should be a good show. Up
until a week or so ago, we didn’t even know who the third band was going to be.
Apparently, it was difficult to get people to commit. It seems as though there
were a lot of events going on last Saturday. According to what I saw on
Facebook, almost everyone we know was at The Cure concert. Bummer. I don’t
really think too many of our “fans” would have a conflict, but a lot of our “friends”
did. Assuming they would have come anyway. We’re starting to think not. None of
our friends really want to be out late. At least that’s the excuse they give.
And I get it. When I go to shows, I’m always thinking it’s too late. Our show
was desolate. The first band was not that good, and played for an hour! It felt
like they chased the few people who were there away. When we finally got started,
it seemed like we got quite a few people coming in to see us, then halfway
through our first song, the power went out, and we lost everyone.
Eventually the power was restored, and we got
to continue our set, but the crowd did not seem to regroup. We counted it as a
loud practice. It was still fun! Hearing yourself concert loud is pretty cool.
About halfway through the set, in one of our newly released songs, our singer
spaced on an entire verse, and couldn’t really find his way back to where he
should have been. I know it can be embarrassing, but at least there weren’t a
bunch of people there to see. However, the thing that impressed me was that the
drummer, and guitar player, both looked at me to see what we should do. I made
eye contact with them, trying to convey that we should just keep doing our
thing, and it would all work out. And it did. Towards the last chorus we all
caught back up and finished strong. I thought exactly what should have
happened, did. There was an unspoken level of trust and respect that naturally
happened. It felt good. 2 inconvenient occurrences overcome! That’s what all
the practice is about. However, now there’s talk about whether we should have
even taken that show. Now there’s talk about whether or not we should even
accept gigs at the Ken Club. And I get it, we don’t want to play to no one. As
previously mentioned, we are aware that our “friends” aren’t coming. Our only
chance to get more “fans” is to play in front of people who may like us. If we
play with people who don’t bring people, then we’re not playing in front of new
people. It defeats the point. On the other end of things, if you don’t play
out, then you don’t get offered better shows, to play in front of new people.
It’s a conundrum. We’ve got some good shows lined up, but the general consensus
seems to be that we only take “good” shows. I guess it makes sense. Luckily, we’re
starting to get “in” with several promoters putting on the kind of shows that
we’d like to play.
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