Tour: Pictures & Final Notes

Ok. So here goes. I am a poor man, so I lack the funds to acquire a digital camera. Thus, I rely on throw-away cameras for most of the events in my life. This tour was no different. Here is my attempt at a photo-journal.

We started off at Mojo Risin' in Houston.We played solo sets with a combined set at the end. Notice the picture of the random guy playing the harmonica with David. His name was Steve and he really blew that mouth organ.......pun intended.

Our next stop was Cafe Brazil in Dallas. We picked this show up at 2pm and played at 8pm. It was hot as hell in Dallas! I'm not sure if anyone really paid much attention to us (besides Karen, Bernie and Adam), since there was no PA.

Sunday night, David and I played at Club DaDa in the Deep Ellum part of Dallas. This show was slightly better.

We drove back to Baton Rouge on Monday and had a few days off. Wednesday night was our show at the Spanish Moon. Both David and I played with our full bands. Somehow, the pictures I took of David playing developed as 4x6 black boxes. I know that John's dad, Richard, took a lot of shots, so hopefully we can get a few of those to show off David's rockin' band!

Friday, we headed to Moonlight Music Cafe in Birmingham. Sadly, I left the camera in my pocket for most of the set. I didn't get a picture of the cutest little jailbait or any of the show whatsoever. But I got a shot of the front of the joint and of David's new girlfriend!!!

Saturday, we trekked from B'ham to Columbia to play at Jammin' Java. This place had a cool vibe. It was underground, in both the literal and physical senses. Corey drove down from Durham and hung out with us during the show, after the show and shared our raucus hotel room. Many details are deleted. After all, this is a family show.

Tired, hungry (even after the crappy "continental breakfast"), and slightly hungover, we bolted to the ATL. Sunday night meant Smith's Olde Bar and a missing crowd of usually 70 people, according to the guy running the joint. We played in front of a small group of people....and thankfully they were partial to us.

Again, due to technical difficulties (throwaway cameras suck), very few pictures of Monday's show at Eddie's Attic remain. I guess it's fitting, because it really wasn't much of a show. I mean, David and I played well, but two songs each isn't really much of a performance. I play as many songs when I wake up in the morning before I go drop ten pounds. That said, here are the final pictures from the final day.

Okay......so thanks for indulging me. I hoped you've enjoyed the pictures as much as David and I enjoyed the tour. If you'd like to contribute to the "Chris Needs A Digital Camera Fund", feel free to contact me at any time.

And Finally:

Top 5 Lessons Learned During August 2006

5. Bathing is pleasant, both to the senses and to your tourmate, but not always prudent or necessary.

4. Music is not something a person does for money. Except maybe those hobos that hassle you for $0.25 in a parking lot with a harmonica or some awful rendition of Johnny Hartman's "Let Me Love You". I'll keep that in mind for next time.

3. Laughter is an amazing thing. It allows people to express pure joy and amusement. Occasionally, people find certain things so amusing that they begin to cry while laughing so hard. It is not good to laugh this hard while driving. Visibility is severly limited.

2. Flyers are actually small, easily distributed pieces of art. Depending on the amount of work a person puts into the design of a flyer, they can be incredibly interesting to look at. They are also a monumental waste of time and money. People hate flyers.

1. If I could continue to tour and play music, I think my life might very well be complete. If I could start next week, it would not be soon enough. I have nothing clever to say here.

Tour: Part 8

We're done. And that kinda sucks.

Let's see....where did I leave off?

Ah yes: More flyers were passed out, more people did try and avoid contact with us, and David did not let me give him a mohawk.

So, we woke up on Monday, had a decent lazy day, watched Old School. After a while we got up and went to the movies, saw "The Illusionist". It was good, not great, but good.....and Jessica Biel is still 100% Certified Bone-able.

We then trailed off to Decatur, courtesy of our excellent ATL tour guide, Sarah. We passed out several more flyers to a bunch of people that didn't want us harrassing them. At least we didn't have to throw all those flyers away on our own.

Sarah cooked us dinner, which was very cool of her. After that, we packed up and meandered to Eddie's Attic. Monday nights is open mic night. It was a cool room and there were several very talented artists. David went on and sported an AWESOME rock-n-roll mullet with some most excellent RED WHITE AND BLUE sweatbands! The only drag is that we only got to play two songs, which I think for both David and I is very much time at all to get warmed up on stage. Irregardless, David rocked the stage for his two songs, and then it was my turn. I tried to be charming and funny, but I'm not sure it worked. I think I played well. And if you'll humor me for a moment, and allow me to be slightly snotty, I think I played better than at least two of the three "finalists". But, oh well.

I dropped David off at his final destination and made it home a little later. A few more beers prompted me in to a pleasant but awkward sleep. I woke up a lot later than I wanted to, but after a good six hours in the car all by my lonesome, I made it back to Durham.

This venture was overall a great experience. We definitely didn't do this for the money. Sure, we sold a couple of CDs, gave away a lot of buttons and stickers and had a ton of great times. A few times, David made me laugh so hard, I cried. The bad part was that I was driving, and the sudden influx of saline made it very difficult to see, much less keep my contact lenses in my eyes. It's been a long time coming, but I finally got the chance to taste what its like to do what I want to do in life. It'd be nice to one day make a little pocket change for playing songs, but I couldn't have asked for more.

So thanks to everyone who supported the tour. Thanks to David for being awesome in 1 million different ways. To my 'rents for being supportive, as always. For our friends along the way, new and old, for keeping us dry, warm (although the August sun did its part there), and fed. I can't wait to do this again!

Stay tuned for the pictures!

Tour: Too Many Long Nights (Parts 5,6 & 7)

Wow. Being away from a computer for too long plays tricks on a man's brain. I haven't seen a picture of a boob via the pornagraphic industry in like three days. Just kidding.............Kind of.

Where did we leave off?
Ah, yes. We were gearing up for the last leg of our tour. It's been a great time. I really enjoy spending time with David, and I think we've had some excellent times.

So Friday, we drove to Birmingham. It was an uneventful trip, which is good. We arrived at the venue about 6:00pm. The Moonlight Music Cafe was awesome. Thoroughly awesome. Keith Harrelson and his gal, Joni (insert last name here), were the nicest people we've met this trip. As we wandered into the venue, they greeted us with open arms and seemed genuinely excited to see us. The Moonlight, as it was referred to, was quite lavender, but a very nice room.

As you enter through the front door, there is a counter where they take assorted monies for the ticketing process. To your left is
a stairwell that leads to the bar/food counter and further on is the rest of the room. A stage, raised about three inches off of the ground, sits in the far left corner. We set up, soundchecked and got ready for the rest of our evening.

As the headlining band arrived, we were sitting downstairs running through our set. All of the sudden, God's gift to men walked in. Her name was Andi and she was the hottest girl I've seen in a good long while. She smiled at me (at least I hope) and I was smitten. Of course, as is commonplace, she wanted absolutely nothing to do with me or anything that I'm about. For the first time in my life, I now know that this is a good thing, as I will find out soon enough.

A very responsive, polite, and endearing crowd filed in starting at about 7pm. We played about 40 minutes or so and the crowd clapped and interacted and generally enjoyed our set. They passed around a tip jar at the end of our set and we actually witnessed people put dollar billz in the jar. And to our surprise, people even paid us money for copies of our music on various compact discs. David developed a crush on an older woman, who was in fact, HOT! No deal.

Yet another example of how nice Keith and Joni were/are, they put us up for the night, allowed us to roam around their house without shoes and even fed us breakfast in the morning. The only alarming part of our whole Birmingham experience was when Keith began telling a story of an open mic night at the Moonlight, and he mentioned that foxy little temptress, Andi......who is still in HIGH SCHOOL!!!!! SON OF A........................
I swear I'm not a pervert.

On to Columbia, SC.
Again, an uneventful drive. About half an hour into our drive, I got a phone call from Corey. He had decided to come down from Durham to the show. ROCK! We met up with BIG C at the venue, Jammin' Java, which was in downtown Columbia. We met this kid Clay, who worked at the venue and made us some awesome food. Again, we set up, played reasonably well and then packed up and left. Other details are omitted in order to keep you reading.

Corey, David and I shared a room at a hotel to be named later. I bought a twelve pack of Bud Select which tasted like wee-wee in a brown bottle, but it was alcoholic and just what we needed after playing for twenty-five people and making $5.

This morning we packed up and headed for the ATL. Our AWESOME friend Sarah has graciously allowed us to crash her pad and took it upon herself to mobilize her friends to come to the shows. We spent the afternoon passing out flyers to people who probably threw them away ten seconds later. We played at Smith's Olde Bar tonight. I think we had an audience of seven people (including the doorguy). Even the guy who booked the show left before we played. The sad part is, we played really really really well. David rocked the mic first, then we played about six songs together, and then I finished up. Fun was had, pictures were taken and things were interesting. It was a rollicking good time.

That is my story for now, and I'm gonna stick to it.
Tomorrow is Eddie's Attic and some decent hang time in the ATL. More flyers will be passed out, more people will avoid contact with us, and I will try desperately to convince David to let me give him a mohawk!

Tour: Part Four

So after a few brief moments of rest, along with band practices, trying to hang out with various friends as much as possible and attempting to catch up on some drinking, David and I finally played our homecoming show. Well, maybe it was just my homecoming show, since David still lives here, and was only gone for five days last week.

Irregardless, The Spanish Moon show definitely happened.

I don't know if I had just gotten my hopes up, or if it was in fact a well attended show. It was a Wednesday night, in Baton Rouge, and it was raining for a spell......which generally means hardly anyone goes out. I knew that. I've known that pattern for years. I was just hoping for a grander scale.

That complaining now having been complained, the people that did come out are AWESOME! Some I hung out with the night before, some I haven't seen in what seems like five years. But I had a blast, probably a little too much to drink, but a blast nonetheless.

"Car-Bomb-A-Thon '06" began the night for Mr. John Tulley. He had been talking about shooting "Irish Carbombs" for three days. In all honesty, I thought the birthday boy would have been passed out half-way through my set....but he rocked hard for the whole night, even after pulling double-duty as the bass player for both David and I.

David started the night off in the fashionably late style. Eleven PM rolled around as the place at least started to fill, mind you, it never actually continued to fill, but a start was good. David was backed by Drew Greene on drums and as previously mentioned, JT$ on bass guitar. His set was excellent and well played. It's a much different experience to see David play with a backing band. It adds a great amount of depth to each song. Usually when he plays alone, Dave fills a lot of space with his quick fingers and little quips on the high strings, but tonight, those elements were still there, but he let the band to the talking. It sounded gooooooooood.

I'm not really sure what time it was when we finally meandered on stage. It must have been at least midnight. Tom already had his drumset on stage and setup by the time I realized we were even supposed to start. I think I had gone to the bathroom and assumed David's band was wtill packing up. So I stumbled up the stairs and picked up my guitar. Brandon was already tuned and ready to go. John was strapped in after a brief moment of respite. So we got the levels checked, thanks to Talley, our excellent sound guy for the evening. And then we comenced to rocking.

I think we played really well. During practices and afterwards, I kept alluding to being in my band is like riding a bike.....once you learn how to do it, you don't really ever forget how its done. My on-again/off-again love affair with being in a band is the same way. Once you've played a show with me, you don't really forget the tunes whenever the next gig rolls around. Even though its been almost eight months since John and Brandon played with me, and a year or more since Tom played with me last, we rode that bike like we had been riding the whole time. Only a few beats were missed, and I think it was mostly my fault.....except when Brandon started playing along with "You'll Be Fine" by playing the wrong chords. Way to go, turd.

So. In summary, I think we played well. I think David and his band played very well. I think David put that heckler in his place (I'll let him tell you that story). It was awesome to hang out with so many familiar faces. It was great that Holly wore her "  I HEART Chris Keegan" t-shirt. I think more cute girls should own that shirt. Like an army of adoring female fans that I probably still wouldn't have a chance with. Damn.

As the sky is falling outside, I'm pondering the next stops on this tour. Birmingham tomorrow, Columbia on Saturday, and on to the ATL.

If you're reading this and in one of those cities, c'mon down!

Rock.

Tour: Parts Two and Three

PART TWO

Hola mis amigos. Yo necescito el bano.

Friday, David and I were still in Houston. We hung out with David's sister Carol and went to this massive candy store and David loaded up on some of the sweet stuff. Then it was off to the Menil, which is a small museum with some cool art and artifacts. After a quick lunch at a trendy but national grocery store, we headed back to the house, hit up the game Catchprase for hours and then went out on the town with Carol and her husband Fred.

Saturday morning, when David woke me up with monster noises, it was monsooning. We needed to depart Houston with a quickness and so I showered as quickly as possible, threw all my crap into my bag and we headed out like a baby through a birth canal.

PART THREE

David, being the uber-ninja that he is, found us a "possible" show at a place called Cafe Brazil (a chain of coffee shop/restaurants in Dallas). After trying to reach the manager/booking guy for a whole week, we finally managed to peg him down on Friday. The only drag was that we had to be in Dallas, at the cafe, by 2:00pm. Thank the good Lord above that he blessed me with a lead foot, because we were parked and seated at the counter by 2:01pm.

We actually thought this guy was blowing us off and that he'd be a big jerk, but contrary to our bad attitudes (who, me?), the guy finally came to meet with us after he had his own buiness meeting to attend. He told us that he couldn't pay us, but we could have all the coffee we wanted! Neither David or I drink coffee..........damn. But he offered us a place to hang out and play. So David and I showed up at 8pm and played for about two hours. We ended up playing every song together, whether it was David's tunes or mine, or even a few covers of A Soup Named Stew, the Cure and New Order. It was an amazing time, and even though the crowd was sparse, we had a blast and I even sold a couple of CDs.

Yet again, David's family came to the rescue. David's oldest sister, Karen and her husband Bernie allowed us to invade their home too and have been awesome hosts, which apparently runs in Dave's family. Must be genetic or something. After the show last night, Bernie led us to a bar called the Ginger Man. Beer taps galore!!!! My kind of place, except that it was like 200 degrees outside at like 11:30pm. Dry heat, my ass.

Today, or well, tonight, we played at Club DaDa in Deep Ellum, which I guess you would say is the cool place to be in Dallas. Tons of clubs and apparently a ton of live music every night of the week. Tonight's show was actually an open mic night. So, in an effort to take up more time than the 20 minutes per set each, we signed up for a third installment as "The Sockpuppets", which was David and I's band from camp all those years ago. People really seemed to enjoy each of the three sets. In fact, there was one couple that was so enthralled by one of my songs, that they just commenced to makin' out right there in front of God and everybody. Rock on. Granted, I didn't get any play on this leg of the tour, but I totally lived vicariously through that guy.

So tomorrow it's back home to BR for a few days of rest and band practice, and then on Wednesday night August 23rd, it's David Loti and Chris Keegan @ The Spanish Moon!!!! Be there or be a triangle.....or something....I dunno, I think I failed geometry. 

Tour: Part One

Ok.
Day one, done.
Woke up stupidly early, then fell back asleep for too long.
David bought a set of drums this morning, which actually has nothing to do with anything, except that I thought it was interesting.

I suppose it was about 1:30pm when we finally loaded our small amount of equipment into my SUV and trucked it toward the somewhat large state of Texas. My question is this: If "everything is bigger in Texas", then how large are things in Alaska? Seriously, that state is f-in' HUGE! Is everything "huge-r" in Alaska? I digress.

Dave took a nap. I had a low blood sugar. We stopped in Winnie, TX and I had a Whataburger. It was tasty, but I'll know next time to order it with fewer onions.....and more cheese.

We arrived at David's sister's house (everyone follow that?) at a little after 6:00pm following a relatively stress free drive. We took a few moments to play a little music, before we put our gear back in the car and drove to the venue to take more moments to play a little more music.

Man, am I glad that David has family in Texas. If it weren't for David's sister and cousin and their respective husbands, we would have had an audience of the proprietors of Mojo Risin' and this guy Steve, and maybe some crickets. As we would later learn, Steve was an English teacher (who had no favorite author) at a local Community College. He also claimed to be a professional harmonica player, a claim which I refuse to support or deny. David, being the extra-super-nice guy that we all know he is, invited Mr. Pro-Harmonica Blower (?) to blow on a tune.

"He was good though," said David.

David and I traded 40 minute sets and then shared the stage for two songs together at the end. It was fun, but for the next show, I totally need to write a set list. Yeah.

In review, Mojo Risin' is a cool place in Houston that serves coffee and coffee-related beverages.....but no beer. Man, I need a beer. They've been open for about a year and have grown their fan base slowly.......sloooooooooowwwwwwly.

As David put it so eloquently in his half-sleep stammering, "We should totally do this for real. You know, this touring thing?"
Then I said "Yeah, we should do this for real, 'cause I wanna proactive with some groupies."

I guess you had to be there.....but you weren't.

Stay tuned kiddies. More shows to come......tens of more people to expose to our unique brand of less-than-rock-n-roll.

Two Things this Time

Two things this time.

I hate moving, but I'm afraid I'm done yet. I'm sure at some point I'll have to pack up all my crap and move along to yet another stop in this odd trip. Most recently, for those of you keeping score, I've stumbled into Durham, North Carolina. Perhaps, I'm a slacker and I'm just getting around to rambling about this, but I've been here for a month. I'm crashing on Big C's couch for the meantime.....well, at least I have been, Jonathan gave me his bed today, so I'll actually be using the room that Corey gave me for sleeping, instead of just storage.

I guess I expected bigger fanfare when I arrived. Big C and I have spent many an evening carrying on, perhaps a bit too far. In fact, I've had several mornings where I wished I hadn't woken up. But we did purchase some fancy lawn chairs and have had a few evenings turn to early mornings on the porch. I'm excited to be in place where grilling at will is totally possible. Plenty of hamburgers have been rabbled down my gullet.

I'm sad to see Jonathan headed back to Deustchland so soon after my arrival, and I'm not sure that I'll ever understand his attachment to such a foreign place, but he is really happy about it and he's smarter than me, so I'll just hope he decides to make it back here sooner rather than never. Curiously, that's about the extent of my stay in Durham so far. Drinking, Eating, and Watching plenty of baseball! I'm glad to have my two buddies around again. I'm sorry that the enjoyment can't be shared by everybody in the area, and that I'm running out of beer $$. So as everyone learns to live their own seperate lives, I'll just try and stay slightly inebriated till it all passes over.

That is, except while I'm driving.

I'm stoked. For once. I'm finally taking the opportunity to hop in a motor vehicle and drive around part of the country and play some tunes. It's been almost ten years since the last time I got to play music in a city other than the one I lived in. Granted, BUG's first few forays into the world of a touring band were amazingly fun. Thousands of great stories still get told about those trips to KC. But this is the first time I've ventured out on my own.........or at least to play my own music.

For the last six years since I've been on my own (musically speaking), I've always given way to supposed pressures of my job(s), hindrance of transportation, and other factors that I now view as ridiculous. Call it growing up, call it being an asshole......whatever. I'm finally doing it, although I could not do it alone! David Loti, you are my hero......in so many ways.

We're off, next week. Seven shows all around the southeast. Dave did most of the work.....in fact, all I was really ever able to accomplish was coming up with the idea and a list of cities we should target as possible venues for our unique brand of Wuss Rock. Much to his chagrin, David had waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more luck in trying to book shows. One time, I was actually able to secure a show but then had to call back and cancel, after Dave had already booked a show on the same evening. The only other time I managed to get a response from a venue, it was to tell me that a certain Mr. Loti had already been in contact and they were "pleased to inform me of a time slot" that had already been secured.

So, take away my shortcomings as a booking agent. Subtract my distaste for living life as a nomad from my desire to wake up in a new city every day. Introduce a barrel-type container of chimpanzees (I don't want to get sued for trademark infringement), and let the tour begin!

See ya, suckers!