One thing that any performer is likely to deal with at some point is hecklers.
Muppets notwithstanding, hecklers suck. Let's just sit with that for a moment. Hecklers suck.
We've had our share. We've been heckled about our car, our set list, just general heckling while we're performing - I've even had people come up to me on a break or after we're done to say something biting. In his solo days, Johnny had a guy put his heckle in a note that he put on stage so Johnny would think it was a request. Good job - you did it. You said something shitty.
Last week, we had the pleasure of playing our first gig in West Texas' own The Shack in the Back in Odessa. There's plenty we could say about the gig - namely that much to our surprise, about 500 well-dressed people came out to a random, but lavishly landscaped, club situated behind a Pepsi distribution center on a Wednesday night and paid $10 a head to party like it was 1999.
But that's not what this post is about.
This post is about the view - the view from behind the mic. Because this blog isn't about all those young, good-looking people with a lot of money and the ability to drink until midnight and still go to work the next morning. This blog is about US - the BAND. So, let's talk about our perspective. Literally.
Here's what we saw looking forward from the stage:
Seeing as it's June, we can't really complain about the highs now consistently being in the 90s. It was a pretty mild spring here in Texas, so if it's only just now getting H-O-T hot, then we've gotten a reprieve this year - especially since April and May were two of the busiest months in our band's history.
If the connection isn't hitting you, let me explain. We play outside a lot. In fact, we play outside way more than we play inside. And sometimes we play outside in the middle of the day.
I'm not gonna lie - sometimes it's brutal.
But as time goes by, we figure out ways to work around the challenges of playing in such hot weather:
We made up for our weekend off last week with three gigs this week - a private party, a public show and a sound gig. Many thoughts arise from such a busy weekend. Here's a rundown:
Summer has arrived in Austin. Criminey, it gets hot here.
In
light of bullet #1, air conditioning is a wonderful thing. And whoever
thought to put it in cars should be knighted or something.
You can do a song a million times, and one day, you stand on stage, and your brain just farts. You can't remember lyrics, notes, nothin'. It can even be a song you wrote. I don't know why, but it just happens sometimes. It sucks pretty much anytime it happens, but it particularly sucks if it's the first song of the show, because anyone who hasn't seen you before hears about 10 seconds of you stumbling around, and the die is cast - "Hack." You can kill it the rest of the set, and maybe you redeem yourself somewhat, but as the saying goes, you only get one chance to make a first impression, and I'd prefer for that first impression to not be that I just stepped on stage for the first time.
If you buy a house next to a live music venue, please don't complain about the live music and make it your mission to kill said music. Move.
It's pretty cool to watch kids playing instruments and performing on stage, some for the first time, instead of spending their time watching TV or playing video games. Hope for the future of music!
If you want to feel like an amazing singer and/or musician, go watch some kids who are just learning to play instruments. (Oh sure, it's pathetic to feel superior to kids, but you're never going to feel like a stud if all you compare yourself to is actual rock stars.)
I know this image doesn't exactly match the bullet point, but I found it and couldn't NOT post it.
If you manage a venue, and someone brings an event to your venue that will make you money during a time you wouldn't normally make much in the way of sales, instead of being a sour, gripey pill to the people who are putting on the event, try being nice. You're not doing them a favor. If anything, it's the other way around.
One last thought, not inspired by any of our gigs but by the Billboard Music Awards - when is Justin Bieber going to go away?
We've been talking a lot lately about what our dream band van would be like. Of course, the DREAM band van would look something like this:
But unless one of the members of U2 adopts us then dies immediately, leaving us his estate and future royalties, we're not likely to be traveling in that kind of style. And if we DID travel in that kind of style, I guess we'd have to call it a "bus" rather than a "van."
You know what? We don't have to do anything. We're calling it a van even when they're profiling us on a "Extreme RVs."
And when we get this VAN, I'll have to re-join Netflix or something. If we're rolling around in this bad boy, we'll obviously be traveling a lot, and you see that awesome TV mounted where you're supposed to be looking at the vistas ahead? Well, there are a number of TV series I've missed and would like to catch up on while on the highways and byways. Among the shows I would force Joe to watch with me, beginning to end (since Johnny would be driving):
Mad Men
Boardwalk Empire
Veep
Sherlock
Downton Abbey
24 (Nope - never seen it.)
Eastbound and Down
Flight of the Conchords (I've seen several episodes of this when my TV provider has given me free HBO preview weekends, but I want to watch EVERY episode! Love, love, love.)
Chapelle's Show
After I worked my way through those, I'd probably give Friday Night Lights a shot. I saw the movie, but I never watched the TV series, and that seems wrong, given that it was filmed near Austin and it's about football in Texas - two of my favorite things in the world. I also adore Connie Britton (we've been watching "Nashville" and never miss an episode).
I'd probably also have to give Doctor Who a shot (starting with the original episodes from the '60s), mainly because I'm curious about it but also because it would be the one series out of my whole list that Joe might actually watch with me instead of sleeping through. Never having seen it, I'm fairly certain that Community's imaginary series Inspector Spacetime is based on it, so that seems an endorsement if nothing else:
Should we fail to achieve Super Band Van Amazingness, I'll have to some day set aside a few months devoted to nothing but watching all the shows I've missed over the years. I suppose some would call that "retirement" but I like to think of it as a sabbatical. I could announce what TV series will be playing non-stop on our TV until it's through, and anyone who wanted to watch could come join me and bring me food. When I'm done, I'll return to my regularly scheduled life.
Seeing that I don't have time these days to watch the stuff currently on our DVR, the dream of this little sabbatical kind of keeps me going. "Someday, I'm going to sit down and watch every episode of Mad Men, in order. Then I'll know what all the hubbub is about." I hate not knowing.
What series did you miss out on that you'd like to go back and watch all the way through?
To the guy who came up to me at the end of our show in Kemah this weekend, took a sticker and said, "You guys sounded good":
What I thought you said was, "Were you guys any good?" as if you had just gotten there, were waiting for the next band, and were asking one of those questions that people sometime ask us just to see if they can throw us off-kilter and make us look stupid. People do that. I'm not sure why - maybe it's so they can show their friends or their girlfriend how, even though they're not on stage, they're cooler/smarter/more clever than we are. But for whatever reason, people do that. And you learn to have quick answers at the ready.
So, when I answered you by saying, "Of course! We were amazing!" I promise I wasn't being an arrogant asshole. I was just trying to have a good-natured response to what I thought was someone being a jerk.
Honest.
It was only after you'd walked away that I realized what you'd actually said and how my response must have sounded.
I looked for you the whole time we loaded out, so I could explain, but didn't see you again. (sigh)
On the upside, Johnny found my response hilarious when I told him about it later. He's very sensitive.
This past Saturday, The Staylyns' loaded up the van and headed west for our first trip to San Angelo, Texas - hopefully of many! We had a beautiful drive, but before I get to that, let me tell you about the gig.
We played a bar called The Office:
This little hottie greets you at the door. I have no idea why the bar's mascot is a sheep. Are they saying all office workers are sheep? That seems insulting. And slutty sheep? I don't know - I think more explanation should be given.
