Rustbelt Mini Tour Day -1

photo by Tain Gregory

I’m setting out on a little “tour” of sorts and I’m already in the hole. Well, I need to be clear about this and that before I say something so negative as “in-the-hole”.

I’ve never toured as a solo musician before and I was planning on doing a small 4 gig tour this summer that took me from Sandy Hook, CT to Cleveland, OH and back. I successfully booked the Cleveland show and anointed it my “anchor gig”. It was almost too easy to book it and the venues was located right in the middle of the community where I grew up so I knew I would have an easy time getting an audience. I then went on line to search for gigs along the I-80 corridor and to solicit house concerts from people in Ohio. Here is where I ran into a wall.

I found several appropriate venues along I-80, sent my EPK, followed up and got nothing. Well not exactly nothing. I had a very strange email exchange with a booker from Williamsport. He emailed me several times saying – I just found your email what exactly do you do? – I go this from him three times and I told him three times what I did. After the third time I never heard from him again.

I then got an email from a booker in Pittsburgh who was very apologetic about not seeing my emails earlier and offered me a gig on the way to Cleveland. This booking was a little late so I didn’t really get to do my media press as I did for Cleveland, but I’ve been tweeting. So I’m 2 for 4 and I still could get a house concert while I’m in Ohio, you never know.

I was being picky about where I went for these gigs. I didn’t want to go to far afield because I have my wife and son traveling with me. Yes, I’m on the road with my family in tow and I’m combining this with a visit to the family relations in Ohio. So is it a “tour”? Probably not in the traditional sense, but I am traveling and playing while I visit family. This is an experiment, a toe in the pond to test the water.

Getting back to my financial declaration: Why am I “in the hole”? Well since we’re all traveling together we are taking the 10 year old Subaru Outback that needed new rear brakes and four new tires. The bill? Brakes and tires = $700. I’m in the hole.

But my rationalization is that this needed to be done to the car anyway for the upcoming school commuting season. This is the car that my wife uses to take my son to school and back in the sun, rain and snow of hilly Connecticut. But if you think about it in terms of a working/traveling solo musician: I’m in the hole. That’s what scares me about touring. I think the romance of traveling to places where I haven’t played is alluring, but the reality of not making money to pay for the travel is sobering.

Please check back in as I blog from the road. We’ll be in Pittsburgh tomorrow where I will play at Howlers Coyote Cafe at 9 PM. Travel on Friday to Ohio. Perform in Middleburg Heights (a suburb of Cleveland) at Seekers Coffeehouse on Saturday.