I had told you before about what we considered a decent crowd: ten people.  The last week of Red Collar’s First Ever Half-National Tour, with one exception, would be considered anything but decent.

As a reminder, or actually maybe I haven’t mentioned it until this point, from March to April 2009 we were touring half of the country with two other bands: New York’s The Bones Royal and Fort Worth’s The Whiskey Folk Ramblers.  Both were really good bands with great people in them.  We got hooked up with them because our manager knows the manager for The Bones Royal and The Bones Royal’s manager knows The Whiskey Folk Ramblers’ manager.

Rewind to dawn of April 2009.  Just one more week to go and then home sweet home.  After Oklahoma City, we continued to Tulsa.  It was the beginning of April and the weather was getting weird.  Really weird.  The wind was exceptionally strong and the forecast called for a snowstorm delivering three to six inches in the next twenty-four hours.  Just a tad more north of us and they’d get ten inches.  In Tulsa that night, we asked the other bands if we could play first so we could beat the weird weather and drive to St. Louis where my Sister and her family live.

We set up early and did a sound check and asked the Soundman if it would be okay if we could just play for a little while and noodle around with some ideas.  It is challenging on the road to actually ‘practice’ and write new songs because Red Collar is a band that likes its distortion and electricity.  It really does make a difference from a song-writing perspective.  I’ve written some stuff on acoustic and assumed it would work great but some didn’t translate.  If you heard ‘The Commuter’ and ‘Rust Belt Heart’ on KNC a few eeks ago you also know that it doesn’t necessarily easily translate on accordion (thank you Caid for your patience!) .

In the writing stage, before songs become songs, we’ve tried over and over to describe songs like “Hey let’s try that one that goes ba-na ba-na now, ba-na ba-na now, ba-na ba-na now, nah na-na na nah”.  And everyone looks at one another and asks, “Which one is that?”  (Shame on all of you for not recognizing ‘Hands Up’)  We call the songs something that reminds everyone of the hook.  Sometimes it’s the name of the band member that came up with the main riff like a “Mike Song”.  Sometimes it’s bands that we think the song sounds like.  Like most bands, we don’t consciously make an effort to sound like anyone but after playing a part over and over for a couple of hours until everyone figures out what they are playing, someone says “That kind of sounds like The Blanks”.   For a while, “Radio On” was “Hold Steady”.  “Tools” was “des_ark”.  “The Commuter” was “Arcade Fire”.  We currently have a “Maple Stave”.  Now we have a song that we refer to as “Tulsa”.

Tulsa was a good show.  We played well.

For three people.

“I’m giving it all she’s got, Captain”

After Tulsa, Jon hauled ass to St. Louis.  The St. Louis show was a lot of fun.  As I said my Sister lives there and she did a great job bringing folks out (THANK YOU!).  I was also completely floored to see…Sandra and Jaime! (psst…THANK YOU!)  The crowd was great; it felt like a hometown show.  As we were packing up, the snow started falling.  In the span of half an hour, the snow started dumping.  My sister lives twenty or so minutes from the venue but the more we traveled, the harder the snow started to fall.  It was like the start of every warp speed in movies when the stars come toward the crew with trailing tails of light.  Eventually I couldn’t see anything through the windshield so I had to concentrate on the yellow median line.  The twenty-minute trip turned into an easy hour.

The next morning…the snow was gone.  There was no evidence of a storm save for misty macadam.

We continued to Chicago.  I saw some dear friends of mine that I don’t see nearly enough.  Another handful of folks came out to see us because of a recommendation from Kyle Miller, owner of Chuchkey Records (thanks Kyle).  That recommendation doubled our attendance at the venue.  Instead of three, we had six. Honestly, that’s a big difference.  I start to put everything in perspective with touring.   You have to.  Here’s an example:

We played DC the other week (May 13, 2009).  We played with a band from Toronto, one from New York and one from DC.  We played first on the bill.  We’ve played DC several times and hey, we’re all friends here reading this blog, right?  You guys know me and know that I’m not the kind of guy that likes to brag.  I LOVE IT.  It was no surprise that two thirds of the audience were there to see us.  US!!!   Two-thirds!!

Well, two-thirds in this case equals four people.

A parenthetical thank you is not nearly enough for my Sister and for Kyle and for Sandra and for Jaime and for Caid.  It REALLY MEANS A LOT.  It’s not nearly enough to thank any of you in print or a stage or on a CD.  I guess it’ll have to do.  Bringing people out to see us and being a destination for Road Tripping is…fantastic.  We love it.  Steve, Jess, Julie, Marty, Matt…all of you who have done it.  We love to see you guys.  Any of you that I have never thanked for doing it, I apologize.  I think people don’t give gratitude not because they want to ‘play it cool’ and aren’t grateful but they are just too embarrassed or stunned to express themselves.  People shouldn’t be like that to one another.  We’re grateful.  If you take the time to not only look at our schedule and then contact friends in those cities that you think we’d be able to connect with, I’m grateful.  More than grateful.

“If you build it, they will come.  If you book it, well…hope for the best”

Here’s the last leg of the tour:

Chicago, Illinois.  Six people.

Bloomington, Indiana.  The show was cancelled. for lack of turnout.

Cleveland, Ohio.  The show was cancelled. last minute by the promoter.  I quote, “There’s no locals on this show.  It’s a Tuesday.  Why are we going to do this again?”

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Five people.

Brooklyn, New York. Five people.

The last week killed us.  We had been doing okay money-wise before it.  Not great.  But okay.  We bled money after Chicago.  That’s the way it goes.  You have to not only prepare for it but also expect it.  The Cleveland Incident was annoying.  Why?  BECAUSE THEY KNEW THREE MONTHS AGO THAT IT WAS GOING TO BE ON A TUESDAY AND NO LOCALS WERE ON THE BILL.

Our biggest mistake with this first tour was obvious: we played with two other out-of-town bands.  But my assumption was that if each band brought out three to seven people each show, well then we’d play each night for about ten to twenty people.  This wasn’t the case.  The advantage of doing this tour was that we got a lot of help booking it from the other band’s managers.  This is crucial. We wouldn’t have done a lot of these dates if someone else hadn’t helped us out and thusly wouldn’t have done this at all.

For the next tours, we’re only booking shows with locals and unless you are playing with bands that have a draw, I’d suggest doing the same.  There aren’t many places where there is a natural crowd that just go to see shows.  As I mentioned in the past, part of touring these first couple of times is to find decent places to play that may have good natural crowds on particular nights.  I would love to help out other bands that we know with some touring but honestly, it’s extraordinarily tough to do this.  Hopefully we get a toehold in some of these cities and in a few months we won’t have to rely so much on locals.  American Aquarium is at that point, actually they are beyond that point, and they were generous enough to have us tag along for a couple of regional dates earlier this year.  In the past, we had an unbelievable blast doing regional stuff with Rat Jackson and Hammer No More the Fingers.

Doing that in Skokie, Illinois…not so much.

Not yet.

  ___________________________

The last night of the tour was New York, The Bones Royal’s hometown.  I like New York in theory but in practice sometimes you can only say “Well, that’s New York for ya”.  They poll there (at least in the places that we’ve played).  They ask everyone who comes in to the venue what band they are there to see.  So at the end of the night, you are paid according to who you bring out.  It seems fair on paper but in practice that causes a very competitive attitude, I would guess.  One of our friends in New York said, “That’s nothing.  I’ve played shows where I was on a bill with three other bands.  People paid to see Band Number One.  THEY CLEARED EVERYONE OUT OF THE VENUE after they played.  If people wanted to see band two, they had to pay again”.  I guess I’m writing this not necessarily to complain but as disclosure for those of you who are touring and will have one less surprise while out there.  I’d be interested in any stories (plus and minus) on this.  If you have one, let us all know. (Beth says “fuck polling”.  Just say you’re they’re to see all the bands.  That should do it.)

Maybe from a venue owner standpoint this polling stuff is good, I don’t know.  A lot of things work for New York but not for a lot of other places.  Fair enough.  My gut says that it’s annoying though not necessarily unfair.  It’s actually very fair from a strict interpretation of the definition.  It’s very by the book: pay for what you want, earn what you bring.  But I don’t think it’s good to treat bands kind like sushi on a conveyor belt.  It emphasizes the promotion side of being in a band.  We’ve played with a lot of bands and some of them have been absolutely amazing at promotion.  They flyer the hell out of a town.  They call the radio stations to play their music.  They have postcards made up that they leave around the bar and on stage.  The postcards have a great professional picture of the band on it meaning it’s well lit and they have hair stylists and usually in the background there’s lightning and a brewing storm...a brewing storm of rock and roll coming to your town!  We just stopped at a Wendy’s in Bloomington, Illinois.  One of these kinds of bands had a postcard on a bulletin board.  They throw their CD’s from the stage.  They are incredible at this aspect of being in a rock band.  Let me tell you the side that they are not so good at:

Actually playing the fucking music.  Most of these bands are terrible.  But I’m sure they draw and do well at polling places.

Back to New York…  At the end of the set Jon proposed driving back to Durham that night/morning.  It was a Friday and normally I would suggest just staying the night because it’s an eight or nine hour drive.  However…

…VIKING STORM WAS THE NEXT NIGHT.

We had to get back to Durham.

We weren’t supposed to be able to make this show.  Our tour was supposed to go another week.  It didn’t happen cause venues flaked out.  Promoters flaked out.  Bands flaked out.  In the end, Red Collar flaked out (sorry Johnstown!) That’s the way it goes. I’m glad the tour didn’t go longer.  The tour was just long enough for a very first tour: just shy of a month.

I was in a daze at the Hammer show.  I didn’t quite recognize people right away.  I was asked several times how the tour went and I think I answered “okay”.  People asked me how I was doing and I think I said I was “okay”.  I remember talking with Shayne and feeling really spacey.  I don’t know why.  I wasn’t sure how to answer or something.    I felt like I was gone forever but only gone for a day.  I was soooo excited to get back home, sooo excited to see my friends, to see Hammer.  But I couldn’t wait to get back on the road.

How was the tour?

How was the tour?

The only honest to heaven goal I had for that March-April Tour was: DO IT.  That’s it.  I didn’t care if we came out in the black or red or how many T-Shirts or CD’s we sold or how many new fans we made.  That is all stuff that you can’t really count on (unless Red Collar gets postcards made with lighting and tornado’s and hell fire).  We just had to do it and come home on the day we planned.

Goal accomplished. I was still sorting out all this in my head at the Hammer show (you guys killed by the way).  So if I wasn’t coherent when you asked me where Beth was, I sincerely apologize if I said “Huh?  Wha..?  Sleeping in the van I think…what time do we go on?  Schenectady?”

But a couple of other very, very important things happened on that first tour:

The greatest thing I heard when we came home (except for the sweet, sweet sounds of Hammer No More the Fingers) was this statement from Steve Jones of The Dry Heathens:

“Welcome Home”

It wasn’t “Welcome Back” but “Welcome Home”.

That felt good.

Thanks, Steve.

Thanks, Durham.