Well, an early Happy New Year to you all!
It's New Year's Eve and I can't help but reflect on this past year. It's been a year of excitement, ups, downs and all arounds!
At this hour last year I was still trying to learn lyrics for our first proper show as Sand Dollar Rodeo and was nervously hoping all would work itself out by show time on the 4th. It was at a place called Fred's and we were to play for 3 hours. Prior to this show, Heath and I had only performed as a duo and only had to fill an hour or so, tops.
I remember showing up, not being able to find a place to park and worrying like crazy that I was going to be the one to make us late to our first paying gig. I wound up unloading all my gear on the side of the place, then parking about a mile away. I ran back to the venue, only to find that the sound guy wasn't even there yet - whew!
At that time, we thought we might be a country band. Maybe. Most everything we had on the books were country bars. So, we front loaded some country covers and made the best of it those first few shows. I learned a lot early in the year. One important thing I learned was that, if you're going to play a classic country cover, be prepared for requests for country standards the rest of the night. After a few months we ditched any classic country covers. It was never the direction we wanted to go, we just needed enough material to fill a 3 or 4 hour slot and no one complains when you nail an Alabama song.
As I look back over my blog entries, I am reminded of some wild nights, some frustrating nights and some just plain confusing nights...
Dirt Roads Dance Hall in the Aledo area... that's where we learned that some musicians really are jerks, regardless what they say to your face. We also learned there, that we are not a honky tonk cover band. They wanted to dance to George Strait - we closed our set with Bow Wow Wow. We had people dancing and they seemed to have fun. But, we were reminded in a follow up email from the venue that we wouldn't be coming back. The bar bashed us and our agent, the headliner bashed us and our agent. In retrospect, pardon my French, but fuck 'em. The bar closed shortly thereafter and the headliner is still playing gigs for "exposure." We're still going strong... and getting paid.
Wet Creek Bar in Fort Worth... Our first biker bar. I remember holes punched in the bathroom walls. I remember burly bikers grooving to our music. The show itself went fine but, again, it wasn't the direction we thought we needed to be going. I couldn't visualize any of the people who actually liked our music going there.
Keller Tavern... all I can say about playing Keller Tavern is that, if we're ever in a drought again, book us at Keller Tavern. We played there 3, maybe 4 times last year. Every time it stormed. I remember playing there the first time, like in January, and it hailed. I always thought we had potential there. But, the weather gods were never with us. Plus, they had a young, trendy crowd and, as we would come to realize as the year went on, our fans are our age.
Ahh, then there's the Happy Armadillo in Everman. First time I've ever been told to stop before I even started. We showed up, set up, started sound check and they told us we didn't sound right for their crowd. They said they only booked rock or classic country cover bands. We were like, umm... did you listen to our demo and read our bio (which says we play original music) before you booked us? We were out of there before 8pm, didn't get paid, then they had the nerve to call the cops on us after the show as we were talking with our booking agent in the lot afterwards. The cops just laughed. No issues. Heath and I laugh about it now. But, it left a bad taste in our mouths and started making us a little jaded when it came to future bookings.
Early in the year, we played Hollywood & Vine in Glen Rose for the first time. It's a long drive, we had no idea what to expect. Because it was a small town, we started off with a couple of the classic country covers and eased them into our stuff. It worked and began a nice relationship with the place. We have played there several times over the year and really enjoy playing there. Nowadays, we don't have to kick off with the covers!
By late Spring, we had figured out what we didn't want to do. We knew that, unless we wanted to be a straight out cover band, we were not right for "bars." I started exploring other booking options - festivals, bowling alleys, beer... I was at one of the beer festivals and noticed that some of the local breweries were having live music during their tours. Cool - daytime shows, beer. Sign us up! And so began the beer shows. They are great fun and we have no immediate plans of ending those types of gigs. Same with the bowling alley shows. As strange as it might sound, it's a fun gig. And, again, as we began figuring out our market, we knew that people our age would be more inclined to see us at 8pm at a bowling alley than at 11pm in a bar.
We've played a lot of shows over 2013 - most every weekend - too many shows to go into detail about on this post. (I post after every show with more details. You're on that site now, so if you want some reading material and are curious, read away after this post). We learned a lot. That's probably what I value most from this year is the knowledge we gained. We made some mistakes. But, we learned a lot and I wouldn't undo any of it.
Highlights of the year, for me, would be releasing the GPS To Nowhere CD - then actually seeing sales come in from it. Another - Bringing this idea I had around this time in 2011 to full life - into full band form by Summer. It's such a different, more exciting experience, to hear us play with live bass and a live drummer. I am very thankful to have landed Brian on bass. I hear him improvise on songs like Tailgate to the Beach and think, "man, I wish I had recorded my bass part that way." I really like his playing and enjoy having him to my left, often laughing at me.
The biggest highlight of all is the fact that we're still here and have no plans of backing off - Heath and I still have the same excitement for what we're doing as the first time we got together. We have had some good challenges. We're not kids and, for the most part, younger crowds like bands their own age. Also, we don't sound like everyone else. It's not really intentional, we just sound like ourselves. We have no plans on giving into a set genre other than our own. It's tough to get booked when you're doing something original like that. People like it, but the venues don't know what to do with it. It's not country, it's not rock, etc. Patience and more fans will solve that problem over time. Finally, it's nice to end the year with a few bucks in the band bank account. Until the last 6 months, Heath and I have done nothing but pour money into the band. Having a few bucks to pay for, oh say, rehearsal rooms, is a nice luxury.
I also have to send out a big THANK YOU to a core group of folks: Mike, Allyson, Brian, Cisco & Marti. If it weren't for you guys, Heath and I might never have been able to get this little "band" out of my studio and onto a stage. Through all your work and cooperation, I have had a really fun year and, while my bones ache like an over 40 victim of fate after a show, I feel like I'm 18 again the rest of the time. I can't thank you all enough for allowing me to put this in motion. I thank Heath a great deal for sticking with me. I feel like, not only did I meet someone I enjoy working with with, I made a good friend as well. Thanks, Mr. "like the candy bar" Frazier.
Then, there's YOU. Those of you who have embraced us from the beginning. Brian, Kristi, Jeff, Shelly and the whole McKinney gang. The Willow Park bunch at Frazierville. The two or three folks at the end of every show who come up and talk to us, maybe buy a CD or buy us a drink. Thank you guys so much for your support. I truly appreciate it.
2014 will be a time for change and growth. As some of you have heard, Cisco will be leaving us to pursue other interests. It's amicable, has nothing to do with the band - he's actually not leaving for another band, rather a day job. It's understandable. While we're making money now, it's not enough for someone to support an entire household. You do what you've got to do. He has been a great asset and will be missed. Taking over on drums this weekend will be Tony. Yes, we have rehearsal tomorrow, NY's Day, to ready for the show. Won't be a late night for me! So, once again, I'm back where I was this night last year - wondering if it will go smoothly on Saturday. Luckily, now I know that, regardless of how it goes, things will work out and we'll move forward.
We have new material in the works as well. You'll start hearing some of that probably in a few shows and we are tentatively planning the new album to be done and out the latter part of 2014. Additionally, we plan to continue focusing on and catering to our market - look for more shows at unconventional places. Places you want to go to rather having to stay up til 2am to see us. We're working hard on making that happen.
Ok, I've probably taken up enough of your New Year's Eve! I'm going to leave you with a link to a little Spotify playlist I put together this morning. This is every song we've played live this year. Well, every song but Postcard. It was an independent release by a band called St Somewhere and it doesn't exist on Spotify. You'll have to use your imagination on that one. Everything else is there. You'll be able to see how we danced around genres as we defined what we wanted our shows to sound like. We never played all of these songs in one set, so I pieced it together as closely as they flowed as I could. Hopefully, it will put a smile on your face. The link is at the bottom - just click it - you know you want to.
I hope everyone has a great evening and stays safe. Have a super 2014 and we'll see you next year!
Stay gold,
Roy
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