Road trip!
There are few times in life when a person is blessed with a second chance to really experience something again for the first time. OK, so that may have been a very cliche way to start this entry but I’m going to go with it anyway. Two years ago, I had the opportunity to experience Austin, Texas and South By Southwest – the biggest musical summit in the United States – firsthand while traveling with Walt Lafty (@waltlafty) and his band Automatic Fire.
The experience was rough, hectic and completely transformative; getting to experience this perfect storm of music and business was eye-opening for a thousand reasons. It confirmed everything I had suspected about the state of the business-side of music, and it renewed my faith in the power of audiences and musicians finding one another amidst competition, over-saturation and socially networked ubiquity.
Mostly, it was also a great bonding experience for me to share with the guys in that band, with Jared and Greg, with the road life and with this great and expansive country. The drive was long and tedious, and it was filled with wrong turns, traffic delays, awkward rest-stops and the magnificence that is the Waffle House. But it was all building toward something.
The experience of visiting Austin and this mecca of musicianship was enough to cement my desire to return every year and visit the dusty liberal heart of Texas and see just how life was treating the intrepid adventurers trying something new in music. I never got to go away to camp as a child…this was my reward.
Well, after taking 2010 to focus on other areas, I’m happy to announce that I’ll be making the trip again this year, back to the town where I left a piece of my heart as collateral to be collected one day in the near future.
I’m a different person now than I was back then. A smarter person. A leaner person. My thinking is streamlined and more focused on seeing where I can best fit into this tumultuous business of music. This time I am approaching Austin and SXSW with a goal, to sell myself, my brand, my creative output. Two years ago, when I left the festival, I knew one day I would return. Friends, that day is coming.
Starting next Tuesday (March 15, 2011) I will be out on the road for a week with my good friends in Sinai. They have invited me to tour manage their venture – three shows in five days – including the opening slot for the “Monster Energy Rocks Austin” official showcase, playing with 10 Years, Rev Theory, Duff McKagen’s Loaded, Filter and Puddle of Mudd.
To make this trip happen, we will drive long hours and rest for virtually none. We will sleep in strange quarters and we will always have an eye out for bandits and thieves in the night. We will drink, we will dance and yes, we will eat Waffle House. And I will be blogging the entire time.
It is my intention to leave a massive digital footprint during this trip – I will blog from the road, tweet every insipid and unnecessary thought, “check-in” at every restaurant, venue, gas station and rest stop I can handle and in so doing, will hopefully help share this experience with you all. This is why I rebuilt my site, friends…to create a single location from which I can report back on the state of things. This truly will be epic.
In addition to self-promotion and tour managing, I’ll also be working with Jared and Greg (who are also making the trip) to produce some content for the FroKnowsPhoto Show.
I will roll out more information in the next few days, but for now, I hope you will bookmark my site and plan to join me in this exciting new adventure.
Thank you friends.
