We would have such a very good time – Such a fine time; such a happy time…

It’s official:

I have played only 3 solo shows in the second half of this year.

For me, that is UNHEARD of.  My schedule hasn’t been this sparse since…  half a decade ago?  No… probably longer.  I mean, even back at the top of 2007 when I was near death and hospitalized twice, I had a more densely booked performance schedule in a shorter span of time.

This is VERY different for me.

So what’s going on?

I’ve been saying for a long while now that I’m going to play where people want to listen to me.  Pretty simple philosophy.

So I let it be known months ago that I was booking house concerts to support the release of *Clang & Chime*…    and I got six emails from interested parties.  Before long, I had five all-but-booked.

Two got cold feet along the way, but three confirmed, and I just got back from performing at the last of those three about a week ago.

It worked out that they were spaced out about a month apart from each other; I did one in Central New York at the end of August while I was in the area finishing the album mix at The Belfry.  The second worked out at the end of September in Castle Rock, Colorado, and the third one was here in Nevada… though at the opposite end of the state, down in Las Vegas.  With all the behind-the-scenes action that went into getting *Clang & Chime* ready for release, I wasn’t too upset about the sparse schedule…  and it worked out that I released the album on the internet as soon as I returned from Vegas.

To help get rid of the mystery surrounding house concerts, I’m doing a little round-up of my (great) experiences here…  enjoy!

AUGUST – CENTRAL NY

I won’t mention any more specific info about this location, as the hosts had asked that this be a private show.  In fact, I never even listed this on my calendar for that reason.  House concerts can be an awesome way to meet other folks in your area who like the same music… there’s a definite bond that forms between people who share an interest in independent music, and it makes for great community…   but comfort in one’s own home supersedes all else, and if the hosts want it to be “friends only”, it absolutely remains so. 

The couple that hosted this show have been hardcore Horanimals for years… I think they first saw me perform a college show back in 2002.  Now they’re out in the real world, married, and recently moved into their own place…  and what better way to enjoy one’s new house than by hosting one’s very first house concert?

It was a win-win…  the hosts got to share something with their friends that they’d only been able to describe in words for a long time, and I got to reach out to a whole new group of people.  The hosts also got to hear a bunch of the new record before it was even sent off to the mastering lab!

Overheard from wife-host to husband-host:   “We should do this all the time.”

SEPTEMBER – CASTLE ROCK, CO

(taken from the nosebleed seats... look how far away I am! )

This was a different animal.  Charlene and Greg Johnson have been hosting house concerts for years now… they even have a name for their series (“Music on the Mesa”), and they get listed in local papers.  They take it very seriously, and being an ace musical duo themselves, they know how to pull off every aspect of the evening. From seating to sound to invitations to food & drinks to sectioning off a somewhat distant “KIDS ROOM”, there was nothing they hadn’t thought of.  It was brilliant.  They really transform their home into a venue for a night.

Having a track record like that isn’t just good for the performer; it’s great for the audience.  Many of the regular attendees at Mesa concerts are friends of the Johnsons… but they became friends because they showed up to so many house concerts on account of the consistently great shows.  The night I performed they had a packed house….  FIFTY people.

I met so many great people here, to say nothing of the Johnsons themselves, who are an amazing family.  They went far and above the call of duty with their hospitality.  One example out of a hundred: they heard what a coffee-snob I am, and so they went and got a coffee maker and a pound of gourmet beans…  just to make me comfortable.  That’s just the tip of the iceberg; I could go on all day, and I’m still trying hard to think of what I did to rack up enough karma points to receive this experience and these people in my life.  It was just awesome.

OCTOBER – LAS VEGAS, NV

(You can't see the people hiding beind the plants...

This show was put on by another couple trying it for the first time, but their instincts proved to be right on-the-mark.  Marla and Andy made sure everything went off without a hitch, and if I hadn’t known that it was their first time trying to host, I’d think they did this all the time.

The atmosphere was fantastic, and packed, again.   Let me clarify about what it means to be “packed”…   in a club that holds hundreds of people, twenty-five attendees won’t feel like a lot… to the performer, or to those people themselves.  The seating can be spread out into “pockets” around the room, and the energy dissipates before it can ever really build up.

 But in your LIVING ROOM, twenty-five people (clarification: twenty-five MATURE people) all giving their attention to the same thing can be positively electric.  The space gets FULL, of both people and energy, and it just creates an amazing environment for music.  Marla and Andy’s living room was packed with that many people, and we just kept passing energy back and forth to each other for a couple hours.  It was a great time.

I was beyond flattered when I saw the feedback Marla collected from her guests after the show…  I was, actually, honored:

_______________________________________________________________________

* I have to admit having never been to a house concert and not really knowing what I was in for I was under the impression we were on our way to see “Yawnie” and instead I got to see one of the most ELECTRIC performers I have gotten to see play live since I saw the very first U2 concert in Los Angeles =)

* I admit whole heartedly that I was mesmerized by the entire performance … intelligent lyrics and rock your socks off music!

* We go to community concerts and shows all the time and have never seen anything as good as this!

* You talked him up pretty good so I was a bit skeptical. Turns out I was right and you were wrong. He was better than you said he was. Great show!

* I had a really rough week and this concert was the perfect thing to make it all go away. Seth was amazing!

* I had no idea what to expect. This exceeded everything I thought it might be like. Good stuff!

* What an absolute rockin out concert and Seth Horan was funky too!

* Great concert! We had a great time!

* We had a great time. And drove home listening to Seth’s new CD that we bought after the concert and continued the groove all the way home. Thanks!

* I had never heard of Seth before. But I’m sure glad I know who he is now. He was GREAT! Thanks for the invite!!!

* It was an absolutely wonderful evening … we talked about politics, we talked about community service, we talked about upcoming events and then the music started and all we could talk about was Seth Horan.

______________________________________________________________________

Sin City, you humble me. 

Anyway, like I was saying: even though it may seem like I’m “not doing anything” right now, I assure you…  this is the first spare moment I’ve had to take notice!

So, the album is finally out, and I’m not out doing a fall tour…  what AM I doing now?

Why, I’m booking the SPRING tour.

At this point, I’ll nip-in-the-bud the next question that always seems to arise when I make a statement like that.

Invariably, someone always asks:  “When are you going to play in MY town?”

If that question is forming in your mind, I can answer it with another question:

When am I playing at your place?

Let me know.  Thanks for reading.

Be well,
Seth

(sethhoran@yahoo.com)

The truth about “Clang & Chime”

So you might have heard by now that I’m about to release this new album…

(…well, maybe you haven’t.  I have, after all, been pretty low key about the whole thing. 

The name of this big new piece of stuff I’m about to put out into the world is “Clang & Chime”.  I’ve gotten a number of different reactions to this name from a number of different people; some who are total strangers; some who are close friends and family members whose opinions I either can’t escape, totally respect, or both.

Most people respond well to it.  Of all the titles I’ve given to things I’ve made, this one has the best “score” coming out of the gate.  It seems to prompt people to ask for more information about it as soon as they hear it.  Friends in marketing tell me that’s a good thing… that it’s the equivalent of a book or magazine having a cool cover, and that more people will be inclined to listen to it because they like the name of the record.

As much as I hope they’re right, I can’t say that it has anything to do with why the record is called what it’s called.  “Clang & Chime” means a quite a few different things to ME… let’s start there before we get to anyone else’s interpretation!

There’s the completely literal sense to start with.  Over the years I’ve spent traveling and performing, I’ve played in just about every situation you can imagine, and wherever I go, I only sound as good as the sound engineer makes me.  The great thing about using an acoustic guitar is that everyone knows what it’s supposed to sound like in the hands of a solo songwriter.  But nobody, professional sound engineers with years of experience included, has a frigging CLUE what I’m up to with a bass in my hands.

Looking back on the past decade, I can count the number of sound engineers who have known innately what I’m going for on one hand.  For the rest of them, brows furrowed and faces frowning as they pushed buttons and twisted dials on their mixing consoles, I started using a descriptive phrase that seemed to help more times than not:  “When you get it right, it should clang and chime”.  This became my mantra for years, and helped define the sound that has helped to define me as an artist.

I like it: “Clang” describes a sound that is abrupt and harsh, but still resonant — “Chime” describes a resonant sound that is more pure and agreeable; and this brings up the idea of Consonance vs. Dissonance.

Lyrically, these songs deal with recognizing human fallibility — within our relationships, and within ourselves — and with how we reconcile those flaws.  Bringing the idea of resonance a step further:  Eastern spirituality deals with the idea of Chakras, or energy centers in the body that resonate along with certain frequencies, and react badly to other frequencies.  Everything we experience is in some way or another affecting the way our own energy is flowing; consequentially enhancing or disrupting our lives.   Human experience is, in fact, a constant push and pull between these states.

So while my playing may evoke the literal sense of “Clang & Chime”, the lyrics of these songs are meant to evoke the sense of that fallibility as dissonance, and of that reconciliation as consonance.

Call it whatever feels appropriate:  Tension and Release.  Cacophony and Harmony.  Yin and Yang.  Sorrow and Joy.

I call it Clang & Chime.

I hope you’ll spend some time with it as soon as it’s released.
______________________________________________________________________

(until the stroke of midnight that starts September 14th, you can pre-order the limited special editions of Clang & Chime by going to http://sethhoran.blogspot.com)

The Shockingly Unjust & Hideous Death of the Cafe Au Lait. =(

I had a moment of clarity the other night while doing something I rarely do anymore:  I went and hung out in a Borders store, browsed through the books, the albums, the magazines, got a cup of coffee, and sat down to take in some culture.

I noticed some jarring changes.  Most obvious was that the CD section had been reduced to a quarter of its previous size.  I mean: SEVENTY-FIVE PERCENT of the CD bins had been removed.  I went to take stock of the carnage.

It seemed that most of what had been removed were “catalog” titles… they’d nixed the “old” music in favor of new artists and new releases by established acts, and most of the acts I could see at a glance I would call “peripheral” or “emerging” artists.

It was a bit astonishing to realize the number of artists who had albums on display that I have had some kind of contact with.  These artists are… my peers, really.  In many cases there are completely arbitrary factors that have dictated that their albums are still available in a nationwide chain store, while mine have not been on those shelves since 2005.

I had just taken all this in when I walked over to the cafe counter and placed my coffee order.  I was present, but mildly distracted, so the counter dude’s response to my request surprised me more than it should have:

“A cafe au lait!  Wow; most people don’t know what that even IS!”

What??

This, of course, is not true.  Plenty of people know what a cafe au lait is.

Err…          …don’t they?

Well, shit.  Maybe they don’t?   I pondered this as I went to sit down.

“Cafe Au Lait” is French for “coffee with milk”.  It’s been a staple on cafe menus all over the world, regardless of language, for as long as I can remember.  At least until Starbucks came along.

Starbucks capitalized on a major idea: they convinced the public that “ESPRESSO IS MORE VALUABLE THAN COFFEE”.  The idea is nonsense, of course — espresso IS coffee.  It’s simply prepared differently.  There is no practical reason to charge twice as much for it.  Sure; it requires a different grind and a separate machine, but grinders are adjustable, and espresso machines are standard overhead in cafes.

Besides that, it has become commonplace for a 2 ounce shot of espresso to cost the same as a 12 ounce cup of drip coffee.   Um…  hello?

People were already used to paying close to 2 bucks for a cup full of drip coffee.  By convincing people that espresso is exotic and valuable and different, Starbucks made the world believe that the same sized cup with espresso in it was easily worth twice as much.  Even though most of what is in the cup is actually MILK; not espresso.

The problem for Starbucks was this:  if people equate a full cup of coffee with “two dollars”, and if you have to give people milk for free on the condiment stand, you can’t charge a whole lot more just for dumping out half the coffee and replacing it with HOT milk.  True; a Cafe Au Lait usually doesn’t cost more than 25 to 50 cents more than a standard coffee.

Well if the maximum price for a cup of half coffee and half milk is $2.50, how are you supposed to convince people to spend $4 on a cup that has only 2 ounces of coffee and is MOSTLY milk?

You take the better deal off the menu.

People will forget.  Those that don’t won’t want to speak up.

That’s what Starbucks bet on.  They were right.

There is NO “Cafe Au Lait” menu option at any Starbucks, anywhere.  If you ask for one, you’ll be told that it’s not on the menu.  They can tell you that, because they’re not lying; “Cafe Au Lait” is NOT on their menu.

Because they changed it’s name.  Starbucks calls a cup of half coffee/half milk a “Misto”.   The Misto does not appear anywhere on the menu, either, but if you ask for one, they have to make it for you, and you’ll pay…  (drumroll)   about $2.50.

But people don’t ask for it.  Because they either can’t remember it when they’re staring at the menu, or they don’t want to “be a problem” or draw unnecessary attention to themselves by asking for it.

This explanation is long, but the realization came to me in the second following the barista’s declaration:

I’m a Cafe Au Lait.

I’m a great deal, dammit.  I cost less than most of the other stuff out there, and I taste better than most of it…  or at least AS good!

I’m just not on the menu.

Whenever any listeners or fans discovered me, I was “on the menu” in their world.  I was playing on stage; my music became a common experience for everyone who heard me. After I sold CDs to these folks, they played them for their friends, and then my music was in the common cultural vocabulary they shared.

But over the years, those people grew apart, moved, met new friends who weren’t already familiar with my music.  Suddenly my songs lost their “common touchstone” status, and I was “not on the menu” anymore.  And just like the Cafe Au Lait, people forgot that I was an option, or didn’t want to be judged by suggesting something that wasn’t already in their new friends’ pool of common experience.

Once this mindset took hold, some people just erased me from their own cultural vocabulary, and even though they heard from me through email, by the time my next album came out, they couldn’t reconcile adding me back to their mental playlist.  Instead of getting excited about listening to my new music, they actually withdrew from it.

SO.  Check it out:

I am releasing my first full-length album in FIVE YEARS this fall**.  It is, by far, the best thing I’ve ever made, and no matter if you have listened to every note I’ve recorded over the past decade or if the last thing you heard from me was the last note of “Something Pretty” back in 2002, I would be honored if you would at least give it a chance.

We, the independent artists of today, don’t have media PR machines to change your minds, influence your friends, and direct your attention for you.

We have YOU, and we’re counting on you to remember us, talk about us, suggest us, explain us to those who don’t know.

We need you to put us back on the menu.

We need you to NOT take the path of least resistance.

We need you to order a Cafe Au Lait.

Thanks for listening.

-Seth
**If you’re not already on my email list, sign up HERE and I’ll let you know when it’s ready.

Sharing… really DOES mean caring.

In my recent emails to my mailing list, I shared a plan that I thought would be a great “win-win” scenario for everyone.

The plan was this:

Current fans would encourage their friends who also listen to/like my music to sign up on my email list…

…once those new folks signed up, they would write me a quick note telling me who their friend was that referred them…

…and then BOTH the pre-existing fan and the new mailing list member would receive an MP3 with a sneak peek at the upcoming album (being released this fall).

I think this is a pretty good system, and there’s a small fail-safe in place:  I’m willing to bet that anyone who isn’t TRULY interested in being on the email list won’t take the time to write me personally.

Why don’t we automatically sign up for “free gifts” when the catch is that we have to give our email address to the company making the offer?  I mean, if we’re interested in that company and their products, it’s no big deal. But if we’re not truly interested, we don’t really want to be bothered in our inboxes.

Putting that requirement in there was my way of filtering out the people who don’t care.

Of course, the incentive of getting some free, exclusive music lit a fire under quite a few people, and some folks definitely put a lot of effort into trying to recruit others to the cause.

A lot of pre-existing mailing list members tried these things:

-they forwarded my email to everyone they knew.  No attached note of explanation; they just dumped my email in their friends’ inboxes and assumed someone would understand why or take the time to read it.

-they sent out a message of explanation…  as a mass “CC” email, or sent cut-and-paste comments to friends.

-they didn’t write any friends at all… but they wrote to ME to tell me the story of how they joined my mailing list (in some cases, over a year ago), and so they felt like they deserved the free sneak-peek.

-some people just wrote to me and said, point blank, that they hadn’t tried to get anyone else interested, but they’d still LOVE to hear the new material!! (exclamation exclamation smiley face smiley face exclamation smiley dreck dreck dreck gurgle vomit…).

Not surprisingly, hardly anyone who tried these methods got the free sneak-peek, because their friends either:

-ignored their messages entirely

-read the message, crinkled their brow, said “Seriously?…”, scoffed, and pressed “delete”

-didn’t read the details, signed up on my list, and promptly forgot about it (never sending me a note)

-or…. what I’d bet on is that some people DID read the whole thing, signed up on the list, and then…

…something kicked in… they tried writing to me but didn’t know what they’d say… it just felt… dishonest.

I have some friends who, if they mention that they enjoyed a particular record, will cause me to go buy that record strictly because of their suggestion.  I know these people care about music the way I do, and when they are obviously moved by something, I know there is a high likelihood that it is something of quality.  This rarely backfires.

I have discovered most of the new artists I’ve listened to over the past decade from the spoken recommendations of these people whose tastes I admire and respect.  Usually, these recommendations have come along with a loaned CD, or from a cherished listening session in someone’s car or living room.
I assume that phenomenon occurs outside of my little world…  and I was hoping that by encouraging my listeners to share, that a small percentage of their efforts would result in new folks discovering the music I make.
My intention was to reward those who cared enough to take action.  I see now that there was confusion about the action I assumed would be taken.

See, hardly ever have I been inclined to oblige the suggestions of people who don’t seem genuine about why they’re making a recommendation…  “CHECK OUT THIS AWESOME BAND” is something that was never cool, even on Myspace.

So… it stands to reason that blanket-bombing one’s entire address book with an impersonal plea to “JOIN THIS MAILING LIST SO I CAN GET SOME FREE STUFF” is a total turn-off.  Hardly anybody who got a request like that responded to it.

Some of my listeners who tried unsuccessfully to get people on board seemed hurt by this…  but they weren’t upset with themselves, or with their friends… quite a few of them wrote to ME.

“I KNOW at least two of my friends signed up, and they said they would write to you!  Did you send out the preview yet?!!?”    …I got messages like this for 10 days straight.  More than a few, really.

I wrote back to everyone personally and gave them the bad news:  though they had the best intentions, it seemed that something was stopping their friends from joining the ranks of People Who Care…

…and that is the fact that they don’t really care.  Some bit of integrity kicked in and wouldn’t let them send me a note.

Incidentally, I HAVE sent out the album preview.  To twelve people.  Seven new mailing list members and the five people who turned them on to my music…

…the old-fasioned way.

By PLAYING it for them.

In person.

Face to face.

Sharing, the way it works best. 

All I wish is to be alone… Stay away; don’t you invade my home.

Let’s talk about House Concerts.

Aha! I just lost 80% of you right there, didn’t I?

I know… But by acknowledging that, I probably just piqued the interest of some who were about to stop reading.

I have been thinking about this, on and off, for a long time now; long enough that I think I can finally put my thoughts down in a way that makes a fair amount of sense.  Here goes.

House Concerts are something I bring up every time I book a tour, which has usually been once or twice a year, every year now since 2002.  I always get a decent number of responses each time I sound the call, but I would say that only one out of every five or six of those responses actually turns into a reality.

Now why is that?

There are lots of psychological barriers to get in the way of a house concert.  Most people are naturally anxious about letting groups of people into their home, and some people are very anxious about being in unfamiliar environments; more so when the place is someone else’s private property.

These feelings are completely understandable, and they’re completely easy to get over as long as you keep one very important thing in mind:

House Concerts aren’t supposed to be for everyone.
They’re not even supposed to be big.
They’re for the People Who Care About The Music.

A life-changing article for me was written by Kevin Kelly, and it’s called “One Thousand True Fans”.  He puts forth the premise that a person who means to live by creating (artists, musicians, etc) need not kill themselves in the pursuit of “Having a Hit” — that a decent living can be achieved if you have 1,000 true fans; people who enjoy what you make enough to buy it from you every time you make it.  He clarifies this to suggest that because of the decreasing price of compact discs, that musicians in particular should consider both their albums and their CONCERTS under the heading of “what they make”.

The idea here is that a musician like me shouldn’t get caught up in the game of “How many people can I pack into the club?”, because if I concentrate my effort on that instead of on giving an incredible performance, it won’t matter how many people show up…  if I suck, they’re not going to become long-term fans; in fact, they might leave before I’m finished playing.

The idea is that the new breed of musician should have the goal to play to a “Quality Audience”; not a “quantity” audience.  Having done this enough times to gauge it, I wholeheartedly endorse this mindset.  I would much rather play an intimate show to twenty people who are feeding off my music and sending their own energy back to me than play to a noisy, moderately attentive group of 50 to 100 people, some of whom are there because they want to be, some of whom aren’t interested at all…  the energy in THAT room is a mess, and doesn’t make for a good experience for anyone.

Using the idea of a thousand true fans, it seems that those twenty quality listeners are going to be at the show anyway — it doesn’t matter if the ticket price is $5 or $15, and it doesn’t matter if there are 80 extra bodies in the room or not — so if that is true, why not improve life for everyone, raise the ticket price slightly and just play a better show to better people?

…because the Live Music BUSINESS doesn’t work that way.  A venue owner WANTS a hundred people at a singer-songwriter show.  To the venue owner, that’s a “good night”, and the quality of the music or the experience is absolutely secondary to the number of dollars made. You can’t be mad at a venue owner for wanting to do more business though; you just have to acknowledge that you’re not working towards a common goal, and consider alternate venues.

And that’s where House Concerts come in, because someone throwing a house concert isn’t trying to make money, and they don’t want a hundred half-interested people showing up, either.

Many first-time hosts have thought they should apologize to me because they “only” had a dozen to two dozen people show up.  What it takes awhile for them to realize is that it’s not embarrassing at all — and small crowds often have the best experiences.  The sound isn’t muddy or too loud, the vibe is comfortable, the audience members don’t gather in cliques; they sit in a group and get to know each other over drinks or snacks, and I get to meet and have genuine interactions with most people there during or after the show.  Even the larger house concert series I’ve played have always created great performances, great energy, and great friendships.

All it takes is the right kind of person to host a house concert:  The Person Who Cares.

This isn’t someone who says, “Oh, music would be cool, and um, whatever else and stuff… Just like, show up and I’m sure it’ll be fun!”   No; that person is not ready.

The Person Who Cares thinks, “I love this music…  but there’s no place in town that hosts this.  It would be amazing if I could just bring the show to my house and invite over other people who are into it for a night.”

This person acts like a host: they handle invitations, and sometimes even allow strangers to attend if they’re fans of the performer; they take RSVPs and hold the money for the performer, they coordinate drinks and a potluck spread if they want.  When people show up, they greet them, and when it’s time for the show, they address the audience and remind them to be respectful, and they introduce the artist.  This person doesn’t invite “everyone they know”, because they realize that not everyone they know would enjoy the music, but they invite other People Who Care, and that’s what makes for an easy-going, enjoyable evening.  These people get some of the greatest concerts they will ever see and hear right in their own living rooms, and they develop a group of friends that they know appreciates the same things they do, which is rewarding unto itself.

If any of this has sparked your curiosity and gotten you thinking past your initial anxiety about “PEOPLE IN MY HOUSE!”…  drop me a line and we can talk more about it.  I’m going to be playing wherever people will have me once this album comes out; it’s just a matter of saying you’ll have me. 

Thanks for reading.

Be well,

Seth

We don’t need no water, let the….

There has been a fair amount of confusion regarding my whereabouts recently.  And with good reason.  There has been an equal amount of confusion on my end as well.  But here is the long and short of it:

I was living in Reno.

For the past two weeks or so, there has been a serious campaign on the part of my wife and I to relocate to Santa Barbara. 

A couple days ago, just as things were starting to fall into place for us, a strange thing happened.

Santa Barbara caught on fire. 

A good chunk of the city has been evacuated, and at least a dozen big homes have burned down.  A State of Emergency has been declared, the sky has been unusually orange with bits of ash floating everywhere, you can hear the helicopters constantly flying overhead, and wherever you go, it smells like a campground.

The past 48+ hours have seen the steady erosion of the inroads we’ve made towards stability.

So we’re re-thinking, re-grouping, re-evaluating, and once again, re-locating…

to re-

-no.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

This would really suck if I had developed some attachment to this place, but honestly (and I know I’m going to take some flak for this), I think most of the populace here could stand to have its pulse quickened.  There is a general vibe here that has been rubbing me the wrong way, and I’ve been trying to put my finger on what it is, exactly, that irks me.

I’m going to “think out loud” for a second, here…   in my experience, cities with great cultural communities are NOT always the big metroplexes.  It’s a misconception that a city’s size determines how vibrant the arts/music/cultural scene is.  I think it has much more to do with the general emotional tone of the people, and I think it depends on that tone being relatively turbulent.  The more people that are preoccupied emotionally, the more that sets the stage for the artistic minds to feel the need to release tension, and the more evident that need is, the more likely it is that various venues will appear to provide outlets for that tension.

Think about it: “clean”, “safe”, “upbeat” communites are almost NEVER the places you will find the live music, the poetry slams, the theatre troupes, the coffeehouse open mics, the community pubs that a city has to offer… the clean places are where you find megaplex cinemas, yoga studios, and trinket shops. 

Well Santa Barbara doesn’t have a “wrong” side of town.  It’s ALL yoga and trinkets.  The people exhibit so little tension or turbulence, even in the face of a city-threatening fire, than one wonders just what percentage of the people are medicated, and what the hell they’re ON.  The place is so “upscale” it’s… uncomfortable. 

I submit my cases-in-point:  I gauge a city’s music scene by its open mics, and here, there’s not much to gauge.  Last time I was here I checked out Dargan’s Irish Pub; it had a great stage with lights and a decent sound system…  but there was nobody driving the bus.  The host was a meek guy who looked like a bank teller who would really have rather melted into the floor than look anyone in the eye, and he was grossly ineffective: when I signed up on the list, he informed me that “we really don’t go in an order; we just sort of, y’know, do it how it comes.”  When I asked why it wouldn’t just “come” in the order that people signed up, he repeated, “we really don’t go in an order.  Don’t worry; everyone plays.”  This guy never got on stage to address the people in the room; never made an attempt to get anyone’s attention; never let people know that it was an event of any kind…  he sort of shuffled around the room in a shady way and tapped people on the shoulder when it was their “turn” to play.  This created a strange apathy in the crowd, and people huddled together in bunches, basically ignoring everyone who got on stage to play.  In turn, everyone who got on stage pretty much ignored the crowd, and played long, repetitive, tedious renditions of cover songs.  It was awful.  After being ignored for an hour and watching people who came in after me get up on stage, I left.  This is how NOT to build a music scene.

Just this past week I played the open mic at the Live Culture Lounge.  This is a fairly new venue in Santa Barbara; it’s an interesting place; it’s shaped like an upside-down letter “L”. The front is split between a frozen yogurt bar and an espresso bar, and the long part is a wine and tapas bar.  At the back wall the restrooms are built out into the area, and the roof of the restrooms has been made into a stage, so performers stand high above the audience.  This could potentially be really great, both visually and sound-wise, but at present, it’s abyssmal.  All the stage lights are behind the performer, so all anyone can see of the figure atop the restrooms is a shadowy silhouette, and the acoustics of the place are such that the sound bounces around the space above the audience and sounds muddy and boomy to everyone below.  The venue has a dedicated music manager (Chad-wicked cool guy, actually), who is making the best of what he’s got to work with, and who gets on stage to introduce each act and encourage attention and applause, but…      he’s not the host.   At least, not in title.  The night is “run” by a girl who sits in the audience, largely ignoring the acts and chatting at the top of her lungs at a table with her friends, enjoying wine and tapas.  Anyone who walks into the open mic usually gravitates immediately towards Chad, who anyone can see is actually working to make things happen.  He has to point out the girl in the audience who people must sign in with.  The girl’s designation as “host” apparently stems from the fact that she sits next to a clipboard.  When she occasionally notices that it’s time for the next performer (on many occasions this happened because it finally occurred to her that the music had stopped and there was no-one on stage), she looks hurriedly around the room for the next name on the list (which looked tough for her, as she forgot my name immediately all three times I told it to her), rushes up to them, and says “um, it’s like, time for your turn”.  The vibe here is far better than at Dargan’s, but they’ll need to put up some sound-absorbers and lights and get Chad to full-on host the thing before it realizes its potential.

Sadly, that is about all SB has to offer.  I attempted to check out two other open mics I’d read about that supposedly happen on Tuesday nights, but both of them, I was told when I called, have been cancelled indefinitely.

There is, actually, a very well known listening room here.  It’s called “SoHo”, and they bring in a lot of big names and rising stars.  I had looked forward to playing their open mic and enjoying the scene there, but…   they don’t have one.  It seems Santa Barbara’s flagship music venue, with music seven nights a week, doesn’t see fit to ever host an open mic; not even once a month. 

So it’s not really with a heavy heart that I hastily retreat from this place.  I’ll spare you that cliche about the grass being greener, as it’s not entirely appropriate now that a lot of that grass has been replaced with blackened patches of earth, but there’s that other cliche about where the road that’s paved with good intentions leads, and from the view outside this cafe window, I can say with a fair amount of certainty that there is very little chance of it freezing over any time soon.

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“Change… is good, because Change… is CHANGE.”

…that is from an episode of Season 3 of the show “Weeds”. Matthew Modine plays a charming real estate bigwig with a lot of charisma and questionable ethics, and he delivers that line to an enthusiastic mass of people just before his hysterical humiliation. I love that show… can’t wait for Season 4 to come out on DVD.

There is certainly change afoot in just about every area of existence these days… my life is in a particularly intense state of flux, and though there is uncertainty, I’d have to say I’m much more excited than I am stressed. I’m recording again, and I am HUGELY excited about it.

The last time I recorded a record was at the end of 2006. It was a small production, and it became the “Happenstance” EP.  Everything on the album was either my voice or my bass, so I was the only person being recorded, and the process was mostly done on a pretty small scale; Kent Miura and David Peters both actually came to my house in Reno to record me. I had been hearing from my listeners for years that they wanted me to make an album that was just like my live show, with no other musicians or slick production, and so I set out to make everyone happy.

But the vast majority of them didn’t like it as much as my records that have a band on them, and for awhile I chanted along with the musical elitists, saying, “Don’t listen to the people; they have no idea what they really want, and they’ll complain no matter what.” After I thought about it for awhile though, I realized that I wasn’t taking enough into consideration. It’s not enough to say, “People like my solo concerts, therefore they will like my records if I make them the same way”. The enjoyment of a live concert comes from all five senses, and from the general experience of the show. To take only the music from a live concert and expect to get the same reaction is not necessarily wise.  A record album is a LISTENING experience, and needs to be produced with that in mind, so this time, I decided to find out what my listeners wanted from their listening experience. But what’s the best way to do that?

Let them help produce it.

Last summer, I opened up the album production process to my entire mailing list. The model was simple: anyone who invested in the album got to hear and provide feedback on the songs as I created them, one song each week, for twenty weeks. At the end of the process, these producers voted to narrow down those twenty songs to ten for inclusion on the final album. While I was sure this process wouldn’t appease any individual 100%, I was also sure that these outside opinions would provide me with valuable objectivity, and help me create a record that would appeal to the widest cross-section of listeners.

“Fie on that”, said critics of the process… “they’ll water down your essence and stifle your artistic expression!”

Not true.  Though I occasionally needed to crack the whip and remind my producers what we were doing, I am absolutely indebted to them on a number of key matters of judgement… I definitely would have made a few bad calls without their voices in the back of my head. Sometimes what a musician feels is their ‘artistic expression’ comes across to listeners as overly indulgent, melodramatic, or both. I’d like to think I was held back from both of those pitfalls by listening to my listeners, and I appreciate their help.

So, back to the present:  I just spent five days in Upstate New York in The Belfry, a church that has been converted into a state-of-the-art recording studio, and began the process of creating the final album versions of the songs that made the cut. The Belfry was created by my friends Timothy Daniel (a stellar singer/songwriter in his own right), and the mega-songwriter engineer himself, David Peters. They have created an awesome creative space with awesome equipment for capturing awesome sounds, and I am freaking out over how awesome these songs are sounding now.

...nary a razor touched my face during my time at the Belfry...

Joining me in the studio was New York City drummer Ryan Cavan. I’ve known Ryan for seventeen years, since I was graduating 12th grade and he was graduating 8th. He was a startlingly fantastic drummer even as a young kid, and his parents will probably never forgive me for dragging him off to bars around Buffalo the summer before his freshman year of high school in two of my bands. Since those days, he’s one of the only people I know who went on to become a full time professional musician — and though we’ve talked about playing together dozens of times over the years, it’s been nearly impossible because his schedule is so packed… he very nearly couldn’t make it to the studio this time because he was on tour in Europe.

Don't let the angelic lighting fool you... Ryan is a bad, bad boy.

See?

I brought Ryan in to play on seven songs, and secretly hoped that we’d get them all done in four days instead of five so that I’d have an extra day to mess around with David’s studio toys. At the end of Day Three, Ryan had nailed all seven songs plus an eighth he had never even heard before… and I got to spend the final two days laying down massive-sounding bass parts, and even a few vocal takes, on all those tunes. Looking back on it, we worked at an incredible pace, but it didn’t feel like it while we were there. It was even… FUN. What a great time.

I think what I'm thinking right here is best summed up as, "unh".

Now I’ll spend the next month re-organizing — I’m doing an impromptu Midwest mini-tour (check my tour schedule for details) on my way back out west, where relocation is in my future: by May, I will most likely be a California resident again. I’ll be accepting new students once I’m there, so if you or anyone you know in Central CA might be looking for private music instruction this summer, drop me a line at sethhoran@yahoo.com ! Also, I’ve been asked an awful lot recently if I’m still working with Warwick. While I am still playing my Warwick basses, I am not employed by the company. I was not invited to this past January’s NAMM show by Warwick, but that’s okay, because the good folks at Gallien-Kruger bass amplification wanted me around. The most exciting development that has stemmed from this free-agent status is currently underway… very soon, I will be receiving my first custom instrument from JC BASSES, based out of Auburn, California. For those who love this sort of thing, you can see the progress of the bass as it is built over at the JC Basses Progress Blog: http://www.jcbasses.com/sethhoran5.html

There is no bad blood between Warwick and I; it was a combination of factors with the company’s distribution and the World economy that ended our relationship, and I won’t be putting tape over the “W” logo on the instruments I already play anytime soon. :]

Once I settle into California, I will be tracking down Ed Sheets to come put some of his six-string deliciousness on a few of the new songs, and will start to plan for this new album’s imminent release. I figure we should plan some CD release parties before CDs become extinct! ;]

And of course, I’ll post more updates as things continue to change…

…because change…

is CHANGE.

Bully for you… Chilly for me…

I’m in a situation at present that makes me smile… or more correctly; makes me smirk:  I have been asked by a handful of aspiring singer-songwriters (separately; not as a group) for advice about how to “get famous”.  I am not making this up.  While it is flattering to be asked such a question, one must understand that it is somewhat akin to being asked by a young child:  “I wanna be tall like YOU!  How’d you get so TALL??”

The answer to each of these inquiries, more now than ever, is very similar.  I could answer each by saying, “Well just keep doing what you’re doing, and there’s a pretty good chance that when you’re my age, you’ll be about where I am.”

My point is that even if you’re below-average adult height, you still look huge to the kid.

I am **certainly** not “famous”.  Well, not any more or less “famous” than any of my peers in the nebulous soup of indie singer/songwriters out there.  We are the late-gen-x/early-gen-y-group of musicians that never “made it” because our timing sucked.  That’s not to say we’re bad at what we do…  we simply got to the point in our artistic development where we were “ready” just as the record industry we’d been preparing ourselves for began to collapse.  Those of us on the older side of the group did one of two things: 1.) give up in despair, forevermore grumbling about how “it wasn’t fair”, or 2.) detour into artist management, venue management, publishing, work for an instrument manufacturer, or go into web design.  Those of us on the younger side had seen the changes coming, and were ready to adapt… we were on Myspace on Day One, and some of us were even on Friendster before there WAS a Myspace (…wow… remember those days?…).

I was in the middle…  not only did I major in “Music Industry” during that stint I did in college, learning all about the traditional record industry models, but I had actually gotten a “ticket to the show” younger than most from the stint I did with Vertical Horizon, and had listened carefully to all the old-school experts I encountered… most of whom would lose their jobs en-masse just a few years later.  Basically, by the time the new-media revolution was kicking into high-gear, I had just started feeling ready to take on the OLD-media establishment.

There were hundreds of very talented musicians in nearly the exact same situation, many of whom are my friends and acquaintances.  Most of us had watched, learned, and adapted to the introduction of the internet only a few steps behind our younger peers and were keeping step with them in most ways, but the realization dawned slowly-but-surely:  We weren’t going to get the record deals we’d once dreamed about… not because we had ‘missed the deadline’, but because NOBODY was going to get them anymore.

Once this realization set in, those of us who weren’t too discouraged to continue had to decide how we were going to cultivate a grass-roots following, because there was no denying it — anyone who didn’t wasn’t going anywhere.  The conventional wisdom still seemed to dictate that an artist should try to become “big” in one major location, and then expand their touring out from there in a gradual manner.  Most of my indie musician peers did this. Most of them also got discouraged and burnt out doing this, and “retired” in some fashion after a couple years with a mailing list of a few hundred fans who were bummed to hear the news.

I eschewed this strategy completely, and most of my peers thought I was making a big mistake.  I have to admit, what I did was comparatively radical:  I put my personal belongings into storage and lived on the road with no physical address for nearly three and a half years.  From March 2002 until June 2005 I did not remain in one municipality for longer than 2 weeks, and in many cases I would hop from host-to-host during my longer stays in one area.  I criss-crossed the United States from East-to-West or West-to-East (sometimes diagonally) eighteen times during that period, with smaller trips in there as well.

That whole experience is a story for another time (MANY “other times”, actually…), but the point is this:  while it was happening, it didn’t look like I was making decent strides towards building a lasting grass-roots fan base in comparison to my peers who had decided to stay put.  I was adding an average of about 30 people to my email list every week (sometimes that number was a hundred… sometimes it was three), and in a number of cases, these names were added in towns I haven’t returned to in years.

Fast forward to the present:  I am now, more or less, settled in a fixed location, from which I hop to other locations for touring stints.  I like to think that in each of those places I was playing years ago, I planted some seeds (for the pervs that are taking that analogy in a sexual manner, stop it right now…), and though I haven’t been back in many-a-day, there are quite a few places where those seeds have flourished, and others where people have picked up those seeds and carried them to new cities.  College fans graduated and took jobs in new towns… they made new friends… they turned their new friends on to my music…  suddenly I had new seeds planted in places I’ve never been to before.  The popularity of social networking websites has fed this fire in a massive way, and now there are pockets of fans in places around the country (and in other countries) who may never have seen me play in-person, but who have bought the songs off iTunes and who have ordered the DVD to get the next-best-thing.  This is the same principle that allowed me to gain a big enough following in the United Kingdom to book that tour I just returned from.

But plenty of artists are on the social networking sites, and even artists who don’t have DVDs can put videos up on YouTube.  Why would this work any better for me?

Reason One:  Personal connections — it’s much easier to inspire someone to help spread the word about your new song download or YouTube video if that someone has had the experience of seeing what you do on a stage, as opposed to that someone just “hearing about you”.  By playing in as many different places as I did, I established personal connections with a much broader base of people.

Reason Two:  Absence makes the heart grow fonder.  If a known performer comes to town for the first time in ten years, you can bet that the show will sell out.  But if that same performer plays every Tuesday night at the same club for months on end, you will probably see a sharp drop-off in attendance after a few weeks.  By staying on the move constantly, I was able to always leave on a high note, and I would come back every three or four months… just long enough for the thought of another show to be an exciting prospect — an EVENT.  By doing this over and over again for a number of years, I developed a kind of loyalty amongst people in a number of cities, and these are the folks who helped me “plant the seeds”.

Another factor, I’ve realized, is that my act is somewhat memorable. It really floors me just how often people remember me… the emails I still get to this day from folks who just saw me perform once, maybe only for one song at an open-mic, maybe at an outdoor gig where they just happened to be passing by…  one day they enter enough info into Google to find me (not too many solo bassist/singers out there…), and we pick up right where we left off.  I have had the good fortune to see a return on even the smallest investments of time and energy from my life on the road, and that return has been in the form of LONG-TERM LISTENERS.  From my many conversations with my peers who have generally stayed in one place, I cannot say that the same holds true for most of them on the same level.  That’s certainly not an attempt to elevate my status above anyone else’s; it just seems to be the cold, hard truth.

So I guess I’m saying that the crux of any success I’ve experienced comes from my years on the road.  However, this whole combination of factors makes for very odd self-analysis….  Accounting for the “overlap” of fans on Myspace, Facebook, and my email list, I can boast a fan-count of just over 3,000 people.  By the “industry model” for seeing if an act is ready for a record-deal, that would ideally break down to be about 300 people in each of ten different cities.

The reality is that it’s more like 30 people in each of a hundred different cities around the planet, and while that gives me a cool amount of notoriety in a microcosmically global way, that alone is not enough to book a tour anymore….  I stopped living on the road just as gas prices were escalating to their lofty heights of the past three years.  I’ve crunched a few numbers, and it’s clear: I could NOT live on the road the way I used to in Today’s economy.  Small guarantees from coffeehouses and clubs, money from CD sales, and a handful of college gigs every semester used to be enough to get by on.  But the coffeehouses have mostly gone out of business, the clubs are much more frugal, CDs have depreciated in perceived value to the consumer, and competition in the college market has increased tenfold over the past decade.  So while the price of gas coming back down is encouraging, the rest of the equation is still out of balance.

The fact is that I’m always looking for new methods for getting the music (and myself) out there, and that it’s a life of constant hustling, but above all, one must realize that if you want to make music for a living, it necessitates that you make music that other people will want in their lives…  music that they want to hear enough that they want to support YOU; the one who makes it.  

If you can’t deal with the idea of depending on some level of mass-agreement that you are worth paying money for, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t make music…  but it does mean you shouldn’t attempt to make ORIGINAL music for a LIVING.  A surprising number of both aspiring and professional music-makers do not get this concept.  I am not saying those taboo words (“Sell Out”); I am saying that every time I embrace the concept I just described, I experience some degree of success.  The most recent example of this would be the project I’m currently engaged in where I am producing my next album with the assistance of my fans….  it’s been controversial, but it’s working (and I have to emphasize, it’s working WELL!)

So… what the hell do I tell someone who wants to use my career as a role-model?  On the one hand, I’m proud of the amount of forward-motion I’ve been able to keep going to keep myself in business…  I think, looking back on things, that for all the bad timing I had in trying to “make it”, I was doing the exact right thing at the exact right time when I lived on the road. 

On the other hand, I wouldn’t suggest that course of action to anyone who doesn’t feel that it’s something they HAVE to do.  If it’s something you could “take or leave”, then do yourself a favor and leave it before you do yourself any damage.

But if you take it…   if you’ll take bad living, odd hours, bad hygiene, malnutrition, car trouble, sensitivity to the middle-class means and standards of those you meet, far too much coffee, sugar, and alcohol in your diet (because it’s usually FREE), doomed relationships, and the need to perpetually book yourself 3 months ahead so that you can continue to survive… if you decide that’s for you…

…well, then I sincerely wish you all the best, kid.  You’ve been warned.  Go get ‘em.

Fear of a Black Pudding

“I got so much trouble on my mind; I refuse to lose.
Here’s your ticket… hear the drummer get wicked.”
-Chuck D.

Fitting words for these times, I think.  It’s been awhile.  I’ve neglected to blog for months on end for a number of reasons.  Mostly it’s been due to my self-imposed weekly song deadlines for the new album production project; after pumping out songs week after week, the last thing I usually feel like doing is spending MORE time in front of the computer.  Also, I usually blog after a stint on the road, and since the beginning of July, there’s been precious little touring to speak of.  The last 3MOB tour was riddled with snafu’s, and while there were definitely some high points, any blog I offered after that would have been a bit of a downer, so I abstained.  I did my bi-annual Albuquerque show just over a month ago, which is always a worthy experience, however I was pretty anti-social and introspective right around then, and it just wasn’t time to come up for air yet.

In many ways, my recent trip to Britain jolted me back to life, though.  So for any who are interested, I proudly present my Enormous UK Chronicle.

NOTE: This whole thing is really eleven blogs all grouped together and separated by these convenient dividers so you can go day-by-day.  It’s a long read to do all at once.  I recommend frequent breaks!

________________________________________________________________

I’ve been flying a lot over the past 2 and a half years.  And I had become enamored with the idea that as a frequent flyer with United, they automatically seat me in the “Economy Plus” section that most people have to pay extra for….

…Until I realized that the best seat in the Economy section is NOT in Economy Plus if you’re traveling overseas.  It’s in the very first row behind Economy Plus; that little-thought of emergency-exit row that has full seat recline, has it’s own overhead bin, and STILL has the equivalent of TWO rows of open space in front of it (you can’t stretch out and sleep any better unless you’re up in a different cabin class).  It’s also the first row in the Economy cabin to get served food and drinks, and no matter which seat you’re in, you can get up and sit down as you please without disturbing anyone.  It’s what I like to think of as “poor-man’s business class”, and picking these seats is what has enabled me to beat a fair bit of jet lag for the past few months.

And had I been jet-lagged, I’d have been TOAST soon after landing in London.  Keeping my wits about me was key as I did what I now know is a super-human feat:

I carried a musical instrument with me as I passed through British customs and was NOT detained, penalized, yelled at, beaten, or ridiculed.

They asked me all the questions that had led less fortunate American musicians to cancel tours (ah, Tim Corley, Britain hardly knew ye…), but as I had gone through the proper channels to obtain proper sponsorship and a proper Entertainer’s Visa, I presented my proper paperwork with proper confidence, and as even though everything was properly legit, I couldn’t help feeling properly smug as I exited with another stamp in my passport, and took it as a good sign of things to come.

(For the benefit of the non-Brits:  everything in the U.K. can be categorized as either “proper” or “not proper”.  It’s a pretty handy system of description, though I will attempt to use proper restraint in its use hereafter…)

I was met at the terminal by Jon Pearce.  Jon was an immense help to me in setting up a bunch of the dates for this tour; we’d been put in touch through a mutual friend, and prior to my arrival, we’d never met. Though Jon didn’t know me from a hole in the wall, he had acted on my behalf like we’d known each other for a long time, and you just don’t find that kind of support in the music biz these days, so I knew I was working with someone of a rare, rare breed.  I couldn’t wait to meet the guy.

What I didn’t know, but learned through conversation as he cheerfully and generously gave his time to drive me across London to pick up my rental car, was that this guy is an incredibly modest, yet absolutely proper bonafide rock star.  Jon is the bassist for the recently defunct U.K. band Reuben.  In the States we haven’t really heard of them, but in talking shop with Jon, it became apparent that he has, as they say, “been to the show” for real.  Fast forward two weeks, and the first thing I did after arriving home (besides making a proper cup of tea; more on that later) was look up his band.

Holy crap.  They rock HARD and WELL.  Many people who know that I used to play in an up-and-coming Top 40 pop-rock band are surprised that I actually enjoy heavy music.  It’s really that I enjoy most all kinds of music as long as it’s not pappy crap that’s devoid of original or honest thought.  Reuben is a kick-ass heavy band…  they remind me of the things I loved about Helmet and No Knife.  If you don’t know Helmet or No Knife, you still have no idea what I’m talking about, but regardless, they’re a worthwhile act.  Heavy music fans, I recommend checking out their myspace page… including the videos.  Intense.

My journey with Jon was my first exposure to the concept of distance vs. time when driving in Britain.  From Heathrow, the trip to pick up my car was approximately 15 miles.  15 miles of city driving anywhere in the world can amount to a fair amount of time on a Tuesday morning, but it took us over an hour and a half, going through backed-up streets, one-way detours, gridlocked roundabouts, and a bit of maneuvering through a brigade of London’s infamous double-decker buses.  For all I know, this could have ruined Jon’s entire day, though he insisted that wasn’t the case, and he was so good-natured about the whole thing I could only believe him.  Besides, he said, this was NORMAL London traffic; he hadn’t counted on anything less.

Finally, we arrived triumphant at the Abbey Road Motorist Centre near London’s West End.  I went into the office to claim my reservation.  They pulled it up.  They rang me up.  They told me to stand out at the garridge entryway to await my vehicle.

I cocked my head slightly to one side and asked as politely as possible what a “garridge” was.

Jon was kind enough to translate.  Turns out that in British, “garridge” means “garage”.  Looking at it objectively, it makes sense…  we Americans use a rather French-sounding pronunciation of the word.  I quietly filed this away in the brain, expecting many future garridge encounters during my tour.

And then it arrived.  My chariot.  Ladies and Gentlemen, cue the kazoo music…

That is the esteemed Chevy Matiz.  That one there is not my actual car, but that’s not a trick camera shot or the light playing tricks on your eyes, either.  The thing was MINISCULE.  Imagine two bicycles about four feet apart, strapped together by a lot of duct tape. It is the absolute SMALLEST car I have ever been in.

And the handling?  Like a dream.  A really BAD dream.  Zero to sixty in no less than ninety seconds, baby.  More if you’re on a hill.  Actually, that’s not true:  if you’re on a hill, you’ll NEVER hit sixty.  Ever.

I began to wonder if it would be worth it to upgrade to an actual CAR.  But one of the first things I noticed when I fired up the engine was that the gas needle was on “E”.  I brought this to the attention of the Enterprise employee who had been assisting me.

“Ah yes, mate.  That’s quite standard.”

“No it’s not.”

“Ah yes, mate, it is, I’m afraid.  The most we ever rent a car with is a quarter tank.”

“I’ve rented cars all over the world.  It is NOT standard, and if you rent cars with a quarter tank, then I’m not driving off in this until the tank’s a quarter full.”

“Listen, mate, I’m sorry, but…”

“DUDE.  Fill the fucking gas tank.”

It came out before I could stop it.  Maybe I was ornery after my flight and the London traffic, but I think it was just that I honestly felt this guy was jerking me around.  Maybe it was also that that last sentence came out sounding very much like a pissed-off Jack Black-movie character, but the guy deflated instantly and called over one of his subordinates.

“Follow Jess here over to the petrol station and he’ll get you properly sorted.  Sorry about that, mate.”

(Note to self:  figure out what made him roll over…  was it “Dude”?  “Fucking”?  The whole delivery?  Must keep that one on-call for future garridge negotiations…)

Fifteen minutes later I had a half-full fuel tank.  The significance of that is that the Chevy Matiz holds just over 30 liters of fuel… or just about 8 American gallons…  and that a half-tank, or about 4 gallons, cost the Enterprise guy about 18 pounds… or, at the time, about 35 dollars.  That’s a bit over 8 dollars a gallon, and my eyes bugged out a bit as I did the math.  Over the course of the afternoon, as I drove from West London to just north of Cambridge, I realized that the advantage of the Matiz is kickass gas mileage. Suddenly I loved this tiny little car with my whole being.  What a beautiful, efficient, wee little machine it was!  We became fast friends, and I often sang a little kazoo-music theme-song for the car as we struggled up many-a-hill for the next two weeks.

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I woke up Wednesday morning some miles north of Cambridge in the home of my good friend Rob Norton (who was indispensable in helping me get my paperwork in order for the tour) and his family; the two youngest members of which, I’m pleased to note, are going to make his hair turn grey faster than mine ever will.  Rob and his lovely fiancee Lucy also kept my teacup full all morning, ensuring that A) I would be buzzing well into the wee hours after my gig that night, and B) that I would rekindle my love affair with proper British tea.

I don’t know WHY I forget about tea.  I’ve been drinking it for years longer than coffee, and when it’s done right, its presence in my life completely obliterates the need for coffee of any kind.  Those familiar with my coffee-addiction must realize what strong language I’m using here…  but it’s true.  And tea is so simple!  But in America, where we have tea, we have OPTIONS, and this, I now realize, ruins the whole thing.  Ask for tea in America, and you’ll be asked “What kind?  We have Orange Pekoe, Earl Grey, Lemon Zapdoodle, Raspberry Beret, Chamomillian-Apple-Beet Menage, Matte Overload, and six varieties of Pear/Nectarine/Prune infusions with Ginsing and Honey…”   It’s an invitation to pick the wrong thing, which most of us, invariably, DO.

Ask for tea in Britain, and you will also get one question in return:  “Milk and sugar?”  To this, you say “Yes”.  You don’t ask for skim milk, you don’t ask for artificial sweetener, and you don’t ask them to measure things out or use some Starbucks-calculus to get the right proportions.  They’re British and this is in their blood.  The end result will be better than anything you have sipped in recent history.  You just shut up and drink your tea.

So. The first stop on this tour was in the town of Clitheroe.  Learning how to pronounce this word caused me no small amount of awkwardness.  Was one to utilize the “th”-sound when speaking this name aloud?  If not, exactly how would the “oe” at the end affect the pronunciation?  Finally, I wondered, should my fears be realized and should the correct way to say it be, in fact, “clit hero”… well, I wondered if the locals would have a sense of humor about it.  I mean…  what does a town with that name call their sports team?

For the duration of my stay in Clitheroe (with a “th”) and other parts-north-of-Manchester, including a really fun opening show at the Keystreet Music Pub, I was assisted with this and many other problems by this guy:

Anthony & Seth at Keystreet Pub, Clitheroe

Anthony Dewhurst is a hell of a nice bloke, as they say.  He epitomizes everything you hear about when, as an artist, you hear that you should start a Street Team to help you with promotion.  Anthony booked this show, promoted this show, filled the room with people on a night when there was football on the telly (note to Americans: that is REALLY impressive, considering their “football” is actually “soccer”), and then ended up putting me up at his place when it became far too late for me to attempt to make it down to Manchester as I’d originally planned.

He also came up clutch in helping me with THIS problem:

the smoke had already cleared by the time I took this...

I have been aware for some time now that there is a difference between the standard voltage used in the UK and the standard voltage used in the US.  I am also aware that the plugs they use are enormous and unwieldy things that you would never believe actually fit into a wall socket, and so, prior to this trip, I purchased what I thought was a voltage converter/wall adaptor.

In truth, it worked great as an adaptor.  As a converter…  not so much.  The first clue was that, upon plugging in my brand new RC-50 loop pedal and pressing the power button, nothing happened.  The second clue was seeing the smoke starting to emit from the (US) adaptor plug.  It was fried instantly.  Anthony was on the phone in seconds, finding me a replacement for the night, and, not sure if he’d found a sure thing, took off to go bring me HIS loop pedal to use for the night.  One of his mates turned up with a (proper) adaptor shortly thereafter, though, and the evening was saved.

Well, “saved” in as much as I was able to start using my brand new loop pedal in front of a live audience.  Heh.  As many of the audiences from the first few shows of this tour will tell you, it took me awhile to get the hang of the RC-50’s advanced features…  it’s got a bit more going on than my old RC-20, that’s for sure!

The Keystreet is a wonderful venue, and one I hope to return to.  The place is run by a very nice couple who are all about the music.  They also have a great sense of humor.  In chatting with a few folks at the bar, I noticed that the bar mats boasted one, simple word:

You would think I had never seen one before...

By way of explanation, they just gave me one:

...this one is SUPPOSED to stay cold in your hand...

I wondered if this would be the next energy-drink sensation to cross the ocean and sweep the nation, but in truth, Clitheroe is the only place in the entire U.K. where I, err…  found some Pussy.

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The next AM, I went with Anthony and his mate John (note: British use of the word “mate”; both of these gentlemen quite prefer the ladies) to a proper traditional British brekky.   This consists of sausage, baked beans, toast, eggs, fried tomatoes, and British-style bacon, which is somewhere between Canadian bacon and Australian bacon, but is not really either of those.  Oh, and tea.   John requested an additional item on his breakfast plate:  Black Pudding, which is one of the regional delicacies.

Black Pudding is sausage made by cooking blood with some kind of filler (grain or fat, or both) until it is thick enough to congeal when cooled.  In recognition of the fact that many Americans aren’t familiar with this, I will give my own biased American view on the matter:  When you get a cut, and you bleed, eventually your blood congeals and cools, and forms what we call a SCAB.  Scabs are generally dark in color, but as I’m sure you can imagine, if you cooked it, it would turn quite black.  So while the interesting name “Black Pudding” may conjure up happy images of Bill Cosby offering sweet treats to delighted children, in truth, it amounts to a plate of baked sheep scab.  I apologize profusely for my horribly uncultured American sensibilities, but I was totally aghast.  I was assured that it is, in fact, delicious, and for all I know, I’m missing out on the greatest thing ever.  But I will live with my fear and be okay with it.

Next, off I went to Manchester, where I had a gig at the Thirsty Scholar.  The Scholar is a pub right on the edge of the Manchester University campus, and as I would find out repeatedly during my tour, I had come during “Freshers Week”, so there was a very real possibility of the place being overrun with 18-year-olds enjoying the start of their first-ever weekend of independence.

As it turned out, this was one of my favorite gigs of the whole tour.  The crowd was fantastic…  it was the same vibe as a really great college coffeehouse show, only the place was packed with people drinking BEER.  Let me go on record as saying that I believe a legal drinking age of 21 is bad for a country with regard to social behavior.  Every other country in the world proves it, time and time again.  Granted, the American drinking age is in place largely because of the drinking-and-driving problem, which, given the sorry state of public transportation in most of America, is a necessary evil, but it still makes me upset.  There was a time when the US had a fantastic light rail system…  so fantastic, in fact, that the Europeans copied it.  But then the automotive industry bought up the rail companies…  and the track.  And they tore it down… so they could sell us cars.  But that’s a tale for another time…

Where was I?  Ah yes.  Fantastic show.  Great crowd.  Afterwards, I crashed at the abode of yet another of Britain’s finest bassists of heavy rock; Darryll Clarkson.  Darryll plays for yet another of the UK’s finer heavy music bands: Profane, and without making this entire telling a subversive advertisement for heavy British music, I must also suggest taking a gratuitous listen to them via the link below:

Darryll and I stayed up far too late, discussing the awful state of the world and the corruption of my country’s government, and he turned me onto something magic:   Old Speckled Hen.  The OSH is what the Brits call a ‘bitter’.  We have similar beers in the States that we refer to as ‘pale ale’, however most Pale Ales leave me with the desire to immediately grimace and spit, and nearly every bitter I tried in Britain, and the Hen in particular, made me want to slosh it around in my mouth for a few minutes and savor the taste. Delicious.  **hic**

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The next morning I awoke, had some fantastic Yorkshire Tea, and stopped in to an electronics store to buy myself a proper 9 volt adaptor for my pedal (I had been using the one I borrowed from Anthony’s friend for the previous two nights).  Then it was off to South Wales.

Wales, of course, is a separate country from England, much the same way Scotland and Northern Ireland are.  The differences between the way these countries are all “separate” from each other aren’t too different from the way the individual States are separate from each other in the US, but this is not an issue you want to press in Britain.  Just as there is an element to the Bible Belt population in America that would still secede and become its own sovereign nation in a heartbeat if given the chance, there are still plenty of bad feelings toward the English on the part of the Scots, Welsh, and the Cornish down in Cornwall, the southern area of the U.K. that didn’t get to keep its status as a separate country (Call those folks “English” and you will be punched squarely in the face). And of course the Northern Irish, it goes without saying, have been beyond pissed about their lack of sovereignty for quite some time now.

I’d been to Scotland before, and know that it truly looks and feels different from England in enough ways that you absolutely know you’re somewhere ‘else’.  I wondered if the same would be true for Wales, as it sits in the same latitude as most of England.

Quite so.  I only saw a relatively small portion of the southern countryside, but it is GORGEOUS.  Green, mountainous, unspoiled; those are the first three words that come to mind when describing it.  Once I got off the main motorway and found my way through the maze of incredibly narrow, windy little roads that led to the towns I was staying in and playing in, I got hopelessly lost for the better part of an hour, but it was sort of a welcome distraction.  I thought I’d gone back in time…  these little communities were more charming and rustic even than those I’d seen in Germany.  I felt like I was going to be stopped by a knight on horseback at any second.  The language barrier wasn’t a big help either.  See, most things in Wales have names in… Welsh; a language that, in print, appears to have been produced by a toddler with a typewriter:

Cwmcarn
Hafod-yr-ynys
Cefn Hengoed
Abertysswg
Ystrad Mynach

As I soon discovered, looking at a map in Wales, for me, was pointless.  I couldn’t retain the strange-looking words long enough to see if they matched up with the all-too-infrequent road signs, and so I just sort of winged it.

I did, eventually, find both the Bed & Breakfast where I was to stay the night, and the venue where I was to play, thanks to the kind directions of Rob Southall.  Rob is the head of the Islwyn Guitar Club, and was the very first guy to offer me a show in the U.K.  He took a bit of a risk on me, as his group is obviously more in the business of hosting guitarists than either bassists or singers (much less both in one), and they opted to book me into the larger of the venues they deal with: the Blackwood Miners Institute, and I appreciated that.  In essence, he is the reason I was able to pull this whole thing together, so I was very pleased to meet him and play for him.  Also on my personal VIP list for the evening was Mr. Andy Long, the club’s secretary, and a solo bassist himself…  I have every reason to believe Andy was key in pulling a few strings to get me this gig.  ;]

The gig was great.  I played to a room that largely had no idea what to expect from me; it seemed that many of the folks in attendance were really sticking around to check me out because of some word-of-mouth they’d heard, and that they stayed the duration with notable enthusiasm is a testament either to how well things went or to their good manners. :]

The show opened with a set by solo bassist Alun Vaughan, who I’d been looking forward to meeting and hearing play for quite awhile now, and he did not disappoint; it was a short but focused set of intriguing music, played effortlessly and with good taste.  After Alun there was also a guitar duo who were to do a short set before I took the stage, but I haven’t much to say about them, as they played about twice as long as they were supposed to, which I found pretty presumptuous.

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The next twenty-four hours of the tour felt at the time, and still seem in retrospect, like two separate days.  I began the day in Wales and ended it in Lille, France, having traveled via car, train, bus, and boat to make it to the next gig.  Here is my day, conveniently broken down via timeline:

1 AM – Bed & Breakfast in Wales – sleep after packing for overnight trip
4 AM – wake up, shower, pack car
4:45 AM – start driving to London through fog I’d only read about in ghost stories and didn’t believe actually existed
7:30 AM – take the wrong exit off the motorway
7:45 AM -miraculously find my way back into Central London
8 AM – after having asked a hotel valet how to get there, arrive at Victoria Station and look for parking
8:10 AM – now freaking out, decide to park a half mile away at the bus station, because at least I can find the parking lot
8:20 AM – walk over to Victoria Station, staring in disbelief at the car park I must have driven right past
8:30 AM – in line to buy a train ticket to Dover
8:50 AM – now on a train, I attempt to nap, but am too wired and anxious from my drive
10:20 AM – get off train to make my connection, which I find out is actually a BUS… seems this weekend they’re doing a bunch of work to the rail track, and the buses are remarkably slow
11 AM – arrive at connecting station to find I’ve missed the train that would have gotten me to the ferry on time
11:20 – board next train
NOON – arrive at Dover Station… hurry to catch the bus to the Ferry Port.  Sign says I’ve just missed the bus and that the next one comes in 20 minutes
12:04 – ask a Taxi driver how fast he can get me to the SeaFrance Ferry Terminal.  He says “ten minutes”.

12:13 – Taxi pulls up at the terminal for “SpeedFerry”.  I tell him this isn’t the place.  He insists this is what I told him I wanted.  I tell him I have never heard of “SpeedFerry”, so there’s no way I could have said it.  And that he needs to get me to the SeaFrance terminal without charging me extra.  NOW.  (Insert Jack Black voice again)
“Okay; I do it for one pound extra.”
“Fine.  Just GO.”

12:22 – I arrive at the SeaFrance counter to claim my reservation.  I am told I’m too late for that ferry, and that my ticket is non-refundable, but that they can transfer me to the next one that leaves IN TWO HOURS.

12:27 – I buy another ticket on another ferry line that is leaving in a half hour
1 PM – I am aboard a ferry leaving for Calais, France.  The ride takes 75 minutes, but we lose an hour going to France.  The adrenaline is still moving through me, I can’t sleep, and I’m starting to get a little delerious.
3:15 – The ferry docks in Calais, and I haul ass through the terminal looking for Marc Johnson, owner of Bass’Cool, and my host for the evening

3:30 – Marc and I jump in his girlfriend’s car, and we take off like a shot for what will hopefully be only a one hour drive to Lille, because he’s already pushed my performance time back from 4:30 to 5.

4:29 – We hit gridlocked traffic upon entering downtown Lille, so Marc and I hop out of the car and hoof it over to check-in at my hotel; we grab the key and head immediately off to EuroGuitar, which is only a few blocks away.

4:47 – I’m setting up in EuroGuitar, taking my pedals and cables out and setting the amp up the way I need it in front of a very curious audience… and then all at once, the adrenaline subsides and dehydration and exhaustion catch up to me and punch me in the face.  I also catch sight of my reflection in an office window, and realize that I look BAD.  Like, rough around the edges would be a severe understatement.  I look BAAAAD.  Marc asks me if I’d like some water.

“Coffee, too, please.  Water and coffee.  As big a cup of each as they have.”

Marc looks at me like I’m a bit nuts.  At that moment, his assessment is spot-on, as I am a bit nuts.

5 PM – I down half the water in one gulp, do the small cup of french coffee like it’s a shot of tequila, then down the other half of the water in another gulp.  I wait ten seconds.  Then I feel my heart start again.  Then I start playing.
I think I was not actually IN my body for most of this performance.  I remember only a few pieces of it, but Marc took video, so I know it happened.  This is a link to some of that video… it’s the opening, and it starts right at that point I mentioned where I felt my heart start beating again:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhrhlUrxR4s

5:45 – Having gotten my second wind, we left EuroGuitar and went to a local rehearsal studio that Marc had set up for a bass masterclass.  Masterclasses are always an iffy thing, as they involve a bunch of players getting into the same room, supposedly to learn and better themselves as players under the direction of a guest musician.  The only thing is, these players will invariably be at different levels of development and musicianship, and depending on how large the class is, it can be difficult to find a pace that suits everyone.  Plus there was the language barrier to consider, though Marc is a fabulous translator. In all, I thought the class was a great success, and was really impressed with the players that came to check it out.

10 PM – Marc, myself, and most of the guys who attended the masterclass…  we all went to dinner.   And what a dinner.  I’m uncultured enough and bad enough at French to tell you that I don’t know what the food I ate is called, but I can tell you unequivocally that if you are ever in Lille, you need to go eat at this restaurant.  Oh my GOODNESS.

ooh, la la la la laaaaaa.....

11:30 PM – We took a walk around downtown Lille, and it really hit me that I was IN FRANCE.  It’s not like Portugal, Spain, Germany, Britain, the Netherlands, or Italy.  It is its own thing, and I definitely need to go back and explore it further.  Truly captivating…  I was grateful for the tour.

12:15 – Back at my hotel, I had been up for nearly 23 intense hours after only 3 hours of sleep, and with a head full of Bordeaux, I was ready to zonk out.  Somehow I managed to repack a few things to prep for the next day’s journey back, but I don’t remember making it a minute longer than 12:46.   Zzzzzzzzzz…..

_________________________________________________________

I slept the Sleep of the Dead, and awoke completely recharged, ready to do most of the travel from the previous day in reverse order.  I was picked up from the hotel and brought back to Calais, and Marc had a breakfast-care package of French pastries for me to try along the way.  I felt the most stressful part of the whole tour was behind me, and looked forward to smooth sailing.

And then traffic stopped on the French motorway.  For half an hour.  We basically crawled along because of what would eventually reveal itself to be an accident.  Luckily I hadn’t pre-bought my ferry ticket this time, so going on a later boat wasn’t a financial travesty, but I did make a call to up-and-coming bassist/singer/songwriter Kev Cooke to let him know that the way things seemed, I’d be rolling up to the venue that night with no time to spare.

The ferry ride was uneventful…  I had a big lunch, expecting to be stuck on trains, buses, and in the car for the remainder of the afternoon and evening.  And I was.  I took the cab back to the train which took me to the station where I needed to catch the (sloooooow) bus which took me to the next station where I boarded the train that took me back to Central London where I walked back to my car and then drove up to the town of Milton Keynes.  That whole process took until 9 o’clock that evening.  See, I had done my entire trip thus far using directions I printed off of Google Maps before I left.  The directions were great for giving me the general whereabouts of each destination, but I’d been making phone calls to my respective hosts along the way to guide me to each venue once I was in striking distance.  I was late enough to Milton Keynes that I couldn’t call Kev, because he was ON STAGE, opening the show.  So I called the only other number I had, which was for the nice old couple that owned the pub I was trying to get to.

The conversation that ensued would probably not translate as “funny” if reprinted here, but I ask you to draw on whatever frame of reference you need to imagine me on the phone with an older British couple who are simultaneously passing the phone back and forth while arguing about the best way to send me to their pub, all the while not really knowing where I actually AM.  While this is going on, imagine that I am driving through a whole lot of ROUNDABOUTS…  big traffic circles used instead of intersections-with-traffic-lights throughout most of the UK.  I never really learned the proper rules of driving through roundabouts, so I really took my life into my hands each time I entered one, and given the amount of times I was instructed to double-back and change directions during my conversation with these folks, it’s a wonder the car and I escaped with our lives.

But they got me there.  I pulled up to The Dolphin, ran inside, walked straight up to the stage, and within ten minutes or so was getting ready to play.   I was bummed that I had missed Kev’s opening set…  it’s not often I get to hear another bassist/singer/songwriter, but as he was opening the following night’s show in London, it wasn’t the end of the world that I’d made these mistakes.  [That's a completely inside joke for Kev and those who know him. ;]

This was a fun night…  I got to meet quite a few people I had only “known” through the internet until then; some Street Team members, some Producers from the current album project…  it was quite the meeting of the minds in that respect!  Jon Pearce was able to make it to this gig too, which was very cool of him, and I also reunited with the legendary Rhys Anslow for the second time in two days…  he’d been at the Wales gig, and had come all the way to Milton Keynes to catch this gig as well.

Rhys took that last pic from Wales, as well as this one from The Dolphin:

Of all the gigs I did during this tour, this one seemed to have the most people in attendance who were already fans of my music, and this made for quite a different show.  It’s a whole different game when you’re playing for people who have a frame of reference for what you do as opposed to a room of folks that you have to win over for the first time.  It was a very comfortable night, and I enjoyed it a lot.

Afterwards I was graciously offered a place to crash by Kev, and as Rhys was also staying with him and coming to the London show the next night, the next 24 hours became something of the “UK Horanimal Street Team Hang of the Century”.  It was good times.

___________________________________________________________

I had followed Rhys and Kev back to Kev’s place after the gig, where we enjoyed a nightcap and some conversation before turning in.  The next morning we awoke at our own pace, milled around, had some breakfast, some tea, and some parking tickets.  Yes; it seems we’d left our cars a bit too long on the wrong side of the street, and we each got nasty little yellow notes under our windshield wipers.  30 pounds each.  I chalked it up to what I’d have had to pay for a night in a Travelodge anyway.

For most of the afternoon we nerded out; I gave the guys an impromptu lesson, and Kev’s mom made some spectacular lasagna.  Then I needed to head down to London to meet Rob Norton before the gig, so I took off about an hour ahead of the other guys.  Kev printed out some directions for me to get out of Milton Keynes.

These directions somehow got me deeply lost within the Milton Keynes city limits for at least thirty minutes.  When I finally saw a sign for the M1 motorway, I screamed in victory and took the exit.  As it turns out, going this way added another half hour to my journey.  I know this, because as I (finally) exited the motorway into Northern London and stopped for a traffic light, I noticed that the car directly in front of me looked suspiciously familiar, and contained at least two passengers I recognized:  Rhys and Kev.  Unbelievable.

I gave up trying to follow my printed directions and simply tailed them all the way to Bar Monsta.  In a stunning display of serendipity, Fate had seen fit to leave just enough room in the parking zone right in front of the club for two small cars, and we zipped the wrong way down a one-way street to take them:

I felt bad for not arriving in time to hang with Rob…  until I realized that Rob hadn’t arrived yet either.  It seems he had been looking for parking for close to an hour, and that if we hadn’t taken those parking spots when we saw them, we might still be circling the streets of London right now, looking in vain for a spot.

I had expected this gig at Bar Monsta to be the centerpiece of the tour…  when planning the whole thing out, it seemed absolutely imperative that I have a London show booked, as there are just over a hundred people on my London-area mailing list, many of whom I have heard from personally over the past two years, imploring me to do a gig in London.  It seemed I would be doing the majority of my UK fans a great disservice, and that I’d never hear the end of it, if I didn’t make sure I performed in London on this trip.

So while it was fabulous to finally get to see Kev play that night (and, as was joked, to have a “proper spare bass” around in case mine had problems; Kev’s looks almost exactly like mine…), and it was fantastic to play for some more new faces, I have to comment that of the twenty (20) people attending, seven (7) of them had also been to the show the night before in Milton Keynes.  So of the 100+ people I was attempting to satisfy by coming across the Atlantic Ocean and making this show happen, a whopping 13 of them could actually have been bothered to come out and see the show, and did so.  The promoter lost money on the night, and as that was my best line on a follow-up gig in London, I shouldn’t expect it to appear on the schedule the next time I try to put something like this together.  I guess those that know someone who went can ask about it, as I really did think it was a cool show, but alas, for those short-sighted enough to have thought something as preposterous as “oh, I’ll just have to catch him next time”…. ah, London…  I hardly knew ye. 

Seth at Bar Monsta

After the gig I said farewell to Kev and Rhys…

…and from there I encroached upon the hospitality of London’s elite musician-superstar-power-couple, namely: Steve and Lobelia Lawson.  They and their fabulous flatmate, Cat, were beyond wonderful to me, and looking back, we really got to spend far too little time together considering the duration of my time in the UK.  But it was fab regardless, and as Steve is just about the most web-savvy musician on the planet, they had massive internet access, and I was able to catch up on my email for the first time since arriving at Heathrow.

_________________________________________________________________

The following morning I was faced with a tough decision I had encountered nowhere else before or since on this tour:

Coffee or tea?

I’ve already discussed the awesomeness of British tea.  What I haven’t mentioned is that the UK is really just discovering American drip coffee, and that in general, they are HIDEOUSLY UNTALENTED in making it.  I had been offered coffee many times already, and each time the option had turned out to be some sort of Nescafe instant stuff, which Americans of course understand tastes like the Plague, but in Britian, well…  they don’t really have drip coffee machines, so what other options do they have?  There are a number of Starbucks across the UK, and I stopped into one at one point just to see if it would be exactly like every other Starbucks on Earth.  And they had a big sign up at the counter:  “SORRY – NO DRIP COFFEE”.  Like I said: hideously untalented in this regard.

But I was starting my day in one of the few households in all of Britain where I could be guaranteed a real, honest cup of quality coffee, because A) Steve is a fellow coffee fanatic, and buys only the best shit he can find and makes it in a french press, and B) he is married to a discerning American woman who would probably not tolerate anything less.  So, I went for the coffee.  It was like hearing from an old friend.  :]

Steve did me a fantastic favor before I left that morning: he lent me his GPS unit.   Okay.  No he didn’t.  He lent me his “Sat Nav”.   Ask for a “GPS” in Britain and watch people squint at you.  If I had known this back at the garridge when I first rented my car, I might not have run into such difficulty in finding stuff.  Live and learn.

Anyway, the SatNav told me that my next destination, Plymouth, was a four and a half hour drive.  Steve told me that this was “bollocks” and that in fact it would take me between five or six hours, accounting for tiny roads and traffic.  As the load-in time I’d been given was 6 PM, and it was already 11, I got going with intent.

Not speeding, and stopping once for gas, it took me almost exactly four hours and forty-five minutes to get to Plymouth (a nice, developed city with a prominent university population).  Further, upon arrival at the Ride Cafe and checking in with the bartender, it seemed that nobody would arrive to set up any of the night’s music gear until 7:30.  Even then, the night started with an open mic, and I would not be taking the stage until 10 PM.  So I had a LOT of time to kill, which would have been fantastic if today had not been the day the British weather decided to show me what I had been missing all through my trip so far:  rain.

In retrospect, I’m glad I had a few hours to myself that afternoon, as I walked to a local cafe, got some tea and a newspaper, and proceeded to catch up on how the planet has started its untimely descent into oblivion.  This was the day the House of Representatives didn’t approve Henry Paulson’s bail-out plan for the American economy, and it was all over every bit of news I could get my hands on.

I live in Reno, Nevada; one of the only places in America where gambling is State-sponsored and legal.  And I assure you that if I took up a collection from all my neighbors “for safe keeping”, got a fat sum of money together, went down to a casino, bet it all, and lost it all, I could NOT go ask the State to “bail me out”.  I could whine about how it wasn’t all my money to begin with, and how my neighbors had trusted me with their cash, but it wouldn’t make any difference.  Granted, the State allowed me the opportunity to gamble at my own risk, but that’s just it:  it’s AT MY OWN RISK.  So I applauded those congressmen who had the balls to say “No” to my country’s inept administration.

I had to take it back a few days later though.  What a bunch of assholes.

Those who are helping to produce my next album know that I have a song in the works called “Ready for the Riot”.  It talks about what this whole economic mess has become, and I think it’s going to be a shoo-in for inclusion on the record next year…    (if we’re not all living Stone-Age style by then, I mean).

I will end my topical mini-rant by simply recommending that, after you finish reading this epic story of mine, you set aside a couple hours to watch a new movie that just came out.  It’s called “Addendum”, and you can find it here:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7065205277695921912

(end of digression).

…anyway, I went back to Ride Cafe, had a little dinner, and took in the open mic that went from around 8 until 10 PM.   It was packed!  What a great crowd.  Over the course of my constant touring around America a few years back, I had watched the ebbing of most open mics’ popularity, so this was a fantastic contrast.  There were at least eighty people out on this Cafe’s patio, under a tent, checking out the music and drinking heartily.  So nice to see.

What was even nicer to see, and totally unexpected, was that as I set up the stage for my set, about thirty of these folks congregated around the stage…  there was an actual, palpable air of anticipation.  I’m not entirely sure how they heard about it, as I had almost NO existing mailing list in Southern England or Cornwall, but these folks had come out to see me perform.  It was like the “anti-London”!  ;]

I played what was, looking back on it, probably my most “well-played” show of the tour.  I was alert, excited, and was just ‘in the ZONE’ that night, and the cheering of what I was told was over a hundred people definitely fed that fire.  Good times.

After the gig I loaded a PA system into my little car.  I was told by John, the enormously friendly bloke who ran the open mic, that the promoter for my next two shows had contacted him and told him that I would need to bring my own PA for those, so he was to lend me one.  At first we were a bit unsure as to whether the mighty Matiz would have the room, or be able to carry any extra weight, but as I have mentioned, I grew to love that little vehicle, and it came through for me like a champ.

The bond between the Matiz and I grew even moreso later that evening, as I opted to go extreme-old-school and sleep in it at a truckstop that night.  It was a total throw-back to the days of yore; the seat wouldn’t recline all the way due to the PA system in the back, it was pouring rain outside, and of course, it got COLD.  You haven’t lived until you’ve spent the night in your car at a truckstop in a town called ‘Saltash’ out in the pouring rain, baby.  Hear the drummer get wicked.

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Shockingly, I awoke the next morning uncomfortable and with the beginnings of a cold (duh. I am a tool, or as the Brits would say, a knob).  I washed up in the truckstop and resolved to do three things as soon as possible:

1. find a place that would serve me authentic (read: “proper”) Cream Tea

2. find a place that would sell me an authentic (proper) Cornish Pasty

3. find a proper Bed & Breakfast that would let me check in early and take a nap and a hot shower.

Amazingly, I was able to do all three of these things, in that order, with not forty minutes transpiring between each blessed event.

“Cream Tea” doesn’t mean a cup of tea with cream in it.  The word ‘tea’ is also used to reference a meal-time.  The way you might go to a restaurant at 7 PM and order eggs and pancakes, thusly having “breakfast for dinner”…  well, in this instance, you’re having “cream for tea”…  specifically, you’re having scones with jam and clotted cream, which is unbelievably good, and should be readily available outside Cornwall, dammit!

mmmmmmm.........

I didn’t go out of my way to find this.  I simply took the route my SatNav was providing on my way to Falmouth, the city of my next gig, and happened to pass a sign that said “PROPER CORNISH – CREAM TEA!”.  Turns out what had eluded me all over the rest of Britain is so common down there you can’t go a mile without finding it.

Less than 30 minutes later I passed through a quaint little town…  the first of many, as I didn’t see anything in Cornwall that wouldn’t qualify as “quaint” or “little”.  I don’t remember the name.  All I remember was passing the sign that said “FAMILY BUTCHER – HOMEMADE PASTIES”, and nearly turning into oncoming traffic to get to the place.

A pasty is that pure form of genius so basic that it’s silly: it’s essentially steak and stew baked inside a flaky pastry.  You will never believe me until you try one, after which time, you will never doubt anything I say.

Manna in the wilderness.

Falmouth was a relatively short drive after that.  It is – well, beautiful, for one thing, but definitely little, as cities go, and so quaint you feel like you’re on a movie set.  It’s right on the water, and what struck me over and over again as I wandered the waterfront was that it DOESN’T SMELL BAD.  I mean, it has everything one would expect from a port town…  except the fishy smell.  It was a fantastic tourist experience, and they seem to be aware of this:  when I asked around as to where I’d find a Bed & Breakfast, the overwhelming response was “Why, check in the tourism office!”

I did.  They asked me what I preferred (“cheap”), and made a phone call, and poof – I was able to check in to a wonderful, quiet, warm, clean room before noon.  I slept and showered enough to keep the sniffles at bay, and went to the gig around seven.

This was the only road-kill of my entire experience on this tour.  I wasn’t even upset about it, really…  every other show had been such a pleasure that it almost HAD to happen.  It was just a combination of factors that didn’t add up for a good show.  This night was originally booked in the city of Newquay, but had been switched to Falmouth with one week’s notice (Jon had notified me of the switch moments after I arrived at Heathrow).  So the new venue had no clue who I was or what to expect from me; they only knew that they’d received a phone call and that “some American bloke” was now playing a night in their pub; there was no time for the promoter to do any actual promotion, or to get the gig listed in any local papers, or to get any posters up anywhere.  So though there were hundreds of students in the streets outside the pub, only the middle-aged, salt-of-the-earth regulars filled Finn MacCoul’s that night, and they were pleasant as you please, and I played well, but they just… did… not… GET… me.  At all.  They just carried on as if I wasn’t even there.  It was a reminder that as a performer, there is one thing worse than being disliked by an audience, and that is being ignored.

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I had what the SatNav and my Google maps all told me was a whopping 20 minute trip to my final gig of the tour in the town of St. Agnes, so I took my time the next day…  stayed as late as possible in the B&B, went for another walk along the waterfront, and turned off the SatNav to intentionally take the long-way through Cornwall.

It’s truly one of the most naturally beautiful places on Earth…  just green hills that go on and on and on.  At one point, on a bridge, I had to pull over, get out, and walk around a bit, pinching myself to see if it was real:

...the camera in my phone simply does NOT do this any justice.

Eventually I made my way to St. Agnes, which was odd…  I thought the SatNav was giving me bad directions, as I knew I was supposed to be heading towards the water, but I appeared to be in the middle of a vast farmland.  Then more hills appeared out of nowhere, and less than ten minutes drive from that is the UK’s own little version of California:  I was suddenly on this beautiful, San Diego-style coast with cliffs and dunes.

The people in this area are something special…  they’re a different breed than those anywhere else in the UK…  it’s not that they’re “Cornish”… it’s really more of a free-spirited, universal view that they possess. In the short afternoon I spent wandering around, I encountered a fascinating mix of surfers, entrepeneurs, gen-exers, and even American transplants… and though they have the accent, most of these folks totally eschew most of what I would say “being British” is about.  That is neither an insult to the kind residents of St. Agnes nor an insult to the rest of Britain; it’s simply my impression of the energy I felt from these people.  It was startlingly different, and the contrast was very cool.

I played that night at The Taphouse, and this was the only venue I encountered that had a flat above it where they put up the musicians for the night.  Tim, the owner, was a great guy who was fantastically accommodating, and who really loves what he does; he made the whole experience easy and enjoyable, and basically told me “you’ve got the run of the place; help yourself to whatever you need”.  It was wonderful.

Up until about nine o’clock, it looked like this tour might end with a whimper instead of a bang.  There were maybe three couples dining in the restaurant, and one dude at the bar.  Then they started to pour in. By 9:30, the bar was full of locals, and I took the stage.  They warmed up to me pretty quickly, and by the time I finished, I felt we’d bonded.  They seemed to agree, because afterwards I got to do something I hadn’t been able to do the entire tour…   have a few drinks with the audience.  These people let me hang out with them like I’d known them for years, and we had a fine time.  It was a great way to end things up, and though it’s far off the beaten path for foreign touring musicians, I definitely hope to make my way back to St. Agnes before too much time has passed.

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My gigs behind me, the final two days of my UK stay were for tying up loose ends and hanging out with old friends.  I woke up early, got on the road, and returned the PA system to the Ride Cafe in Plymouth.  Then I headed back towards London, stopping outside Redding to give a bass lesson to one Mr. Travis Moore, who won the Street Team mission promoting this tour.  After that I went around London and up, just outside Cambridge, to give another lesson, this one to Mr. Chris Gordon.  Both these fellows are probably going to be making some big noise in the near future, and you can say you read their names here first…  ;]

Then I went back to the little town of March where I’d spent my first evening in the UK, and met up again with Rob.  We did what normal people do when it’s getting late and you want to grab a bite in Britain:  we got Indian food.  Good times.

The next day, after breakfast and good-byes, I drove back to the north end of London and returned my trusty Matiz to the Abbey Road Motorist Centre (I admit it: when nobody was looking, we hugged). Then, all my bags in tow, I took the tube across the city to the southern end of town to spend the afternoon with the infamous Rodney Branigan.

Of all the musician friends I have made over the years, my life has not moved in tandem with anyone else’s moreso than with Rodney’s.  We met in LA back in 2002.  By the end of that year, we were living on the road together for two and a half months, and we toured together again the next autumn as well.  We brought each other to parts of America the other would never have gotten to on his own, and many of our fans crossed over to like the other guy, too.  Then I got him to come to the NAMM show in 2006, and that year, each of us started making progress with our careers overseas.  For the past two years, we’ve both gone to the Frankfurt Musikmesse as well.  I know many musicians with whom my path crosses theirs maybe once a year if we’re lucky.  Rodney and I manage to see each other at least twice a year without trying though, and it’s always great to catch up and see how life is changing for the other guy.

(For those that don’t know who Rodney is…   did I mention he plays two guitars at the same time?)

For all the time he and I have spent touring together, it was ironic that he had just returned from a month-long tour of the US, and this was the first full day we had both been in the same country.  We got lunch, caught up, and then he offered to drive me over to Steve Lawson’s, where I would again spend the evening.  As Steve doesn’t live more than four miles from Rodney, this was going to be a quick drive.  Rodney just entered Steve’s neighborhood into the car’s SatNav, and…

…and forty-five minutes later, we were in Central London, lost beyond hope.  HysTERICAL!    We still don’t know why the SatNav glitched like that, but hey; it gave us extra time to hang, and for Rodney to listen to me explain the way I’d been driving with shock and horror (“Dude, you’ve been breaking like, EVERY law…”).
We called Steve, got his actual postal code, entered that, and got to Chez Lawson in 15 more minutes.

It was a blissful reunion.  Even though Rodney and Steve are friends, and though Rodney has lived in the UK for nearly 2 years now, and the whole time about 4 miles from Steve, this was the FIRST time they had seen each other on UK soil.   That’s me, bringing the world together, two miscreant musicians at a time.  It’s what I do.  :]

Rodney had to take off, so we said our good-byes.  I was taking off shortly as well; I had made plans with Steve and his flatmates to spend my last night in the UK renting a street car with them and travelling back up to Milton Keynes to see one of our favorite singer-songwriters:  Jonatha Brooke.

We had fun on the drive up, and the show itself was spectacular (Jonatha is so good it’s scary, and her new album is stunning.  You know where iTunes is.  Do yourself a favor and check it out).  Afterwards, Steve waited around for the autograph line to dwindle, and then he chatted with Jonatha for awhile…  because they’re FRIENDS.  I was intimidated like I haven’t been in a very long time.  See… I think Jonatha is dreamy, and have had a mad fan-crush on her for like, over a decade.  Just enough to make me a stuttering fool — a complete dweeb — once she was within ten feet of me.  So I hung in the back while Lobelia and Cat and their other flatmate Tess laughed at my dweebishness, and when Steve introduced each of us, I managed to shake her hand and utter something totally lame.  I think.  I may have blacked out.

I certainly blacked out for a bit on the drive back to London.  Then we all sat down and conducted the “Get Seth to Heathrow in the morning before the rest of us wake up”-summit.  After a route was navigated and approved, we said good night and good bye, and I settled down for a wee nap.

I woke up a few hours later, dressed quietly, and walked across the street to the bus station.  This took me to the tube station, from which the train took me to Heathrow.  I checked in without incident… and then went to exchange currency.

Fuck.  Suffice to say, I felt a little of the world’s pain when I saw the number on the little slip of paper the woman handed me.  It was about 30% less than it would have been if I’d exchanged the currency just a few days sooner.  I was awarded some karma points though as I boarded the plane, however…

Ladies and Gentlemen: I received my first-ever upgrade to international business class.

When I closed my eyes, I imagined that I’d paid for the upgrade with that 30% that had gone up in smoke.  I very nearly convinced myself it was true.

I got so much trouble on my mind.  I refuse to lose.

Tell ‘em, Chuck.