America part 1

We've often said we'll one day do a tour in America; almost flippantly, like you say you'll start going to the gym in the New Year. It's a semi sincere remark without much attachment. And like many resolutions it's shelved in February. We do have a fanbase out there, largely due to the piano player and I traveling down the west coast the year before this band was born. A following strengthened

a couple of years later when I went out there to try and be a hollywood actor. Our American friends have been very supportive of our music too and 20% of the Haul Away album was funded by our cousins across the pond. The blog readership - just having a look at it now - is 8912, of which 2k, or one quarter, come from the States. So imagining a tour over there isn't quite as outlandish as it seems, it's just the impracticality of getting there that makes us give up, a little like the idea of going to the gym on a rainy Tuesday morning when your partner's using the car. This year however we had an actual offer of a gig out there - nothing like a free month's voucher at the gym to get you up and running again! - and so the possibilities are being explored once more, in ernest. The gig is paid which is helpful, but we're still a long way from being able to afford 5 flights and don't even get me started on working visas, they cost more than you're ever likely to earn out here in 3 months! But you can't earn a penny out there without them, unless of course you don't earn a penny!? But I have to be careful what I write here. Let's just say we're looking into it, quite seriously. Perhaps because of the uncertainty of touring in Europe due to the 'Hokey Cokey' Brexit dance and the lack of support for bands trying to do it our own country, America seems like an option.

The tickets are 'almost affordable' at the minute, but of course the band doesn't have any money, as we touched on in the last blog, but there is a chance that we as players could always front our own, or borrow it; a very big risk without any guarantee of getting it back. We even went to the post office the other day to ask about travel insurance to protect us in the likely event of having to cancel the tour due to no shows. Sound familiar? So something is happening, something is brewing, our friends out there are working on potential openings, the idea of The Odd Folk playing a gig in Vegas seems as fanciful as snow on

Christmas day but it could actually happen.
I do have a friend there! I can see us now driving down route 1 on our way to play a house concert at a pool party in Malibu, the orange sun like an Instagram filter and the warm wind in our hair like the blowdryer at the end of a haircut. Of course I have been known to get a little carried away with things and it's usually the drummer who will reel me back to reality.

"You've seen the cost of it I presume?"
"Yep" I say trying to sound confident.
"How an earth are we going to afford it? The price of fights alone..."
"... we have friends out there!" I say sounding entirely unconvincing.
"And have you told your friends out there that not only do they have to book us gigs, but they have to lend us a van too, and instruments, and a PA, and probably put us up in their homes!"

And the truth is I haven't and there's a very good chance that a few of them are reading this now and thinking, "Fuck that!" There's an awful lot to do and despite all the initial support we've received so far we have to be realistic; the initial costings for 2 weeks out there are more than the band take in a year. But the one thing that's keeping the dream alive is it's never really been about the money, it's about the ride, the adventure, the stories, the people. We wouldn't go out there for fame and fortune, we'd go out there to test ourselves. Like a week on Dartmoor. It's an exercise in survival.

The accordion player called me the other day, he's certainly stepped up, burrowing himself in band matters like a puppy in an unmade bed. He's recently taken over the logic we lost when the guitar player went on gardening leave. And it's just dawned on me that the band is a bit like a brain, and on the left the drummer and accordion player perform tasks that have to do with analytic thought and reasoning, whereas over on the right the bass and piano players

are more focused with creativity and dreaming. I guess I am somewhere in the middle, or heck what am I saying, I have the least amount of common sense of all of us and have sailed us into many a storm as a result of careless abandon, wonderful though it may be.  We are a lopsided bunch; as a quintet we're weighed down to the right, as a trio we are totally right sided. Blindsided. Anyhow I digress. The accordion player called me the other day, his gruff tones a little clipped, matter of fact, not as natural on a telephone.

"We need to fly to Seattle" he states "It's the cheapest destination."
"But the gig's in San Francisco, that's..." I try to imagine the distance, "... a long way north."
"It's the only flight that's almost affordable" he says.
"But we don't know anyone up there!" I protest
"Well we better find someone." he says and ends the call leaving me starring at the map and a city almost a thousand miles north of where we have any friends. A city basically in Canada that's closer to Alaska than where we are going. I start to smile and left to my own devices this is where I can become dangerous. Luckily my children arrive home and remind me that I am a father and supposedly responsible, and that steering the band into the frozen wilderness of Canada is up there with taking a broken and illegal motorhome into Germany without any breakdown cover.

This tour, not even a tour; it's one gig and a bag of dreams, it's a hopelessly romantic idea that is so expensive it's never going to be within reach. I did a little research into equipment hire in Seattle, gawped at the price and then walked to the gym. In the rain. On the way home I was about to ready to throw it all in and try my luck in Ireland instead when I got a message from a musician friend out in LA who'd replied to my sos call with: "I've got you brother!" Intrigued, I dug a little deeper. What does 'I've got you brother' actually mean? Do we take it at face value? Have you got us covered? Have you got our backs? Are you suggesting you'll sort out all the logistics? "Morgan man, I've got this. Just get out here and we'll work it out." As if it's that's easy. As if we just go out there and leave it all to chance. Sometimes Americans are just too positive. It's unrealistic and if that doesn't sound like a recipe for disaster I don't know what does? But in a way it's right up our street; like driving through Europe without any legal papers, like turning up to a house concert without a PA, like leaving our instruments on the side of the road overnight. This one would top them all. "I know, I've got a good idea, instead of making a new album let's borrow thousands of pounds and fly to a city three States north of where we're going, buy secondhand instruments from a charity shop and a dodgy van from a con-man and drive off into the Golden State all because someone said "I've got you Brother".
Sound familiar? This is How NOT to be in a Band ;)

to be continued...