Touring

Wednesday night we performed at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano. It was the first performance of this tour and, like every first show after a few weeks off, it had some of that glowing and raw quality that comes from trying to remember all of the arrangements, especially new ones. The first performance is a little bit on edge but also full of new ideas, a delicious tentative freshness. We played Duende del Amor for the first time in years. We had a new section for dreamy afternoon that changed the time signature for a break. We also did a medley of Dancing Alone and Uma Dança. We played Arabesk, from Rain Poems, during soundcheck but decided to delay the first performance of that piece. After soundcheck I heard Robby humming the melody from Arabesk, always a good sign. :-)

33 years ago we performed at the Coach House for the first time. The venue opened in 1980 and was already legendary when we arrived in 1991. Hundreds, maybe even around a thousand signed photos line the walls. Everybody has played on that stage. The website mentions B.B. King, Bonnie Raitt, Chris Isaak, Tori Amos, Tom Jones and the Black Crowes by name but there are so many more. Ray Charles, Chick Corea, Joe Walsh… the list is endless.  I walked along the walls and looked at the framed 8×10 publicity photos showing performers. Most of the artists are still living, others have already passed. It was like wandering through a museum. In a few years the venue will be fifty years old. 

Thursday night we played at Belly Up in Solana Beach. We performed Arabesk for the first time. We play this piece faster than the recorded version, upbeat and catchy. 

Phone Snaps

This image shows the stage of the Brauntex PAC in New Braunfels. They have a great screen behind the stage. I remember the location of nearly all of my photos. This one was taken in Berlin + shows where The Wall used to divide the city. 

I discovered that there is a way to create a public iCloud photo album with a web address right on my phone. Created one for Backstage. Super easy to add photos as I take them while touring or traveling.

Postcards

Found a printshop to print four different postcards that we will give away on tour. Tomorrow a fifth design, from an internet printshop, will be delivered. I figure I will use the local shop except when I need something drop shipped to a location on tour. If the internet printshop is as good as this local one that is.

QR Code



At the end of the last tour the four of us discussed merch and CDs and Backstage. It was suggested that I make a QR Code for a webpage that shows links to Backstage and Bandcamp. Since I often mention that Jon and Robby have their own music on Bandcamp, I suggested we make a page with four links.

The next idea was to have a few stand-up displays made that we could put somewhere inside any venue, perhaps next to Stephen’s mixing position. Another idea was to print either stickers or postcards and offer them to people.

Ideally I don’t want to use plastic (stickers and stand-up displays) or paper (postcards) but I don’t see another solution. In any case I came up with a few designs this afternoon.

I am currently leaning towards postcards. 

Any thoughts or ideas?

LIVE

Our engineer Stephen uploaded a couple of live recordings he made during our October tour and I just had to listen and do a quick mix. I picked dreamy afternoon which we started playing on the East Coast tour. Not bad at all. My partner didn’t think it was live and wondered when Robby had added his cajon to the recording and why there was applause. It really does sound pretty great. I’m a happy chap right now.