Pink is the Official Color of the Tour It all started with a small pink Bic lighter and a matching aromatic marker. Day 1 Feb. 1- Mark on Drums (MOD) www.markondrums.com and Galynne www.galynne.com live in Appleton. We drove to pick up MOD early afternoon. I drank too much gas station coffee, which made me antsy about starting the tour. Similar to a young child the night before Christmas. First night we played at Rascals www.myspace.com/rascalslive in Winona, MN. Lots of familiar faces showed up. My birding buddy Reiser, the girl who bought the “sundresses” painting at Feel Good Festival last year, Jamie from Beet Root Stew, Alex from the Green Lantern www.greenlanterncoffeehouse.com Tom and Julie from Red Tail Outfitter www.redtailoutfitter.com and my little sister Booka a.k.a.- Bookie Spookster, Boo Spoo, Becka. We are building a Tribe (community) of Music that will bring us all Hope! Ed-Head Fun Fact: The spacey part in the middle of the song “Miracle” is a music box of the song “Hey Jude” played backwards through my loop pedal.
The show was high energy and we had lots of dancers. It’s amazing how the relationship between the crowd and the band is so intertwined. The more they dance and shout and smile the better we play. Back and forth, back and forth. We were payed $100 less than we were guaranteed. I took a crumper in the most disgusting bathroom in Minnesota. Rascals has a great sound system and more monitors than lakes in Minnesota.
We talked about calling the next album “The Money Changers are in the Temple”. It refers to Jesus in the Den of Thieves and how he trashes the place. We stayed in town at Tom and Julie’s Salmon Pink house. They are beautiful people. We stayed up, drank water and talked for a while until I retired to a small bed in a room with an underwater mural on the wall.
MOD slept on another bed in the same room. Luckily I was too tired to notice that he had really bad gas. There was a doll on the floor that went from one too many tutus to two too many tutus. In the morning we ate biscotti and stopped in at Tom’s store and said goodbye. We ate at our usual greasy spoon whilst in Winona. On the way out of town we stopped at the Bluff Side Cemetery and visited the graves of Dorathea and Gustav Anger. I did a ceremony/spell graveside where I left my “ANGER” of the past buried beneath their giant cement tombstone.
We said goodbye to my sister and took the scenic route to Northfield, MN where we stopped to see if a mic stand I left at a show in town was still around. No luck. We drove to St. Paul to the big Pink house where we met MOD’s friend Kris who is also a drummer with a secret identity as a baker.
ALMA The night I graduated from High School I ended up biking around my hometown late into the night thinking about Life and it’s open future. I ended up on the green lawn of some suburban home staring up at the stars. As I gazed the stars started to move and took shape to form the word “alma”, I had no idea what Alma meant, but the word has stuck with me over the years. One day while heading to a show in Winona I came across a town in Wisconsin named Alma. I drove there only to be disappointed by the giant coal burning tower and a ghost-like downtown. I left, played the show in Winona and Life went on as it does. A year later while hanging out with a friend who lived on a sailboat in a town up north called Cornucopia he said in a conversation that his wife, Alma was coming up to go sailing. I excitedly asked him what the name meant. He told me the word in the sky meant SOUL.
“It Sucks” Actually Sucked and Death of the Loop Pedal The Cabooze www.cabooze.com was stellar. Everyone was so nice and the sound system tastefully rumbled my spine when the kick drum thumped. We opened for The New Primitives www.newprimitives.com They were an outstanding and outrageously energetic 9-piece band. We played an hour set and hung out back stage and enjoyed our private bathroom. We played a good set except for one song. The song "It Sucks" sucked! For some reason I could not hear anything and we struggled through the song early hoping no one noticed but us. Luckily we got our Mojo back and finished the set with great soul and energy. My loop pedal died and we’ve decided to play the rest of the tour with out it.
ANGER
Travelin Go West young man, Go West. We have run all out of “The West”, the best. The West is not just a cardinal direction, but the idea of a place you can go and start anew. Uncharted, untouched. It’s Life’s reset button that puts you into the unexplored territory of endless opportunity. That was America!
Acadia Café Minneapolis, MN We were immediately greeted with a hug from our opening act, Bear www.bearclanmusic.com We asked him if we could play first because we had a 15-hour drive to play our next show in Bozeman, MT. He happily agreed and we set up for sound check. Many old friends came to the show. Colin and Deb, Ryan Erickson, Philsner a.k.a- Phil Nighthawk the Sharkfeeder, Monologue Phil the Loudspeaker and Congressman Phil were among my favorite. We played a great show and juxtaposed to the Cabooze the Acadia Café felt like some one’s living room theater. Ted, the owner, gave us a Care Package filled with cheesecake, juice and sandwiches. The show was sold out and we sold 8 CD’s.
The Miracle of Grace The night of my grandmother’s funeral all of her grandchildren got together for the biggest bonfire I have ever seen. There were at least 2 dressers, 20 pallets and a whole tree in this fire! We all grew up together and as we grew up realized that we are all very different people. Tonight was not about our differences. It was about the Love we all shared for Grace, our grandmother. The mother of my mother and wife to Stanely West. The giant flames shot in to the sky from our memorial to Grace. Then the Northern Lights, Aurora Borealis danced in the distant sky over the horizon. It was Grammy saying goodbye and that she was having a great time.
The Medicine of Mike White Mike grew up in a small hic town outside of Green Bay, WI playing in the mud, swimming in the White family compound pond and fixing his hand me down dirt bikes that he welded car tires to. He is the baby of the family and left home to follow a girl he would eventually marry and divorce. Mike is the most talented acoustic guitar player I have ever played with. When he is on his music takes you to a place you don’t want to return from. He is also what I like to call my “Cosmic Brother”. We end up pushing each others buttons sometimes because we are so much alike. We Love and fight as brothers do. There is a lot of medicine in what Mike says, what he believes and his loyalty. That is all I have to say about that.
New Stickers!
Backstage "green room" wall
The Long Drive and Dream Begins I took the first driving shift with Mike acting as Chewbacca, i.e.-Navigator. I’m usually wide-awake after a show like that so I thought it a good idea to start the 15-hour drive to Montana. After my 4-hour shift I fell asleep around 4a.m. Four people and all their gear is a lot of stuff to cram into a mini-van, but MOD is a master packer (he lived in Green Bay for a while!). We call Mikes mini-van the “Van of Thieves”. For a while I had my face resting against the ice-covered back seat window. I found Marks drum stool seat and used it as a pillow. The sleep was strange. A mix of random thoughts that bounced in and out of dream and sleepy consciousness. The morning was spent talking about songs that needed work and doing our best impersonations of Arnold Schwarzenegger www.schwarzenegger.com from his role in Total Recall.
Bozeman, MT We arrived at our hotel in Bozeman around 2pm. We were given 2 rooms so we split them into 1 room for two nights because we have the next day off. Ahhhh, there is nothing more refreshing than finding a hot tub and taking a nap before the show. Which is what I am about to do.
Tonight! At the Zebra Lounge- r.e.d. & the Feel Good Tribe We got some good press in Bozeman. 2 weekly magazines featured articles with pictures for tonight’s show. We “Googled” the Zebra to find out what time we start and saw that Janes Addiction had played there recently. The Zebra truly is a lounge. Dark, smokey and hidden in the basement of an old downtown building. www.zebracocktaillounge.com The sound system and sound guy were excellent. The crowd was really rowdy and vocal. The show was recorded for us. We sold 7 CD’s. Spent the next day walking around downtown Bozeman and drove up to Bridger ski area on our day off. We sat in the bubbling hot tub and watched the A-team while I scrubbed the bar filth off of my guitars. We had dinner in Livingston, MT at Galynne’s mothers house. MOD baked some more road biscotti!
Road Bathrooms Are GGRROOOOOOOOOOOOOOSSSS!!!
Ed-Head Song Facts- The song “It Sucks” was one of the first songs I ever wrote. The words, “a tree with green bark with leaves of none” refers to a giant cactus. Specifically all the cacti I saw whilst hitchhiking through Mexico on a birding trip I took as a young man. The song “Talk 2 Me” was the only song I wrote the entire Spring and Summer of 2003. I wrote it in a coffee shop in downtown Bayfield, WI where I once met Greg Brown. The line “it was from here and they did you only want” was taken off of a sentence I saw spelled out on refrigerator magnets. The song “Big City” was written after listening to a radio interview on NPR of Acee Dixie. When the interviewer asked them, “what does AC/DC and bluegrass have in common?”. Their response was, “We all sing about the same thing: Love, Sadness, Boos and the Devil”. Sucre Blu (Sugar Blu or Sacred Blue) is a song about breaking up with my band, I was playing with a very very very loud rock band made up of angry 80’s rockers at the time called the “Feel Good Revolution!”. Ironically none of them really ever “Felt Good”. Bands are a lot like girlfriends. The more people in your band the more people you have to get along with. Let alone play the same music well together! The thing about the Feel Good Revolution! Was that our relationship was totally dysfunctional, but the sex was Great! Man did we play. Mike White was pressured out of that band and the tension and anger was out of control. I learned a lot from that band, but I knew that obscenely loud rock/jam was not the direction I wanted my music to go. Shortly after I rehired Mike and he and I formed our 3rd band together, The Band of Thieves. We have currently been making music together for almost 10 years! Our first band together was called “Sugar Blu Rhythms” in 1997
Killer Kathryn
Trout Lake Country Inn
Big Sky, MTwww.bigskyresort.com The gig is at the resort where all the locals hang out, the Black Bear. Everyone who worked there was very friendly. We ate our meal and sucked down a pitcher of my favorite beer, Black Butte Porter www.deschutesbrewery.com , with some ski-patrollers. We played well, but the audience was way more interested in fighting, getting drunk and getting laid. We packed up and drove back to Livingston. My head hit the pillow around 5am and I slept until noon. Galynnes mom has been so hospitable to us and I am very grateful she opened up her home to our band. Warm meals, soft beds, laundry, naps and the internet make Life on the road a lot easier. Tonight! The Sport in Livingston, MT The stage and the room were pretty cool. The gig was lame. There were about 10 people sitting at the bar at the other end of the room. We were paid well, drank a couple of beers and went home early. The Drive to Idaho We stopped in Missoula, MT on the way where Mike and I bought a bunch of stickers for our guitar cases at Rockin Rudy’s www.rockinrudys.com We drove the scenic route through the majestic mountains. It started to snow when we reached the pass. We spent the next 6 hours driving down hill and got to Moscow, ID with just enough time to check into the hotel room and set up. A First Time for Everything Not one person showed up for the show. We used the time to go over some new songs we wanted to put into the set list. We packed up early, bought a 6-pack of local Stout and went back to the hotel room and put our new stickers on our guitar cases. Mark is a Genius… PENIS! We started playing a game where anytime someone says, “Mark’s a Genius”; the first person to say “penis” gets a point. Did I mention we spent 9 hours in the car today? I don’t mean to dwell on a negative situation, but… I worked so hard to promote that Moscow show. “If you build it, they will come” is an outright lie! If you promote it they might come has more truth to it. Personally I wouldn’t come to a show that was described in the local newspaper as, “Throw God, 25 instruments and some red hair dye into a blender and you have the Reverend Eddie Danger”! Plus we found out later that the bar next store and across the road were frequented by the local “white supremacist” Church. I think next time in Idaho we’ll play Boise. Build a Tribe of Music That Will Bring Us All Hope Most people know that I am in favor of unorganized religion. The one thing I do Love about organized religion is the sense of belonging to a community of people trying to better themselves. Within that lies a sense of place and belonging to a tribe that shares a better purpose. I grew up going to Lutheran church every Sunday. The literal translation of the Bible, the hypocrisy and politics distort a personal relationship with God. When I was 8 years old I was driving home from church with my dad. I asked him if my grandfather, Bubba, was going to hell because the sermon of the day said that all who didn’t believe in our God would burn in the eternal flames of Hellfire. Dad said it depends on the God you believe in. At that point I decided My God was not a vengeful jealous god. My God is a Loving God. There is a lot of hurt in the world. We travel the planet playing our music and meeting people who want to make the world a better place. That is our community. That is our Tribe! Lets build a Tribe of music that will bring us all hope! The Way to Seattle I woke up in my hotel room and threw on my swim trunks. I knocked on MOD’s door and we went to sit in the hot tub. We packed up the Van of Thieves and are making our way across the dry open sky of the high plains desert of Western Washington. Neither Mike nor Mark have been to Seattle. I am proud to give them this opportunity. They are good friends and cosmic brethren. They deserve the Life on the road they have always dreamed of. When we get back home we are going into the studio to record the songs we have been playing every night for the past 2 weeks. Who Loves Ya!? Eddie Loves Ya! Oh the Dreadful Bung Bung, bung, bung, bung, bung, bung, bung, bung, bung………….The 6-hour drive to Seattle was filled with open sky, distant mountains and large landscapes. We arrived in Seattle around 3pm and went to see the giant cement Troll sculpture under the North side of the Fremont Bridge. Bung, bung, bung, bung, bung, bung… We decided to go to the gig early. It’s a good thing we did. Bung, bung, bung, bung, bung… We were lost in Seattle for about 3 hours during rush hour. A train stopped us for over a half hour. The Van of Thieves has a glitch in its computer so it always thinks the door is ajar. Hence the constant sound of the door beep every time you drive less than 15 miles per hour. Bung, bung, bung… That sound coupled with a disappointing show the night before, very little sleep, fast food brunch made for a very irritable 3 hours. To top it all off when we finally arrived at El Diablo www.eldiablocoffee.com for our show the van overheated. I thought Mike was going to lose it! We went in to have some food and tried to relax while the van cooled down. The show was small, fun and totally acoustic. We set up in the corner of a very bright yellow urban coffee house with cute baristas smiling at us as they passed by. Dave Ruppert, a friend from college, came to the show. We sold a good amount of CD’s and headed south to Olympia, WA to our hotel. The lobby smelled like feet. In the morning we walked around Olympia and I showed the band my old stomping grounds. I went to school at the Evergreen State College www.evergreen.eduWho Loves Me? Portland Loves Me! We arrived in Portland and were greeted enthusiastically by my friend John. He had gifts of specialty cheeses, herbs and green butter. In the evening we played a house concert at my good friends Noah and Dana’s abode. The acoustic shows are really intimate and personal. We sold out of all the CD’s we brought with us and Noah recorded the show. Noah, Dana and I stayed up late into the night sitting around the kitchen table telling stories that proved that Life is strange. We stopped in the morning for coffee at Stump Town www.stumptowncoffee.com They supposedly are rated the best coffee in America by National Geographic. We said our goodbyes and headed toward the mystical and enchanting Columbia River Gorge. Seeping with massive waterfalls and painted luscious green by moss, ferns and giant Douglas fir trees. We had a great hike to a waterfall and made our way to Hood River. We stopped at my favorite burrito stop, El Rinconcito, and drove over the massive Columbia River Gorge to my old friends beautiful old Victorian home in White Salmon. The view from her window is of the distant and majestic Mt. Hood www.skihood.com
Tonight! River City Saloon in Hood River, OR www.rivercitysaloon.com Tonight’s show was so good it melted my face off! It is the reason I am a musician. It was just one of those nights when everyone in the band played their best. The crowd was fun and there was a good sound system. Lots of old friends and more Black Butte Porter. We awoke in the morning to a quiche breakfast and headed up the mountain for a hike alone the White Salmon River www.zooraft.com The Trout Lake Country Inn www.troutlakecountryinn.com is a wonderful place at the base of the Mt. Adams Wilderness Area. I lived in Trout Lake for 3 years, which made the show a bit of a reunion. The dance floor was filled with little kids in snow boots and cute girls with dreadlocks. There was a bonfire after the show and we brought out a drum and our guitars. We stayed upstairs in the bed and breakfast. We had a slow morning and packed up the Van of Thieves for the long drive home. We made it to a motel in the Idaho mountains where we had to stop due to a blizzard.
The Lesson of Breaking Down and My First Unofficial Tour You can force things for a little while, but eventually repeated force leads to something breaking. In this case it was the van. This lesson learned after some aggressive driving in an over-loaded van in mountain country. We used my roadside assistance card to get us to a service station 80 miles East in Billings, MT. We ate the biggest sandwiches ever at an Irish Pub and are currently watching 80’s Kung Fu Soft Porn in our hotel room. My first tour was accidental. I was visiting my sister, Bookie Spookster, in Burlington Vermont. We hung out with my pet rat Noah, went and saw some music and took a tour of the Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream Factory www.benjerry.com We also drank a lot of Gas Station Cappuccino and the song “Gas Station Coffee Junkie Girl was born. I ran out of money so my sister started paying my way. At some point she grew tired of this and called me a mooch. I, having a short temper when it comes to sibling rivalry, left hurriedly with no money. I had enough gas to get me to Toronto where I banged on my drum on a street corner with a hat out asking for spare change. The $6 and some change got me enough gas to get me to a Michigan Rest Area and feed Noah 50 cents worth of GORP from a gas station vending machine. I had my guitar with me so I made a sign that read, “Need Gas $ to Get Home”. I played the only song I knew at the time over and over again for 3 hours. I made over $100 singing “Both Hands” by Ani Difranco (thanks Ani). When I got home I ate nothing but 3 pints of Ben & Jerry’s 3 times a day for 3 days. Ryan Ermol and the Wiccan Spell That Saved Him I worked at a Camp in Maine for a summer where I taught theater, ceramics, fishing and basket weaving. One day while teaching a music class (I was playing Dark Side of the Moon along with The Wizard of Oz) we were interrupted by a frantic counselor who told me that one of the kids in my cabin needed to go to the hospital immediately because his appendix had burst. I have never heard someone scream in pain so loudly. The hospital was almost an hour away and he sat there in the back seat of the camp van clutching his side. Feeling helpless I did the only thing I could think of to help Ryan. I ripped a necklace off my neck that I knew had much power and placed it on his side. I focused an energy flow through me out the necklace into the screaming boy. He instantly sat up and stopped screaming. A minute later he was asking the camp nurse who was driving if we could stop at Wendy’s for a hamburger. The doctor at the hospital was puzzled as to why we even brought Ryan in. Later that day I went over to the camp nurses office and was greeted by some very curious nurses. Stuck in Montana To my dismay we’re still here in Billings, MT. Human nature has not shown its kinder side to us on our trip home. The 90/94 interstate highway system is nothing more than a way for people to exist in the middle of nowhere while feeding off of unlucky travelers. We happen to be those travelers. One time in Spearfish, SD I was pulled over for having something hanging from my rearview mirror. After I apologized and told him that I would take it down he replied, “that’s o.k., I’m going to get my drug dog out and have him sniff around your car. To make the long short of it I was escorted to the nearest cash machine where I took out $400 in $100 increments and a $3 ATM fee for each transaction. I gave the officer the cash and he sent me on my way. The thing about Life on the road is you have to expect to break down or run into a bit of trouble. People romanticize Bilbo’s adventure and try to safely simulate his adventures. The first sign of an Orc we get mad and can’t understand why the Universe hates us. I guess my point is that it’s all part of the adventure and most people would rather help a nice person than a person who’s short tempered and pissed that they are in a situation they have ultimately chose to be in. Luckily Mike works for a concierge service that specializes in getting people out of jams. We would have made money if this didn’t happen. So we’ll put it on the credit card and pay it off when we can. When things are at their worst Gandalf always shows up and shares his magic. Please hurry Gandalf! Racism & “everyone is out to get me” syndrome are the same thing. You’re always blaming other people for your unhappiness. Playing a victim to the routine of Life and the changing of sands. We must contain our strength! For the victim and the victor will both arrive in Heaven, but the victor is already there.
Anger is the Poison that will kill us all. There are four things about my best friend that are really hard for me to deal with. The first is that he is Loud. The second is that he has to be right about everything all the time. The third is that he is a spiratic and agitated driver. And last is that I never know which Mike I’m going to be with, happy Mike or Sullen Crabby-ass Mike. I don’t say things I should say to him in fear of his response. When reflecting on this more I realize that all the things I don’t like about Mike are all things that I myself need to work on as a spiritually evolving being stuck in this physical world we Live in called reality.
I don’t want to get “JUST MARRIED”! My parents honeymoon was spent hauling two dirt bikes standing up right on a trailer side by side to different remote areas in the South. Each bike had a license plate, which read “Just” on the left bike and “Married” on the right. Almost everyone on both sides of my family has been divorced. The only one who stayed married hates her husband. She can’t leave him because of too many years of lies and secrets. Someone responded to the news of my new engagement by saying, “oh… walking the plank are ya?”. My response was that I wasn’t walking the plank. I am bouncing off the high dive performing a triple-lindy into the warm blue waters of LOVE! My fiancé of 8-years has 11 brothers and sisters plus 5 cousins her parents adopted as a result from death. Her immediate family is over 100 people. I don’t know of anyone in that family who has been unhappily married or divorced. They are a group of quite astonishing people rooted in Love and Community. I don’t want to get “just married”. I want to Be Married! I want to spend the longest possible time throughout Life’s everlasting eternity with her magic, wonder and Beauty!
The Snow is Falling Down Snowfall may be the most Peaceful thing a being can sit and watch.
The Bands First Date I remember meeting MOD for the first time. He was happy-go-lucky, had a pretty girlfriend and had the most beautiful drum set I’d ever seen. I was opening for the Delta Jets www.idobro.com in Appleton, WI at Toms Garage www.tom-garage.com MOD has red curly hair, has my same complexion and a known prankster. He is essentially a smaller more rhythmic version of me. He has a bit more style and supplements his Folk/Rockstar lifestyle by baking biscotti. I like to tell people that he is my stunt double. He always replies that he has special booster shoes to play the part. He is a good man and his drum playing melts my face off. The Many Jobs of Ed Lemar. Who!? My very first job was picking up bailing twine at my aunt Marcy and uncle Harold’s Christmas tree lot for 5 cents a string in Oak Park Chicago. I worked my way up over the years to selling wreaths and on to selling tabletops. When I got old enough I lost interest and the tree lot became a nuisance. My mom made me get a caddying job at the local golf course to pay off an underage drinking ticket. That was short lived. I moved onto working for a grumpy old man at a hardware store. He we sit there with his arms crossed and a frown muttering while he watched me wax the floor with a buffing machine. I tried my luck cleaning cars as a porter at a crooked auto dealer, but they fired me because I was too slow and thorough. I had a great job as an apartment clubhouse attendant where I had free reign to the pool, hot tub, workout room, pool table and big screen TV. I moved on to a pet store where I became good friends with the owners. We used to spend late nights feeding anything we could think of to the sharks and octopuses. My first summer back from college I worked at a medical packaging factory. I sat in front of a clanky machine for ten hours a day while half tripping from the night before. In college I did two nights in the Alumni sales calls department and never went back. I spent many summers as a camp counselor near Milwaukee, in Maine, Northern WI, Oregon and California. Those summers hold some of my fondest memories. Perhaps I’ll save those stories for another time. I worked at the YMCA as a lifeguard and as a climbing wall instructor. After a bike trip from Canada down the Pacific Coast through California I ended up giving tours of landfills and transfer stations as a way to teach waste reduction. I worked in Berkeley starting school gardens and composting projects. I have been a sea kayak instructor and worked as a substitute teacher. I’ve contracted my services out as a high and low ropes course facilitator. Some side jobs include painting, babysitting, lawn mowing, selling birdhouses and being a carpenters grunt worker. I was a theater carpenter at the Evergreen State College. I worked for a retired minister who owned a Llama ranch and asked me to edit his book on Sexual Astrology when we weren’t halter-breaking Llamas. I drove a school bus and was a raft guide in Oregon. I worked as a naturalist and guide for a National Geographic photographer. I worked for the Forest Service as a field biologist and I did two years doing community service projects as an AmeriCorp volunteer www.americorps.govwww.northwestserviceacademy.org I’ve been your friendly produce assistant at my local food co-op and I’ll design your website for a small fee or trade. I have done all of these things so that I could spend as much time possible figuring out a way to become a rockstar. I’m currently not a “rockstar”, but I am on this tour and I am the coordinator of my favorite music festival www.feelgoodfestival.org
Dancin Man In the town where I grew up there was a man, a dancing man. He would dance around town with his headphones on, his collar up and his jeans tight rolled. Being the devious kids that we were we would scream and yell at him as we drove by. One day Dancin Man was gone! Rumor is he left to go and dance across America. He has since become one of my greatest heroes.
Green Lantern Stage
WANDERING MINSTREL TOUR JOURNAL BY THE REVEREND EDDIE DANGER 2/23-3/5/05
STEVENS POINT, WI DAY 1 It's a pretty restless day with lots to do before setting off. I went to Music Quest to buy a new pick-up for my acoustic guitar because my old one died after five years. Filled up the tank, packed, got and oil change, went to the Post Office and then on the road!
BALI HOUSE FLYER
Jeff LeMarche at Music Quest gave me a great little pep talk about being on the road and what it means to have that adventurous feeling of having nowhere else to be. It was a nice sunny drive to Eau Claire, WI where I met Teague Alexy at the Acoustic Café. We dropped off Teague's car at his buddy Luke's house and we hopped in my car. It's a white Volvo that I borrowed from my mom because my tour van, Eddie's White Wonder, blew a head gasket just 3 days ago.
THE GREEN LANTERN- WINONA, MN When we arrived at the Green Lantern in Winona, MN we met the owner, puppeteer Dr. Bob. A wild looking man with a long goatee and large Buddy Holly glasses. He laughed when he spoke and had that half crazed glimmer in his eye that I've only seen in an artist who lives his work. The Green Lantern is a quaint hideout with more atmosphere than space. Dr. Bob's puppets were in the dark crowded basement hanging from every spoke available. There were mermaids, skeletons, pirates, monsters, animals, pumpkins and everything else your imagination could come up with. Dr. Bob and I had a great conversation about what it means to be an artist that plants his metaphorical roots in a geographical area. I came to the conclusion that Trees who plant there roots and keep them healthy grow strong branches, that in turn grow seeds that can reach distant places. I played a short set for about 11 people. After the show Alex introduced us to Jamie who said we could crash at his place in Downtown Winona. It was cold and I was happy to have some floor space. Jamie, Teague and I stayed up late into the night talking about just about anything our tired minds could come up with. Were headed South tomorrow to Cedar Rapids.
Ed-Heads
Mission Coffee
The Haymarket
Friendly Co-op workers
PUTO- THE VOLVO I named “the tour bus” Puto on the way to Eau Claire. The sun was shining into the front windshield and I noticed that someone had scratched the name “Puto” into it. The only other time you can see Puto's nametag is if the windshield is lightly frosted over. All tour vehicles need a proper name. That way if it starts to give you any trouble you can sweet-talk it into getting you to the next gig.
WANDERING MINSTREL The name Wandering Minstrel name came to me while sitting in a coffee café during a 4-day run in the Minneapolis area. It was mid-winter and freezing cold. The hard part about touring in the winter is if you don't know any one in the town your playing in your choices of cheap places to hang out until your show are limited. Your choices are coffee shops and libraries. Gigs usually don't start until 8pm or later and the library closes early on the weekends. Anyway, there I am in this café sipping on my tea that cost's a precious one-dollar. Feeling cold and alone I asked myself why I was living this lifestyle. My answer became the song called Wandering Minstrel and the name of this tour.
THE DRIVE TO IOWA DAY 2 We left Winona fairly early and headed south. Both Teague and I are headed for uncharted territory. Meandering through the hills and bluffs of the Mississippi River Valley on Highway X-52 we talked about how as an artist it is easy to burn out on booking your own tours/shows. You're calling and e-mailing people that are usually not there, not interested, too busy or too cool to talk to you. Regardless, the tour has started and seeing new seeing new towns and playing new venues has both scared and inspired me. With 24 hours between shows and only a few hours of sleep and drive time I have a lot of time to read, walk, think, write and explore these new places.
R.E.D., Teague and McAbee
CEDAR RAPIDS, IA I'm sitting in the library. We made just enough money to fill up the gas tank to get us here. As for food we've been nibbling on granola and cheese that I brought with me. We hope to make enough money tonight for gas and a meal. We stopped at the visitor center and got the local scoop on where to find the essentials: Library, Indy Record Store, Music Store, Coffee Shop, Food Co-Op and the Venue. The library is a good place to check your e-mail and look through the local visitors guide and newspaper. Teague went off to “find some local hipsters”. Probably to invite them to the show. Personally, as a moody artist I'll take all the alone time I can get. Touring with someone is a major test of tolerance and a major insight to human nature, habits and personal character. Just as important as having similar music styles is the need for similar and/or tolerance of eating preferences, partying stamina, smoking, and hygiene.
My mom's Volvo, Puto
Ed, Tuesday Parker & Teague
TORNADOS- WAITING FOR THE NIGHT Touring is, in the simplest term, waiting for the night. Each night different from the last. We arrived at Tornados 2 hours early and sat around passing the time by reading and staring at the walls. Ryan, JT and Ben Franklin from the headlining band, Dr. Z's Experiment, arrived and we all introduced ourselves and started setting up their P.A. There were about 30 attentive people there for Teague's opening set. All hypnotized by his unique vocal style and guitar technique. By the time I got on stage there were about 50 people in the smoke filled room and was filling up with metal heads, shaved headed lesbians and dead-heads. They were a great enthusiastic crowd who were dancing to my tunes by the second song. Crowd response is 80% of a good show. I rushed off stage and packed up. I was greeted back in the bar by new fans shaking my hand, signing up on the mailing list and buying CD's. I gave out stickers with my website on them to people who said they liked my music, but didn't seem like they were going to buy a CD. Teague sold quite a few as well. I got a dollar coin tip from someone. I sat in with Dr. Z's on a few songs playing percussion and saxophone. After the show we crammed everything into Puto and headed to our floor space for the night. It was pretty mellow at the house until a group of Raver's showed up to party. Luckily there was a spare room to throw my sleeping pad down and rest. I opened my eyes when the sun came up just as everyone started to leave. I took a needed shower in the bathroom with a door that you physically had to pick up and place in front of the frame.
BALI SATAY HOUSE- AMES, IA DAY 3 Too stoned, too tired and too much feedback! After about ten minutes of playing with random ear piercing screeches of feedback I ended up not looping and just playing acoustic because the sound guy got so drunk he couldn't run sound. Once I got past that the show went o.k., but it is still embarrassing even if it's not your fault. It was one of those shows you just have to put behind you. Porter, a person I used to work with in Northern Wisconsin showed up unexpectedly. That was a great surprise. He saw that I was playing on my website. We sat at the bar and talked about the millions of crows that hang out in Ames and how Ames has the second cleanest drinking water in America. Teague and I made $47 at the door and got a free meal. We stayed at Teague's friends house and went for a nice walk in the morning before heading to Iowa City.
Teague
UPTOWN BILLS SMALL MALL- IOWA CITY, IA DAY 4 Tonight's venue is no smoking and no liquor. Our original gig in Iowa City was cancelled last minute so Teague went on Jambase.com and looked up some venues there. He contacted some of the bands playing tonight and asked if we could get on the bill. Central Standard Time was kind enough to let us open for them at Uptown Bills Small Mall. The town is filled with beautiful women and trendy hangouts. We still haven't found a place to stay tonight. Uptown Bills is a place dedicated to a man who helped bring attention to people with disabilities and their struggles. There was a movie made in 1983 about him called Bill starring Dennis Quad and Mickey Rooney. It tells the story of Bill and his 40+ years in a mental institution and how he left to become a beloved local celebrity in Iowa City. The venue has The Mad Hatter Tea Room (where the stage is), a graphic design shop, an antique store and vintage clothing shop all owned by people with disabilities. The place was a nice break from the drunken rowdy scene of the last two nights. The audience was small, but they were extremely attentive and appreciative of Live Music. Shows like that make me a little nervous because every ear is listening intently and every person pondering your words and music. Jake, the sound guy, was extremely friendly. The headlining band, Central Standard Time, sang songs you would hear around a campfire. We only made about $30, but both Teague and I sold a couple of CD's and it was a high quality show with genuine people who were in a good place to see good acoustic music.
More Teague
You can never get enough Teague
Backstage at the Mission
KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE Looking back at the Uptown Bill's show I wish I would have known that a majority of the audience worked at a Lutheran Bible camp or was a recovering alcoholic. I would have played a set with less drug references and “I'm mad a God” songs. Live and learn.
TIME TO KILL A fun thing I like to do when I'm on the road is try and find all the Natural Food Stores/Co-ops in each town I play in. Most towns with Universities have them. Comparing one to another kills time and keeps my diet away from Jr. bacon cheeseburgers and gas station food. When it is warmer I like to bring my discs along and play local disc/Frisbee golf courses. They are easy enough to find on www.pdga.com Another great way to help the day go by is to take the back roads. We ended up in a place called Strawberry Point where everything in town had something to do with strawberries. Then we found ourselves on a gravel road that we were unsure if it would ever end.
Atop a building somewhere in Iowa
Iowa City
DECORAH, IA DAY 5 We arrived in Decorah at 3:30 and stopped in at Luther College to scope out the coffee shop and see if we could play an unannounced show. The scene didn't really motivate us to drag all of our gear out in the freezing rain so we looked and left. We headed over to the venue called The Hay Market. To our surprise it was closed. So were the Library and every coffee shop in town. We ended up driving to a park on the Iowa River next to some migrating geese and had a makeshift meal of PB, apple and yogurt covered raisin sandwiches and potato chips.
Teague Alexy, Ed Danger
It was too cold to get out of the car so we sat there and tried to find humor in our glamorous Rock star life. It was at this moment we started to notice our trusty ride was beginning to have a peculiar odor. Over an hour had passed and we went back to the venue to see if it was open yet. There was no sign of life and no posters hanging anywhere. We drove over to the Food Co-op where a beautiful and friendly women named Michelle called information and got the number for the Hay Market. Still no answer. I called my friend Mike Mcabee www.MikeMcabee.com who set the show up for us. He is also a touring musician who's claim to fame is being the 2nd Funniest Guy in Iowa. I reached him on his
cell phone and he gave me directions to his house. He wouldn't be there for another hour, but the front door was open. So here I sit waiting for either Mike to get home or the Hay Market to open.
THE HAYMARKET The Hay Market actually did open around 7pm and the show went over quite well. We hauled in the whole P.A. over ice-covered sidewalks. The bar was a little scary at first and I felt like the record scratched and the whole bar stopped to look as we walked in. People slowly filtered in as we set up. It was a pretty good crowd for a Sunday night in Decorah. We alternated 45-minute sets in one of the smokiest bars I have ever been in. The guy who does the booking was there and asked us both to come back and play on a Friday or Saturday. We slept on Mcabee's floor When we woke up Mike, Teague and I walked down to a friendly small town restaurant to cash in on our Keno tickets given to us as a tip the night before. We sat at the bar and Mike, son of a Lutheran Minister and grandson to a great inventor, told us his philosophy on Life and God. He said, “I talk to [my dead] grandpa instead of God. When you have a problem with Microsoft you don't go directly to Bill Gates.”
Acoustic Cafe Employees
A true road scholar. We walked back, traded CD's and were on our way to Osh Kosh. To break up the drive we stopped in LaCrosse, WI to visit Jesse, a guy who does some booking for me in the area. Corey from the band HOOCH was there and we all caught up on music, Life and Jesse's recent travels to Nepal. The rest of the drive to Osh Kosh was spent philosophizing about our next albums, how to do a good job of promoting your music and how many bags of Kwik Trip Pretzels could we eat by the end of the tour. By this time Teague has lost all room on the floor to move his feet around. It started to snow pretty hard for the last hour of the trip.
NEW MOONCOFFEE- OSH KOSH, WI DAY 6 I've played at New Moon twice before with not much of a turn out. There was a girl there the second time that just happened to be there again and remembered my stuff. In the middle of my set she came up and left a note requesting, “the Princess Bride Song”. I played it despite my choice to mix up the set list a bit and play some of my darker songs. The problem with my dark side is that it is much like the G.I. JOE cartoons from the 1980's. Everyone shoots lasers at each other, but no one ever gets hurt. I played her request and the crowd went nuts. Apparently people in Osh Kosh enjoy that movie as much as I have. I ended up selling 4 CD's because of that one song. We opened up for Stephanie who set up the show. Her stage name is Tuesday Parker. She is an extremely charismatic, hypnotizing and beautiful songwriter who tells stories of hurting her pinky while reading a book and how she called her mom to tell her that Stephanie was really a cartoon. Every one there was a friend or fan of hers. The audience was a mix of soft gothic, nerdy, free spirited artists and poets who loved to laugh and smile a lot. During Stephanie's set she stopped to ask the audience to write Love letters to the Wandering Minstrels, And They Did! Playing for people as great as these is worth playing for the $15 we got in the tip jar and a half-price menu. Thanks Osh Kosh for your Love and Beauty. The night was spent in a small downtown apartment crowded with artists talking about philosophy of the universe while drinking tea and chain smoking. I fell asleep in a corner on the floor as the conversation moved to discussing the most reactive elements to water on the periodic table.
A MAN WITH LOTS OF HATS As a musician who does his own booking, promotion, graphic design, web page design, advertising, runs his own sound, drives the tour bus and is his own roadie any good help I can find is a huge blessing. The tour ends in my hometown of Stevens Point where I'll be playing with my full band, The Feel Good Revolution!. I left detailed instructions for one of them telling him who to e-mail about the show, where to hang flyers and who to talk to at the local newspaper and college radio station about promotion. I called him today to inquire on his progress. His proud response was, “I have one flyer up!” When I asked about the e-mail list his response was, “Ed, you know how I hate to go to the library when I'm stoned”.
ACOUSTIC CAFÉ- MENOMONIE, WI DAY 7 This venue has a great atmosphere. It has a fireplace in the corner amidst old wooden booths and local artwork hanging on every wall. The people that work here are friendly and you get fed the best Hoagie's. We're playing for $25 and tips. Someone gave us a $20 tip and I sold 3 CD's. We were supposed to stay with the person who hung flyers for us in an old school bus converted into a living space, but that fell through. Now we have to drive to Eau Claire after the show and stay with Luke. After my set Dave Sundal introduced himself. He said he used to go to school in Stevens Point and that I looked familiar. With a little more conversation we realized that I had opened for his band, Trails of Orange, back in 1997. He gave me his info and let me know that he did booking for an outdoor stage nearby. Small world.
REST STOP- PORTAGE, WI I called my friend Andy in Madison to see if we could stay at his house after the show. He asked how the tour was going and as I was telling him I realized how all the days and all the cities started to blend together. I started forgetting what city I was in when something happened or where I met a certain person and so on. I summed it up by saying that things were going good.
THE PORTAL- MADISON, WI DAY 8 We spent the day wandering around stopping at different venues we'd heard of and walking down State St. We arrived at The Portal around 7:30pm. The Cork n Bottle String Band was already playing. I said hi to the owner and introduced myself to their sound guy. I was playing with the full band that night and when they arrived I got excited to play something different than my solo set. Every one was in good spirits because it was Jerry, the lead guitar players, birthday. I found out from the sound guy that he only ran sound for the other band and that we didn't have anyone running sound for us. Most of the people in the crowd were there to see Cork n Bottle and I wanted a quick change over to keep as many people there as possible. I paid their sound guy $20 to stick around until we got all of our levels checked. Teague played a short set with me joining him on saxophone for the last song. Our band got up and we had two mics that didn't work and mine had some crazy feedback issues. I told the band we were starting earlier than we were so they would get there on time. That backfired on me because they got there when I told them to so they had all this sitting around time to get drunk before the show. We played way too loud. All the songs started out too fast and ended even faster. Jerry promised me after the show that Friday night would be different. Other than missing a few ques I think we played a great high-energy show. My new guitar pick-up didn't have a volume control so I couldn't put my guitar down or it would start to hum, resonate and feedback. That stopped me from playing all my other instruments like the melodica, percussion and harmonica. I ended up putting my guitar on the floor and resting my shoe on the strings to stop them from vibrating. Most of the crowd cleared out by the end of the night with a good 10-15 people sticking around till the end of the show. Maggie and Ken who are musicians from Stevens Point that moved to Madison came out for the show. Another guy told me he came out because of all the good press I've been getting in Madison. After the show I drove to Andy's and slept on the air mattress he put out for me. A welcomed treat compared to all the dirty floors I've been sleeping on. We Made $39 and I sold no CD's.
MADISON TO EAU CLAIRE, WI DAY 9 The drive from Madison was a rough one. I got a bit tipsy last night and woke up early. Teague slept the whole way. I had to crank the music and keep the windows open to stay awake. Riding in the car with someone you've only met once can be interesting too. You have all the time in the world with nothing to talk about so we talk about everything. Slowly building a repertoire of inside jokes. We rolled into town and found the library. I slept in a chair for two hours and met up with Teague at 6 to go to the next show.
THE HOUSE OF ROCK- EAU CLAIRE, WI Being an unsigned, unknown solo musician has its downfalls. Playing for people in smokee bars who are trying to talk over your music, your creation, and your baby. I've had people have cell phone conversations directly in front of my microphone so they could hear whom they were talking to over the crowd noise. My friend Mike White calls being the background musician “Audio Wallpaper”. I have had good shows in meathead bars, which goes to show that miracles can happen! Unfortunately, I play those places because that's where the money is. Looking at the positive side I will say there are usually at least one or two people who are listening and enjoying the music. Like I said before, I play better when the audience is into it and the better I play the more the audience gets excited and back and forth, give and take. At one point I mooned the crowd during a loop and no one noticed. Ryan, the bartender was very cool and empathetic to our situation and gave us his tips. We left with $49.
THE MISSION- STEVENS POINT DAY 10 The Mission is one of the most unique venues I've ever played. It's one of those places that repel hicks, old people and Republicans. It's one of the last all ages venues in Wisconsin. It has a great sound system and the quintessential Rock star Backstage area. Not to mention that it's in my home town and all the Green Party Ravel Rousers, Co-op Hipsters and College Granolas come out with their dancing shoes on. I played with the whole band plus special guest appearances by Teague on harmonica, J'me on washboard, Mike White on guitar and vocals and Maggie Wise and Angie Arkin on Back-up vocals. Dave Kruger from The Big Rock Studio came out and recorded a rockin' first set. It's such an honor to have an audience sing along to your songs. It was one of the most fun nights I've had on stage. The energy in the room was immense and everyone there was just feeding off of each other. The band communicated with each other really well and a good time was had by all. It's the end of the tour and the money we made tonight put us ahead by $20 each. Thanks to Phil, Chad, Kate, Erin, Jewel, Kyle, Maria, Tania and everyone else for a great last night of the tour. Going on tour has been a long time goal of mine and I AM very thankful for the opportunity to share what I have created and recreate every night for the people who support Independent Thought, Independent Ideas, Independent Music, Independence. Love and Laughter. Be Good, Feel Good. Reverend Eddie Danger
