Singing of Praise, Pt. 3

Laura Jawer is our merchandise seller and VIP coordinator on this tour, a job she crushes with an ease that makes my fumbling for major seven chords that much more perplexing. 

This isn’t surprising - OG Allen Stone fans know that Laura’s our original tour manager, dropping out of college to join the team in 2012 and guide us through the head spinning exponential growth that saw us move from a shitty van to a tour bus in less than a year. We toured Europe twice, fired business managers, fired day-to-day managers, and she even tolerated a certain unnamed guitar player’s indefensible bowl cut. 

She came into the job with zero experience, was supported by people with seemingly even less, and somehow crushed a workload that’d flatten most veteran TMs. She was 22 years old. 

Laura’s a fantastic listener, and is therefore burdened with the thing all fantastic listeners know - being the first point of contact for stream of consciousness, ill-defined malcontent. And many’s a time we’ve gone on a walk, thrown a tennis ball for her adorable pooch, and there I go venting again. 

Laura’s also fantastically wise, and kind, and is therefore burdened with the thing all fantastically wise and kind people know - that it’s better, almost always, to tell the truth. So Laura tells me when I’m being an asshole. She also tells me she believes in me. And I believe her.

Laura’s one of my dearest friends, her partner Steve Libby’s my hero, and they’re everything I want to be when I grow up.

And I promise I’ll get that shit out of your basement at the end of this tour. I mean, it’s only been three years.

Ska Music

Doors have been open for about a half hour at the Varsity Theater in Minneapolis, and I’m slipping through the crowd incognito in my aforementioned puffy jacket and fucking scarf. Most nights, I’m mistaken for our opener Nick Waterhouse, also a nondescript white guy with brown hair and glasses, and it brings me great joy knowing I’ll later be congratulated for my unique take on Brian Setzer inspired throwback soul.

Nick and his band have been awesome - musically, of course, and with the unenviable task of a) keeping up with a bus tour in a van, and b) having to fit in with a crew who’s known each other for a decade, been through every trench imaginable, and uses a coded language that’d put Cockney Rhyming Slang to shame.

For example:

“That Darrell and pack of Jerrys made a think about tomorrow, so how ‘bout a shobbataqeeba and trip to Dabadelphia? Ska music.”

Translates to (roughly):

“That disagreeable gentleman and his compatriots made a particularly offensive bowel movement, so let us postpone our own ablutions in favor of a pour of agave spirit and inhaling potent cannabis products. We accept our fate with admirable stoicism.”

Hanging with a close knit crew’s intimidating at the best of times, and the Waterhouse squad’s been great sports. 

Check out their music here.

Singing of Praise, Pt. 2

I’m writing this in the green room at the Vic Theatre in Chicago IL, sitting across from our production manager, Tim Burke. Tim, already a walking Buddha, is one of those freakazoid characters who’s actually made more pleasant by the lunatic hours and - how do I phrase this diplomatically - inconsistent working conditions one encounters out here while “making it” in show business. 

He’s calm (impossibly calm), and patient (again, impossibly so), and appreciates the cathartic embrace that is swearing like a depraved sailor when the occasion calls for it. And any person capable of motivating a bunch of hung over paroled felons to arrange gigantic paper flowers in perfect feng shui deserves a statue in his honor.

Oh, and he’s a better guitar player than me, the bastard.

O-H-I-O!

I’m writing this from the greenroom at the House of Blues in Cleveland, Ohio. As a spoiled band guy, I get to waltz into the venue, well, provided it’s before soundcheck I can show up pretty much whenever. If our crew’s already drenched in sweat and cursing under their breaths when I arrive in my puffy jacket and fucking scarf, I frantically begin looking for some Lord of the Rings-esque quest to embark on in hopes of thwarting the ancient evils of this world. 

Thankfully, Samwise and I get today off - the house crew’s on point, our crew’s smiling, and we’ve sold out the venue. This is especially sweet, given the last time we played this HOB the promoter got cold feet and demoted us to the “upstairs room,” ie we played the bar. Let me say, too, that the promoter was 100% justified in booting us from the main hall. We had not, in fact, sold very many tickets, and that’s why I love Cleveland and the mid-west in general - people here are honest and precious with their attention, and that we’ve had to prove ourselves feels proper. 

Thank you, Cleveland, for letting us come back year after year. Tonight’s going to be fun.

Singing of Praise, Pt. 1

We’re officially on the homestretch, and it’s only appropriate that I sing the praises of everyone who’s just as masochistic and bat-shit nuts as I am, ie my touring comrades. They also happen to be infinitely capable, patient, and friends for life.

To Ryan “Bear” Drozd, the most infinitely capable and patient of us all - thank you. Tour managing is the most difficult job in our industry, and that you pull it off flawlessly while also mixing the freaking show every night is Herculean. You’ve turned the touring culture around, and Jesus Christ just look at his suit, folks. I don’t bring you peanut butter cups frequently enough, and for that I’m sorry.

You're the best in the business, and congrats on the shout out today from Avid (a BIG deal in the live sound world). Know that I’m writing this in my bunk, mere feet from your inarguably brilliant self enjoying a well-deserved cold one, feeling lucky that you’re at the helm and not certain unnamed parties who don’t know the difference between Cleveland and Akron.

BEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Support Each Other

Yesterday was one of those days. I was Mr. Grumpy McGrumpypants for no reason, had a fake-it-til-ya-make it show, and figured I’d disappear into my bunk, listen to black metal, and generally “woe is me” myself to sleep. 

But a friend asks me to come out and say hi, and I eventually harrumph my way to front of house - a quality harrumph, it must be said. My nondescript despondency’s derailed by exuberant show reenactments (bro, when you and Swatty go weedly-wee back and forth…BRO!), and I can’t help but smile.

It’s a welcome reminder that the thing we do is a force for good in the world - feel however I need to feel on the day, because being human’s just fine, but don’t disregard the other vulnerable and searching souls met along the way. We can support each other.

Episode 26 - Michael Pukownik

Episode 26 of the podcast features Michael Pukownik (@pukownik), SVP/Head of Artist Marketing for North America at AWAL, the recordings division of Kobalt Music Group. We chat about strategies for artist development, his journey from Poland to becoming a crazy ninja-level music executive, and the music that makes us smile.

I met Mike during the Allen Stone project’s brief chapter with Capitol Records. He was working in their marketing department at the time, immediately understood and believed in what we were trying to do, and continued to advocate for the band even after it was clear we were no longer a priority at the label.

Mike’s truly one of the great people in this business, and I’m proud to call him a friend.

Check it out!

Cognitive Molasses

Toronto! I love this city, and today’s torrential downpour and general gloominess won’t deter me from drowning myself in ramen broth at Momofuku, fortifying myself for our sold out show tomorrow at the Phoenix Theatre. 

It’s a day off, and I’m allowing my thoughts to trudge through the ol’ cognitive molasses, embracing lethargy as a nourishing counterbalance to our hectic touring schedule and accepting that, well, today’s not the day for epiphanies, edifying commentary, or anything even passably eloquent. I’m in my hotel room, writing this in my underpants, and goddammit if it isn’t fantastic.

I’m also writing this while listening to Sigur Ros’s “( )”, an album sung entirely in Hopelandic, a made-up language consisting of gibberish words. There’s an ache and melancholy to the record that’s perfect accompaniment for counting the illuminated windows in an adjacent high rise, slipping in and out of gentle meditation on the nature of evolving dreams. 

Or whatever. Again, while in my underpants.

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Respect the Journey

Seventeen shows left, but it feels like the home stretch, especially with a stack of books and gently swaying palm trees in my near future.

And then it’s, well, who knows? Not in the sense of will there be an Allen Stone band (there will be, of course), but maybe it’s that I’ve already experienced my life change due to glorious, unforeseen circumstance and, thankfully, had the good sense to leap giddily into the unknown - should a similar opportunity get my spidey sense tingling, I don’t want to miss it. So, at the end of every year, I take stock - where am I going, where have I been, and do the pros of waking up in a coffin-sized bunk still outweigh the lower back pain?

I don’t foresee a change of scenery any time soon, but it’s comforting knowing I respect this journey, and the people I share it with, enough not to become a curmudgeonly sack of crap, and that I trust the personal work I’ve undertaken, and the man I’ve become. 

Neuroscience

I spent the day wandering around the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia and was introduced to the work of visual artist and neuroscientist Dr. Greg Dunn (@gdunnart). He’s created the most elaborate and accurate artistic illustration of the human brain, among dozens of other incredible images. Intricate, psychedelic, and infinitely more nourishing than a cheesesteak. Inspiring discovery. 

Befuddling and Utterly Magical

I’m walking around Dupont Circle in Washington DC on Thanksgiving Day, hunting for a coffee shop, cafe, anything that’s open, eventually settling for, god help me, Starbucks. It’s just cold enough to keep my pace brisk, and it’s zombie apocalypse level deserted, the Range Rovers and Mercedes S Classes, I’m imagining, hastily discarded in favor of holing up in the Nicaraguan Embassy, molotov cocktails at the ready.

I’m often asked what it’s like being away from family on the holidays, and it’s really not so bad. I’m lucky - this job allows me to travel the world, about which my family’s haphazardly strewn, and I see everyone often. With an international family, you appreciate that getting the band back together, as it were, is a rare, if ever event, and I’m grateful for hanging with my cousins in Australia as often as I do my cousins in Canada, or Boston. 

This line of work’s not for everyone. In fact, statistically speaking, it’s for almost no one. That’s it’s for me I think’s pretty cool, which is why I try to embrace every facet of this befuddling and utterly magical ride.

Have You Ever Seen...

…a real, live Turducken? Well, allow my friend Tommy Siegel to educate you.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Mindfulness

Washington DC! 9:30 Club! Every touring musician knows this is a big deal, especially just over halfway through a marathon tour. A spread of pizzas, lentil soup, salad, and famous 9:30 Club cupcakes waiting upon arrival, a ninja staff of touring pros and infinitely capable mad scientists, a state-of-the-art PA you can hear from outer freaking space, and green rooms with bunkbeds for a weary road crew - there’s a reason why it’s consistently voted the number one club in America, and we’ve sold it out. Feels good.

Stopping through places like the 9:30 Club, you realize the importance of mindfulness. The food cost of lentil soup is, what, like ten cents per serving? But it’s nourishing, ready and waiting first thing, and a hot meal goes a long way towards soothing the savage guitar tech.

Bunk beds are easy to build and, again, inexpensive, and this venue understands how coveted a power nap is for someone working a sixteen hour day, and that the last place you want to be is on the tour bus, aka the mobile petri dish.  

The 9:30 Club staff are smart, and thoughtful, and it’s a breath of fresh air in an industry where so many people are the opposite.

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Fool's Gold

Harrisburg! If someone had asked me yesterday what the state capital of Pennsylvania was, I would’ve kindly asked them to leave me alone, but its turns out it’s the place I’ve just emphasized with an exclamation point, on account of our being here. 

As retribution for my being unkind towards Florida, a state blessedly devoid of windchill, the universe has dropped temperatures to the point that it’s officially uncomfortable to walk around and explore, and one of the reasons I love this part of the country is the stalwart Pennsylvanian, dressed in shorts and flip flops, openly ridiculing my puffy jacket and hunched posture. And I do love it here - I think it’s the realism bred grit, that you wake up early and work all day, and that’s just the way it is, and what’s so great about obliterating your liver under a palm tree, anyway? 

It’s a well-timed reminder that I’m here to do a job, one that I love beyond measure, and whatever on tour opulence comes with my dubious status as a “band guy” should be acknowledged as the fool’s gold that it is.

The Dream Team

This is the most fun the Allen Stone Electric Ensemble’s ever had on tour, and our most cohesive production. I’ve been through a lot with this band, and the touring’s always fired on all cylinders. We’ve got the dream team out with us - I hope we keep this unit together indefinitely.

This project’s experienced some nice success, and I’m privileged to have been there from the beginning. And one of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned, reinforced by this tour, is appreciating what’s in my control and what’s not. In this band, I play guitar, I help write songs, I help build the show, and I’m a bit of a bastard, though I’d like to think endearingly so. It’s a vital lane, one I feel I navigate well. I have other creative outlets - writing this thing, my own songs, the podcast - of course because I enjoy them, and also so I don’t have to ask this project to be anything other than what it is.

No band, regardless of how many Kombuchas are on the rider, can fully satiate, and I’m grateful for my other outlets keeping me sane and present on this tour.

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Ass Berry

I’m writing this is Asbury Park NJ, pronounced az-bury and not ass-berry, as I was brusquely informed by a heavily tattooed barista this morning. We’re playing a sold out show tonight at the House of Indepedents, basically a show for NYC fans who weren’t able to get into Brooklyn Steel, and it’s a treat getting away from the hustle and bustle, walking along an actual beach, and allowing myself to fall into a gentle trance as waves break against the outcrop of barnacle encrusted rocks on which I’m sitting. 

My amp started blowing fuses right before our NYC show, and while I think we’ve fixed the issue, I can’t help but feel nervous, what with my being technologically well-intentioned but, ultimately, a complete waste of space. But years of touring have taught me never to panic, and worst case scenario I can always hop off stage and start a conga line, which would be more impactful than any guitar solo I might play, anyway.

And now I’m thinking about how the town of ass-berry is a sorta Brigadoon type situation, appearing once every 100 years, where avuncular men in top hats reach betwixt their cheeks and produce tiny, gem-like fruits, on offer only to their presumptive betrothed. 

And now I’m thinking about how this has gone off the rails and I’m thoroughly wasting your time. I should really get ready for the show. 

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Brooklyn Steel

I’m writing this in the green room of Brooklyn Steel in, well, Brooklyn, a preposterously expensive haircut in my near future in anticipation of tonight’s sold out show. 

Some of my most empowering moments as a Berklee student involved taking the train into the city and experiencing, well, everything - music, theater, food, fool-hardy yet necessary fallings in and out of love, the whole gambit. It is difficult here, and overwhelming, the palpable nihilism and miasma of stale, street-lining garbage all too real, but there’re few cities where so much life happens so quickly and, much like touring, you’ll find out in a hurry what you’re capable of.

In a few hours, two thousand pleasantly inebriated and otherwise joyful fans will pack into Brooklyn Steel, and in the post sold out show euphoria I’m sure I’ll promise myself I’ll move here. That is until we hit the next city, and the next, and the next, and a nomad’s heart hums a familiar tune.

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Uncountable Stars

As we begin our trip up the Eastern seaboard, I’m wondering why this tour wasn’t routed in reverse, hitting tropical paradises like Detroit and Toronto in mid October, when hypothermia’s only mostly likely, and victory lapping around Arizona at the same time we’re currently scheduled to freeze to death in Minneapolis. It’s not even that cold in NYC, by delusional, New York Football Giants fan standards, but given I spent the better part of a week complaining about Florida, I suppose this is the karmic pendulum swinging back into balance.

A good friend describes touring as “nearly glamorous,” which is the most perfect summation of anything ever, and in this spirit, honoring our Secaucus NJ tradition of dining at Buffalo Wild Wings and making a bee line for the hotel lobby bathroom makes me inordinately happy. Spirits are high, and the tour’s doing well (thank you!), but I’m having trouble keeping my eyes open as I’m writing this and haven’t been acknowledging how depleted I am. Time, I think, to read a little more, drink a little less, and spend a few more mornings staring out the front lounge window, daydreaming about home cooked meals, my hopefully someday Golden Retriever, and the uncountable stars in an unspoiled Hawaiian sky. 

Just Be A Musician

We’re officially halfway through this 48 show extravaganza and celebrating in what’s easily the most luxurious green room on this tour - hot tub, dry sauna, pool table AND ping pong AND an indoor basketball court AND a Labradoodle named Kermit. NorVA in Norfolk VA, you’ve outdone yourself, and indeed every other comparably sized venue in the country. I’m writing this nicely schvitzed with a suitcase filled with clean underpants. Tour bliss.

I received a message from a young fan recently, and the exchange made me happy:

Young fan: I want to be a musician when I grow up. Is that crazy?

Me: Yes. Growing up is highly overrated. Just be a musician.

And the latter phrase has become a mantra of sorts. Fearing imminent rejection? Just be a musician. Money trouble? Just be a musician. A foreboding and nebulous future? Just be a musician. Precious little has made or currently makes sense in my life, but I’m grateful for the omnipresent fulcrum of my judgment slowing everything down and helping me appreciate the absurdity of worrying so goddamn much.

Being a musician’s what I’m best at, what I love, and it’s taken me on a beautifully disorienting ride. 

Episode 25 - Ari Herstand

Episode 25 of the podcast features the handsome and erudite Ari Herstand! He’s a solo artist, curator of popular music business advice blog Ari’s Take, and author of How To Make It In The New Music Business. Ari’s a multi-faceted, DIY guru, and it was a pleasure picking his brain.

Take a listen!

Ari’s also a loyal reader of this newsletter (thank you!) and suggested, correctly, that I should include a subscription link, just in case emails are forwarded and new readers want to follow along. So, here ya go…

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