Just wanted to pass along
Today there a dozens of people blogging about hurricane Katrina. You all know what has happened and what is happening if you are watching the news. I'm not going to turn this blog into a big discussion on the storm.
I do want to pass along a good
blog on the subject though. I heard about it this morning.
As for all the people I know in New Orleans and Houma. I have only heard from one. He is safe in northern Mississippi. I tried calling his cell today to see how things are, but he didn't answer. I have tried calling some others with no luck there either. These are intelligent people and knowing them, I believe they also got out before the storm hit.
Now the city of New Orleans is flooding. It is just a sad situation for all those along the coast. I couldn't imagine what I would do if I lived there.
Dangerous, but impressive
Hurricane Katrina is and has been a dangerous storm, but it has also been
impressive.
Katrina.... that bitch
In all my years I have met and worked with a lot of people from around the world. Many of them I consider to be my friends. Well now some of those friends and their families are in danger. It's not from terrorists, it's from a major category 5 hurricane.
I have toured with two different bands from New Orleans and also have some crew friends from other tours, that live there. I have emailed a couple of them and of yesterday they were going to ride it out.
Well as of this morning there is a
mandatory evacuation in the city of New Orleans. The storm is now packing winds of 175 mph.
I went through a category 2 hurricane a few years back. Not a direct hit but about a 150 miles from the center and it was a scarey situation. I can't imagine what a category 5 would be like.
To the folks along that area, if you can
get out now! Please don't mess around with your life.
To my friends, be safe.
The British are fighting, the British are fighting
The mud slinging continues. Sharon Osborne makes another
statement regarding the egg throwing incident the other night. This time she admitted that she was the one who ordered the sound system turned off during Iron Maiden's set.
.
Ok like I posted the other day, if you have a problem with an act on the tour fine. Deal with it in a professional manner. To sabotage a bands show in front of the fans is wrong. We are not talking about some band on their first tour. This is a band who have been around over 25 years.
I also found it funny that Sharon says that Maiden have not toured at this level in the US in years. Well sorry Sharon but Maiden did dates last year in the US headlining arena's. They also did an arena tour several years ago.
Oh well the whole thing is becoming laughable, unlike Ozzy's MTV show.
Maiden upsets the Queen of Darkness
I have not toured with a metal band in some years; well the band
COLD is sort of classified in that. I mean they tour with “metal” bands.
Anyway, a couple days ago during the Ozzfest tour there was an incident you may or may not have heard about. Each year this festival tour spends several months on the road with a dozen bands or more. Ozzy or Black Sabbath is the headliner and they have two stages. This year Iron Maiden was in the spot right before Sabbath. The tour still has several shows left on the tour. However the other night in Devore, California was last show of the tour for Maiden. They already had commitments in Europe before Ozzfest was booked. There is nothing unusual here.
What gets interesting is that at this final performance, some folks decided to throw eggs, lighters and bottle caps at Maiden during their performance. The sound system was also shut down as much as six times during the set. It’s been
reported that this was orchestrated by Sharon Osborne (Ozzy’s wife/manager) herself and carried out by crew members and friends of hers. She was supposedly upset that Maiden lead singer Bruce Dickenson had made some remarks on stage during the tour about things he was not happy with. Some of these being corporate selling out and references to the Osborne’s TV show.
Bruce has always been a very up front and doesn’t sugar coat things. The man speaks his mind.
I don’t know Sharon and have never worked for any of her acts. I do know that she has a very short temper and a big ego. If you cross her or piss her off she will retaliate. Now what happened her was not the way to handle things. She is suppose to be a professional. She turned this into a school yard spat.
Now I feel that she did the audience wrong. People paid a lot of money to see this show. Money that she and her husband will be profiting from. I guarantee a majority of these people went to this show because of Maiden being on the bill. She may have bit the hand that feeds her and her family.
The tour is in its tenth year and Ozzy has already said he will not be performing on any future Ozzfest tours. In today’s market there are not a lot of metal bands that can headline an event like this and hope to draw crowds of 15-20,000. Maiden, Judas Priest (who were on the tour in 2004) are only a handful that can.
Don’t count on this tour continuing next year especially with this bad press. The metal community is very close knit and they don’t forget easily.
My city is news worthy
The small little city I live has made the national news. CNN, Washington Post,
NY Times and several other national media outlets are carrying the story. Good news you say? No unfortunately the state park near my house has an outdoor spray water park and over 1700 people have gotten sick because of it.
Hopefully they will get the problem fixed and people will continue to visit the park.
Drugs and Rock & Roll.....really?!
It was around 1998 I believe and I was tour managing a band. We had been out on this particular leg of the tour for about six weeks. I hear a rumor that the bus company we were renting a bus from was being shut down. Why? well it seems the owner was using some of his buses to transport drugs. No our bus was not one of them. I don't remember the company, besides we got it through a broker. The DA and law enforcement were impounding all the buses as evidence.
Now our problem was we still had about a week of the tour left to complete. Fortunately the broker was able to convince them to let us keep the bus for the remainder. Of course as soon as we finished back to Nashville it went to be locked up.
If I remember the owner was sentenced to prison and his wife testified against him in a plea bargain.
I mention this after reading this
story. It doesn't say in the article what company the truck came from or what band's gear they had on board.
This will be an interesting story to watch.
Oh boo hoo
The search goes on for a new tour. I can’t believe I have not been able to lock anything down. Maybe my time has passed or someone is telling me something. I still like doing shows and I love the pay. The travel is becoming tiresome though. It’s hard to explain where I’m at as far as touring. I love it and I hate it.
The thing I hate right now is the fact that I’m not working and I’m tired of not getting the gig’s I’m going after.
It’s not just me at least. My phone has been ringing lately from other “roadies” I know asking if I know of any work. These are mostly backline techs and usually I do hear of something, but not as of late.
I have been looking at the “real world” as far a job too. You know doing the Internet search locally on the job banks. There are a lot of jobs in the medical field locally. Some are manufacturing jobs and some are the typical $6-8 hour position.
Now there is nothing wrong with those jobs that pay that amount, but I can’t work for that. It’s not an ego thing, well maybe a little, but at that rate I couldn’t make enough to pay my bills.
It's a hard thing to make a change after 20 years doing the same type of job.
I’ll figure it out….I always do.
My Fantasy Football League
I have several fantasy sports league's on
yahoo. This
one is my league for this years football season. I invited everyone from my baseball league but we are short three teams. It is is head to head league and we all know each other.
If you are interested just let me know and I will send you the password.
What?? See I knew it.
A couple days ago I was talking about gas prices here in the US and my prediction of $2.50/gallon nation wide by Labor Day. Well it looks like it will be sometime next week. As of this morning the average was around $2.47. The two stations near my house have raised the prices 16¢ per gallon since Tuesday.
At this rate it could be $3.00/gallon by the end of the year.
The interesting thing I have noticed is oil companies like
Sunoco and
Exxon/Mobil raise their prices first. I read somewhere that most of their oil comes from Saudi Arabia.
Yet companies like
Hessget there oil from other areas including the US and Tailand.
As of yesterday when I checked locally all the Mobil, Exxon and Sunoco stations were around $2.54/gallon and the Hess station's were around $2.43/gallon.
We are talking 11¢ a gallon. What does this tell you? Think about it.
Web whore
Ok so I never ask, but today I will. PLEASE click the Google ads on my blog. Come on it takes like 30 seconds. Send me a link to your blog and I will gladly return the favor.
Vodka the other white meat
I don’t know if I have mentioned this before on this blog. I decided in 1992 to give up alcohol. I was not a drunk but could drink with the best of them. I never drank while doing a show. Usually that was reserved for after or on days off. Of course when I was home I would go out and put down a few.
Lately I have had a lot of free time while looking for a new tour. I’m doing my best to keep busy.
I find myself thinking about having a drink. I don’t know what is bringing this on. It’s been 13 years and I haven’t needed to attend AA meetings during this time. Is it the boredom factor, maybe a slight depression, who knows? I just find myself in the grocery store and thinking about picking up that twelve pack. Then I think about the way I felt the next day after having a “few”.
It’s a good thing I don't have a drug addiction.
Gas is....
I average about 7000 miles a year driving my personal vehicle. Now this is mileage when I am not touring, no I don’t drive my own car on tour. Well I have spent so much time at home lately I will probably go over that this year.
I mention all of this due to gas prices. If you drive you know what I’m talking about. Besides the “war” this is the conversation for most people. The national average according to
gaspricewatch.com in the US for regular unleaded is $2.36/ gallon.
Here in upstate NY the price is anywhere from $2.38 –2.45 a gallon. With the Labor Day holiday less than a month away you can bet we will all be paying around $2.50/gallon. Don’t be surprised if we are paying $3.00/gallon by the summer of 2006.
I wonder how much I can save if I buy a moped.
CD Protection
I read an article about the new technology being used for some CD's. Basically this technology is to keep you from making copies of a CD you purchased. It states that you cannot transfer the music to your iPod. One of these CD's is the latest from Foo Fighters.
Here is a recent article on the subject.I bought this CD from the Foo Fighters the week it was released and can tell you that the protection doesn't work. I was able to put the songs into iTunes and then on to my iPod with no problems.
Looks like the new technology is not fool proof. Next.
Reputation
It’s been several days since my last blog entry. Not much to write about. I appreciate the comments that I’ve been getting lately though.
I haven’t walked away from this career of mine, it’s difficult after 20 years. Besides what do you put on a resume when you apply for a “normal” job? I still would like stability of some sort. Just haven’t found the right job.
I mentioned before that I have several resumes out. Still waiting to hear on those. I had agreed to tour manage a female R&B artist. However it looks like they are going another route. This is kind of a long story that I won’t get into for several reasons.
Last Friday I got an interesting call to work with Sir Elton. Basically it was a call to see if I was interested and available. I told them I was and they said they would let me know. Well as of Tuesday I received the word that I would not be needed after all. I’m guessing the person that was to do the job decided to stay. I can live with that, at least my name is known in that camp now.
You see this business is heavy on reputation. The more people you know the better. You folks that work in movies and television know what I mean. You basically get work by word of mouth. Someone mentions you to a band or the management. You also get work through other touring personnel. I’ve gotten people I know work in the past and sometimes they return the favor.
The bad thing is some of these people I know are looking for work too.
