February 17th/18th
Moscow, Idaho
With all of us currently living in different places, it takes a little more planning to get everyone together. The old days of all of us hopping in the van, in the same town and heading out together to take on the brave new world are over. It’s a new paradigm in so many different ways both personally, professionally and within the music industry itself. A couple of us read the musings of a music blogger named Bob Lefsetz to garner his take on the situation. He thinks that technology has leveled the platform for aspiring musicians and the world is your oyster. But there are no guarantees that you will ever get out of the basement, or to the next level no matter how often you tweet, post videos or update your website. He maintains that if your music is good enough, people will eventually notice. I agree with Bob that the one major thing a musician can control is getting out there and playing live and connecting with people who appreciate your music. So, amidst all these shifts, that’s what I think this band can continue to do if we are smart about it. We will never be U2, but we are The Clumsy Lovers. And we’ve survived this long and met thousands of wonderful people along the way. Why stop now?
So, where was I…
I loaded up my little car in Missoula and set off for Moscow, Idaho last Friday. About 40 miles up the Interstate 90 I had to stop the car as 3 large deer were crossing. That went fine but they sprinted into the eastbound lane and one of them was mowed down by a van going in the opposite direction. I had never seen that before. Pretty disturbing actually. I’m generally a cautious driver but I was about 10 mph more cautious for the rest of the journey.
Met up with the gang to set up at John’s Alley and afterwards went for Chinese food on the main street. Such a quaint little town and the band has had so many good shows there going back to the early 90’s. After that nutritional goodness, we were ready to rock! And we did! People seemed to be enjoying themselves. We were a little rusty but all in all I though we played pretty well. The venue actually records every show which is cool for posterity, but I think one really needs to be there in the room to get the true flavour of the experience. I was tired by the time we finished around 1:45. I was up with the boys at 5 a.m. after a short sleep, drove quite a ways and played all night. Not complaining, just a reminder to myself that I’m not 21 anymore.
Slept in a bit on Saturday at the mighty Royal Inn. That place certainly has a lot of character and is conveniently located near the venue. Old friend Jill bought me lunch at a new bbq place she is managing, had a little Mexican food later with my friend Storm for dinner and stopped in to see Brett at Nectar to swap child stories. By then it was 9:30 and time to play again. Again, I thought the band played well and we did some experimenting with songs and solos. The band is at it’s best when we are spontaneous for sure. Loose in a good way. But there is a fine line between loose in a good way and borderline terrible. Saturday night we were loose in a good way. (Just don’t listen to the recording…)
Trevor Rogers 