Home From Tour

We're home now from tour.

I was driving to the Felsen HQ in west oakland this morning.  I hadn't driven my car for about 2.5 weeks and I turned on the car stereo and in the CD player was a demo of our tune Rock and Roll's Not Dead that I recorded around Xmas of last year--just me and an acoustic guitar.  On January 1st of this year we had exactly one song written and a rather vague plan to record a new album and then do a national tour soon thereafter.  I sent out a batch of rather awful sounding demos to Art, Cris and Dylan around that time.   Most of the demos were just little song embryos, some were more completed, all needed a lot of TLC.  And then there was the fact that we had no label (got dropped a year earlier--shame on you, you know who you are) and no money, no studio, etc...just a plan and a bunch of demos.  Cris came forward and offered to record and mix the whole thing at his home in San Lorenzo.  Wow.  OK. We began to workshop the tunes.  We would rehearse a few songs, get it sounding good and then go to Cris's house and record basics. Repeat the process another 3-4 times until we had a whole album of songs.  I spent a lot of time with Dylan fine tuning the songwriting, chords, lyrics, etc...over lunch or coffee we had tons of great conversations about being bay area artists,  trying to keep our sanity & humanity while floating precariously on a cracker, keeping the art of rock and roll alive. The songs were shaping up and starting to tell a story.  There was an underlying theme now, a sense of purpose: Art wins, humanity prevails. All 4 of us were feeling it and deeply invested in the concept.  Rock and Roll's Not Dead. Around March Cris had to make a tough decision about his family and future and after 17 years of living in the US decided that it was time to move back home to Mexico to be with family and start a business.  He made a grand bargain with the family to honorably finish our record and do the big tour and then to move on.  Art and Trish got married in May.  This was basically the dead line: get all the basics for the album done before the wedding and then we'd finish up all the overdubs and Cris would mix for the rest of the month before leaving for Mexico.  Dylan and I made a bunch of visits to Cris's house in April and May to finish the album.  I spent a lot of late nights recording and re-recording vocals, guitar, keyboards, percussion, vibraphone, gong, samples and sound effects.  Throughout the summer, Cris would commute a few times back from Mexico to the east bay.  We decided to launch an Indie Go Go campaign later in the summer to help cover the costs of PR, printing and tour expenses.  After Art got home from his honeymoon, he got out the big map on his desk at work and started to block out dates and a route.  Much negotiation began with our families and jobs and eventually the four of use were able to carefully carve out 17 days in our all ready hectic lives for a tour in early September.  Art worked really hard booking the tour, sending out over 1000 emails.  Seriously.  You ever booked a DIY tour for an unsigned indie rock band?  No fun.  Dude never complained though.  Meanwhile, I worked with 4 graphic designers who voluntarily formed a tag team to get the artwork for the CD together.  I also hunted down a PR firm to help promote the album, designed posters and Tshirts, got the Indie Go Go thing together and launched,  did interviews (called in a lot of favors from writers, podcasters etc), recorded a string section--again called in some big favors from all of those talented people and our pal Adam Rossi for hosting that incredible day of recording at his fancy SF studio.  The record was skillfully mastered by Ruairi O'Flaherty in LA.  Again, called in a big favor. A corporate gig fell into our laps and that payed for the mastering and the first PR payment.  We had the CDs printed and in hand around mid July. I put 225 CDs in the mail a week later.  Good reviews started to come in soon thereafter (and are still rolling in).  Around Aug 1st we completed the Indie Go Go campaign, raising a bunch of money to make the tour possible.  Cris arrived home a few days before the tour started for a few rehearsals and we left for tour on Friday Sept 6,  arriving safely home yesterday.  I think I can speak for everyone that we're all really tired, but satisfied in the fact that we truly gave it all we had to give.  Some gigs were amazing, some less than amazing.  The band always played at it's peak.   I know all of us are extremely grateful to the many people who gave to the Indie Go Go Fund, housed us on tour, fed us, came out to the shows, helped to promote the tour, shared our tweets and messages, forming a grass roots impromptu cyber street team, booked our band, helped with the artwork and technical stuff, played on the album, partied with us and drank the moonshine...the list is long. That was a 10 month effort for us.  Thank you America, Felsen loves you.