Round Two: FIGHT!

Hey, you’re still here! Awesome! Us too. Let’s see, where did we leave off?

Oh, right. MERCHANDISING! Yeah, that was a thing. The small gigs we’re getting don’t pay very much. In order to turn a profit, we need ways to get people to open their wallets and throw their hard-earned cash at us. So we spent much of the week creating and producing such things. There’s t-shirts available now (pre-order only, for the moment) as well as vinyl decals and buttons/pins. We especially like the pins; we have a run of numbered “Beta Tester” pins, available for sale only at our live shows and sold in sequence. The decals are pretty cool, too, and you can’t have a real band without t-shirts, right?

We’re still a bit of a ways off from buying gold-plated Cadillacs, sure. And we need to set up some kind of e-commerce thing on here before too long. But the revenue will come in handy. Recording an album isn’t cheap, after all.

What’s that? Oh. Yes, we’re talking about recording. It’s time. We think we’re pretty close to ready. We’d like to be able to fund it when we are ready. This is another one of those steps towards leveling up again. We’ll keep you posted as to where we’re at in the process, don’t you worry.

So anyway, there was a flurry of activity getting ready for the gig. Getting our name trademarked. Getting a banner made, so that people could see who we are while we’re playing. Fliers to hand out to passerby. Recruiting people to handle the merch table and the fliers and help set up and and and… All in under a week’s time.

It was a little rough. We ran ourselves kinda ragged. We tried a bunch of new things,  some of which worked, and others…not so much. We almost forgot to practice. But by the time Friday rolled around, we were ready.

We showed up in Mesa and quickly found our performance space. Our very own hunk of sidewalk! We offloaded gear, got ourselves set up and dialed in, and were ready to start right at 6:30. Now, would anyone show up? We needn’t have worried. It turns out, we have some of the most awesome fans in the Universe. People that are willing to show up and pitch in, so that we can get the show started on time. People that will come out on what may well be the hottest day of the year, for an outdoor gig, and stay the whole time.  We are excited and grateful and humbled.

We played well, if we do say so ourselves. The fans loved it. The strangers stopped to listen and enjoy. We made a few bucks for the recording fund. And around 9:30, we finished up with the Bob Marley classic “No Woman, No Cry”. With it’s joyful refrain of “Everything’s gonna be all right!” ringing in our ears, we put down our instruments and caught our breath, shook hands and enjoyed hugs. Oh, and talked with the very happy event coordinator, who said he’d like to have us back next month.

This was another win for us. Thank you, everyone who made it possible. We can’t wait to see what happens next.