August Ups and Downs

It's Monday 15 August. The heat wave we've been having in OH took a nice cool down [which means a "heat-up" is imminent]. I haven't blogged since early June but it's writing time again...

I started this blog in June in hopes of detailing and posting photos of Trashcan Sinatras tour photos. I got 2 blogs in and then took the "easy" way out and just uploaded all my photos via Facebook. Band's webmaster also posted all the band tour blogs, so it got done without my aid.

I look after a cat named Fuzzball. I moved into my house in late July 2001 and Fuzzball snuck in while I was moving in. He was an outdoor cat who was being looked after by neighbors 2 doors down, but he adopted my house and me him. Well the old guy got glaucoma 2 years ago and now is blind and mostly deaf too. He still likes his independence and hangs out outside and gets around pretty well by memory, smell, etc. Sadly, he disappeared last Thursday. Here's a photo of him taken earlier this year. Say a prayer that he's OK or maybe his time is up and he crawled into a quiet place and passed peacefully. But I'm still looking for you Fuzzball and I hope you're all right.


Music makes me Happy. There was a lot of great music being made in the Cinci area this past Saturday. Thanks to my friend Cassandra [& John for hanging out too], I got a ticket to see one of if not THE best pop-rock band Cinci has ever produced. You could make arguments that the best band out of Cinci could be Midnight Star, or Pure Prairie League or Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods. But I refer to the band I probably saw the most [besides the Erector Set who I managed and booked from 1980-3, so they don't count for this post]: that's the Raisins.

The Raisins were the classic hard-working 4-piece band out of Cinci who wrote good originals and had lots of good covers. Dare I say it: "Fear Is Never Boring" and "Your Song Is Mine" are great songs. You could see them most Monday nights at Alexanders and they were quintessential fun bouncy pop-rock. Raisins "re-formed" for a 1-off and it was great. The band played a solid 90 minute set and folks were ecstatic [I was merely pretty happy to see a great band having so much fun and pleasing fans who hadn't had a chance to see them since 2000].

I'll keep my observations somewhat limited. I have to admit after reading all the FB posts that I must not be a hard-core Raisins fan, as there were actually a few tunes I would have liked to seen in "my" setlist, but I want to stat positive and leave it that Rob, Bob, Bam and Rick played a tight set and a good time was had by all. The band went on at 11:21p. The biggest common "theme" I noted was that at 54, I and many others were yawning, as us old folk were up past our normal bedtimes. But it was Saturday night and as the Raisins were finally about to go on, all yawns were forgotten and joyous dancing and general rock fun of a band playing great and being loved at the same time by their fans for that greatness. So God bless the Raisins for playing out again and existing in the 1st place.

I just flashed over to the Raisins FB page and saw Bob post that they "didn't really make it." As shown by the love of your fans, you MADE it, Clive or not. I'd love to see Raisins show re-unions vs Psychodots. But on a Saturday night 11 years after the last gig, you still rock and we still love you.


Raisins Photo credit: Chuck Madden

Take 3? Just post some photos

Hi netizens...

I'm learning how to blog and use Blogger's html... should be easy, huh?
I wrote a 2nd entry about how the Trashcan Sinatras tour was planned and how the four band members and two crew [which includes me] got to the first tour city of Houston TX.

I had edited photos too and went to add them to my stories of planning, driving, gambling, drug dogs, batteries, highways and speed limits... but it all disappeared as I added the last photo to my well-done work. Blogger had been flashing at me all morning that the auto-save was off, but no worries after so many spell-checks, previews, photo crops and layout changes: I was set.

But poof! It all disappeared as I was adding the last photo to my 2nd post. So you can only wonder [or not] if it would have been entertaining writing, as I've taken the vanishing act as a sign to just get some photos posted, and spare the wordsmithing.

So the TCS brothers John and Stephen Douglas arrived at IAH before anyone else coming from Glasgow. Then Frank and Paul came in from LAX via PHX and Sean came in from Dayton via CLT. As bands are known to do, once arriving and being able to sleep, etc., we all stayed up having a beverage or two to celebrate the start of another TCS tour. Here's a pic of Frank Reader.

I actually took these next two pics of Stephen and John first...


These last two photos are of Paul Livingston

and a classic of Frank as if he was born to pitch for beer ads!

Lastly, I'd like to note that I took all these photos with my cell camera. The lighting doesn't always work out best, but a "bad" dark photo sometimes is better than no photo at all.

My "layouts" are still in a learn how mode. But let the music-making begin on the morrow.

My first blog

Welcome to my 1st blog and post. I've never been much of a writer, but I love to email and have turned into a FaceBooker at times to help market music bands. My main source of income comes from being a Tour Manager. What I do is a little bit of everything, but mostly I steer where rock bands go to get them from their homes out on to "the road" and ultimately where they want to be: on stage making music in front of their fans. Hopefully they'll be happy musicians and also their tour makes money so they can pay me and afford to do it again / some more. Bands used to rely a lot more on record sales to afford to tour, but now it's even more important to combine that with merchandise sales, efficient spending and smart marketing opportunities.

My latest Road Trip was with 4 lovely gentlemen know as the Trashcan Sinatras, who I will call mostly TCS [band started as Trash Can Sinatras, changing the name to just 2 words in 2004, but there's a better "ring" to TCS vs TS]. TCS released their 1st CD in 1990 and hailed from Glasgow Scotland [really Ayreshire / Irvine but soon up to the big city]. They couldn't be more skilled or lucky that their 1st 2 singles are still great songs "Only Tongue Can Tell" and "Obscurity Knocks."

I have been a Tour Manager since 1983 [though I also traveled around since 1980 with the regional Cinci OH based Erector Set]. My 1st tour with TCS was in 2004 for their [IMO best CD] Weightlifting. The latest CD was released in 2009 called In the Music [also quite good; ALL their CDs are really good] and I've guided [TM'd = Tour Managed] all their tours in N. America since then.

Frank [Francis] Reader is the lead singer of the band and is an amazingly clever writer of blogs, likely in general, and for sure, great songs. I hope and wish he'll get back into doing blogs for the band, so I won't have to, but until he or the band step up and do it themselves, I'm going to share some of my thoughts, musings, photos and experiences of what it was like to be on tour for the month of March 2011.

Note: I wasn't sure of what to call this and took a stab that "Another One Writes a Blog" wouldn't be taken. It is now, for better or worse.