The good news is that I got an extra week this month with December 1 falling on a Friday. The bad news is that I didn’t take advantage of it and I am sitting here on Wednesday writing tomorrow’s welcome column. I could tell you that I have been very busy preparing for Christmas and didn’t have time but I can’t lie so close to Christmas and not expect to get coal in my stocking. Naw, it wasn’t that and frankly I can’t tell you what the issue is. I know! I’ll tell you that I am prepping for a fabulous Farmer’s Market Gig in Palo Alto this Sunday. The market gig is for real but the prep part may be stretching reality some.
It is true I had to do the usual minding of mice to pull the/a band together but I’m used to that by now. The question is why? Why did I book this gig? What do I hope to get from it? (Although my 1/6 split of the tip jar is pretty enticing.)
Sometime several months back, I told you about a new band I was beginning to work with to (as I mistakenly assumed) work up a repertoire in order to play gigs. Turns out that a couple of key members aren’t interested in playing many gigs. Isn’t that what bands do?
I guess not this band. I was able to get a few farmers market gigs scheduled but of five or six I got, we will end up playing two (including Sunday) and to make those happen, I had to mind a lot of mice and add some players and singers just for the markets while missing players I “rehearse” with every week at “band practice”.
With this being the case, why would we choose to play this market? This is where the “e” word comes into play. Exposure, not the Louis C.K. or Harvey Weinstein connotation or even the cold weather connotations (it is a farmers market in December with temperatures in the high 30’s expected early on) but rather the kind that music buyers try to sell you on when they can’t pay.
There are two problems with the latter meaning of exposure. First it’s like trickle down economics, even though many of the so-called experts say it works, there is no documented evidence of such and I have no first hand experience of it ever working either.
The second and equally critical problem is that I have no band to expose. We don’t have any CD’s to sell or contact information to hand out. That is somewhat due to me backing off from the mice minding business for this group. I’m pretty sure that they haven’t noticed.
So back to why did I wrangle a band to play a Farmer’s market in December and why are we doing it. Well there are two reasons (is it just me or are there always two reasons, problems, etc.) why we are doing it. First is a very practical reason. I want to honor my commitment to the market booker. I have been working on and off with her for a number of years and she has always been accommodating and I don’t want to burn that bridge by stiffing her with short notice in case in the future I am ever in a band that needs exposing.
Secondly, I love to play and perform and so do most of the others I’m playing with. Having market goers stop and listen for a few minutes or watching kids dance to fiddle tunes or have older engineer type guys pepper the banjo player with questions is always fun. Just playing with anyone listening is always a good time.
So if any of you tens of readers out there are near California Ave in Palo Alto come on out watch us having some fun. We’ll be pretty good. If you come, please look for the big jar on the table by the band. That is where you put the pictures of presidents you’re carrying around in your wallets.
Catch you in the New Year.
