Fun Times

Being on tour is 2% partying, 8% playing, and 90% traveling. Now I understand why rockstars party so hard… you go pretty insane cooped up with the same people for hours and hours on end. Between lines for visas, customs, and driving time, my band spent well over 40 hours cramped in a van parading around Sonora, Mexico these past four days. Since I couldn’t get signal or internet pretty much anywhere south of the border, all I had to keep myself entertained was conversation. Luckily, this gave me ample time to get feedback about our venture.

As I have reiterated many, many times, musicians are very wary of the promise of gigs. My band was no exception. This was no surprise to me. The “connecting artists” angle did light some eyes up, though. Our trumpeter expressed that when he first came to Arizona, he had a lot of difficulty finding musicians to jam with. Had he found a musician base to bond with earlier on, he would have enjoyed and grown more as a musician instead of “wasting an entire year.” Our clarinetist concurred. Trying to break into the extremely cliquey world that is the jazz scene is hard enough as a native, but being a Chinese exchange student made it even more difficult. It took her over a year to get her first jazz gig in Arizona. If she had some method of connecting with musicians sooner, maybe it wouldn’t have been such an uphill climb. Now, even though she owns our band, she still sees much value in making more connections.

I also tested some demo names of our service with all 7 people in our van. Box of Artists was a homerun! Being presented with various potential collaborations on a regular basis excited my band and the other musicians, greatly. While I have not had the opportunity to share the demo program with them yet, I will shortly! This social angle truly is the one that gets everybody jazzed up. I am glad my team is on board.

 

…and as always, thanks for reading!

-Will VI