The summer lasted from the beginning of July to the end of September, a break in October then back out to the East coast for my yearly Movember Tour.
But First, I quit the music site Reverb Nation.
It's purpose is to be another fan site where people can like your page, buy songs, you can try and book gigs and promote yourself. Being a musician you need to spread yourself around to try and get discovered by others. I've been on the site a few years and really it's done nothing for me.
A few months ago they had a campaign running. Sign up for their promotional package and get 30 day free trial your page will be advertised on amazon, Jango, and all sorts of other sites.
I thought 30 days free, why not?
Signed up made a note in my phone that 4 days before the 30 days ends I would cancel it so I don't get charged for advertising past the 30. I see the add pop up on a site or 2 and it was only the top half of my logo so you only saw the top have of the letters of "eyeswide" needless to say not impressed.
Then after a week I get a charged $40 dollars to my Paypal for this promotional campaign, before I contacted them to ask about it, a few days later another $40. So I email whomever, and they said it was not a 30 day trial and the money had already been spent on advertising although they did have $8.40 left they could refund me.
Great!
I said I want it all back or I'm quitting Reverb Nation and I would write about the horrible service I received on my Blog (I'm not a liar).
Needless to say they would not so I ended my account but they have a side note that any money they receive for my music goes to them completely, because I ended my account before the end of the year I paid for. So I'm wondering if they will be taking any iTunes money since I put my latest album on iTunes through their site...
(If so I urge anyone buying my music to do it from Bandcamp rather than iTunes right now, that way you and I both know money is actually getting to me.)
I went through Paypal to make a claim but only had 1 of the payments refunded to me.
Reverb Nation and me are not on speaking terms. And most likely never will be.
End Reverb Nation rant.
I had a look at my last blogs to see what I last said about my summer touring and I still had a lot left to say, but got quite lazy and wrote not a word on it.
I'm glancing at my notes and some makes sense some doesn't.
"Playboy and tampon wrappers" I don't recall what this meant. I'm sure it led into a glorious tale of tragedy and redemption.
Some notes remind me of a certain moment but not really sure why I made note of it at the time.
So I'll pick out a few random things as I scroll through the iphone.
I was in Alberta last if anyone was keeping track and heading east. my notes jump from this point all the way back to Ontario. So I assume nothing happened between Vancouver and Toronto. So here are some landscape photos I took...
I have this short conversation written down I had with Daniel Greer of The DGB. He's a great guy and pretty fun to talk with, he doesn't seem to like newer technology. His room has a record player, an old nintendo, and a tv that may or may not work.
We were talking about the movie Ted, which I had not seen at the time.
DG- I'm waiting for the VHS to come out.
Me- They don't make VHS anymore.
DG- Well I hate dvd's because they scratch, and I hate going back to Blockbuser to return it.
Me- They don't have Blockbusters anymore either.
Later we had a USB and he asked where it went in the tv.
I also wrote "Cross legged Indian style spraying water bath"
I remember this. It was at Daniel's house, I packed up my tent and was going to have a shower before leaving but they only had a tub with those with a spray hose. So i sat down, in the fashion I had just stated, and water sprayed all over the bathroom floor from a leak in the tap. It was great fun...
In Cornwall there were a few of those 19 year old youths out and about.
this is what I heard them say.
"I'm a really heavy drinker, so I get drunk real easy. I'm pretty wasted right now."
No, you get drunk real easy because you're 19.
"Fuck vagina's in their stupid ass!" after being shut down from some vagina holding female.
My friend Alex Kelly called me up sometime in August, and asked if I could come to New York to be in her latest music video. Her reason for asking "I wanted to kiss someone who I knew didn't have mouth herpes." Which I would have loved to do (because it's true, I don't have mouth herp!). Sadly I had to decline I was on tour. Not only that, but I had been on tour for just over 2 months then, and had not been to the gym since the 1st week of July, add on all the greasy bar food intake, I doubt I was in my peak physical form for topless filmed shenanigans. Sad I know. But here is the video you can just imagine me throwing Alex in the mud instead of that other dude.
I also wrote "What am I doing in this province?"
I don't know what province this comment was for, so I can not answer myself. But I'm sure I had a pretty good reason for being there.
And that's it! it seems I was heavy into note taking during the first stretch, then quickly tired of it or assumed I would remember.
In the middle of my tour I had a few days off between West and East Coasts for relaxation.
That didn't happen because My dog, Trail who is 13, was bit by a brown recluse spider. We didn't know it at the time we thought it was a cancerous tumour that sprouted up on his head. after a few days and tests we found it was an infection and needed quick operation. Trail's head got a hole in it from the poison eating away his muscle tissue. He looks great now but during the time of the bite and operation he was in rough shape. so the next few pictures are kinda gross be warned....
It was a sad half tour I worried about him a lot, Gina, my girlfriend, was stuck taking care of him while I hit the road. The vet pretty much drained me of all my earnings on the tour. But I'm very happy he made it through. He's a tough old man.
Moving on to Movember.
This was a weird tour. I have deemed it the bad luck tour.Every show I had had a low turn out due to outside circumstance or because it was a Monday or Tuesday or something. In Moncton I was excited to open for The Stogies and The Regal Beagle Band. they have a following and it was assumed the night would be full.
Turns out that nobody told the bands I was opening the show. Not sure how they felt about it but, it wasn't greeted with excitement. The night started and and ended with no more than 20 people in the bar. Turns out Matt Mays was playing around the corner and everyone else went there.
I had booked this show a year previous. I was excited to go and play Fables in Tatamagouche, It's quite hard to get in to. The bar itself was amazing and so were the owners. What wasn't amazing, was that they had closed the bar for 2 weeks prior to my show and when they opened most people didn't realize it.
In Woodstock I played to 4 people, which was weird for a Friday, someone told me that Woodstock is a religious area and there was a religious thing happening that night.
Next time I go through I'll promote myself as a Christian rock artist...
.
In Belleville, The Trews played an acoustic show across the street. needless to say, The Trews won.
In Campbellford it became so cold that night that no one went out the only 2 bars in town had a combined total of 7 people all night.
I'm glad that I had a guarantee pay at 80% of the shows or I would have lost a lot of money on this tour.
And now I'm here taking a break writing some new songs learning some new covers but very slowly.
I'm not in any rush.
I had planned on doing a full band tour this March but my friend and sometimes drummer is now unavailable. Which maybe is a good thing. I've applied for a small touring Grant form the city of Barrie. Since they threw a little money my way to help make the latest record, I'm hoping they will throw a little more to help me tour it proper around Ontario.
I heard Dan Mangan took out a bank loan to make and tour his record because he could never get a grant from Factor or any organizations of that ilk.
Seems like an idea.
I've also tossed around the idea of Kickstarter, but I'm not sure if my fan base is quite strong enough for that experiment.
So, as of right now I have nothing major booked. A show in Barrie and one in Toronto in Febuary. That's it.
I'm not sure what my Summer plans are as of yet, last year by this time I had shows booked around the country but I'm just going to take it slow right now.
I'll let out know what's going to happen next when I figure it out.
But here's this to look forward to I just got back from Cuba, and I plan to write about what I did, what I learned of the country, and of course I will make fun of Gina multiple times. Should start it up next week.
Look forward to it!
-Neil
www.eyeswidemusic.bandcamp.com
