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Are There Many People Here Who've Been on the Road Full-Time?


Crazyfoo

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I was on the road full time playing keys in a Big Hair band for most of the 80s. covered most of the western half of the US. 5-6 days a week, 50 weeks a year. Great stories from the time period. A great way to spend my 20s. I wouldn't have exchanged those experiences for the world.

 

 

 

Same here. Same areas late 70s through the mid 80s. I loved it. I have some awesome memories of rascally stuff that happened and some great musical interchange with other road brothers. It was a priceless experience and playing that much got my chops real consistent. I could almost play anything. (sigh)

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That pretty much changed the live music scene.

In a sense you cant blame the clubs, why would they want to pay a band $1500 for the back haklf of the week when they get kids coming in to play for free or $100 a few drink tickets.


I also dont blame the kids either because they want to play too.


It's one of those things that isnt anyones fault per se, but it just happened because of your perfect example, and of course technological change.


The only winners today are the club owners because they get live entertainment for really cheap.

 

 

 

It may seem cheap , but its not that cheap when you start running all the costs of a club and then start taking the band off the top of the gross.

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Played six nights a week for two weeks, then traveled on the off day. (No weeks off - the married guys couldn't afford it.) The longest trip was Williamsport to Tampa. All the stereotype stories you hear are true, but they don't tell you that life can get pretty stressful when you live with the same guys 24/7 and have no other outlets. You spend too much time getting the new guy up to speed on your show - not enough working up new music. I was single and was able to save money, but I made as much in school playing three nights a week as I did playing six on the road.

 

I honestly don't miss it and I'm glad I got out when I did. I retired in 1972.

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like taking turns driving and sleeping on the pa speakers in the back of one of the vans and the one night you get to sleep the fn drummer loads them cone side up so yer sleepin on the wheel well so you don't rip the speakers? I think mostly of things that were so fn tiny (compared with the memories and the experience) that i decided at the time were opportunities to be bat {censored} crazy over and didn't mean a fn thing in comparison with the overall trip. Lucky for me nobody gave a {censored} and about every 24 hours we rebooted and kept being brothers.

Man, never explained it to anyone but there is something sweet as {censored} about getting older and having no regret that you didn't live out on the edge and explore this lifetime. my mid-life crisis happened in my late teens and twenties. I'm glad I survived.

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I did a couple of years of "roadwork" - but not in the conventional sense. My college band was a "commuter band" that worked anywhere within an hour and a half radius of our hometown. We worked 4-6 nights a week, 45+ weeks a year for nearly 3 years - but slept in our own beds virtually every night. It didn't help my GPA - but did pay my living expenses.

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Man, never explained it to anyone but there is something sweet as {censored} about getting older and having no regret that you didn't live out on the edge and explore this lifetime. my mid-life crisis happened in my late teens and twenties. I'm glad I survived.

 

 

Yep. I made a concious decision when I was 20 to put the rest of my life on hold (education, family) in order to take a chance on success in the music business and live the rock-n-roll lifestyle in the meantime. I knew I could always go back to school, get married, have kids, find another career, etc. when I was 30 or 40 but that rock-n-roll is a young man's game. I knew that if I grew older and had to spend the rest of my years wondering "what if", I'd likely be miserable about that.

 

The rock-n-roll dreams never panned out, but I always knew that was an incredible longshot anyway. I'm 50 now, and my daughter is a bit younger than most the kids of people my age, but I've got zero regrets about how I lived my life or how things have turned out. And, I believe I'm a better and smarter person for having lived through a bunch of {censored} which I'm lucky didn't kill me.

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"I was on the road so long, when I finally got off it took me a year to stop putting my dirty dishes outside my front door . . . "


rimshot.gif

 

Oh dude, you were high class!

We never even had that luxury because most times the band accomadations were a {censored}ty apartment on top of the club or some run-down band house 5 miles from the venue.

 

But I do know of what you speak, we did stay at a 'handful' of those type of establishments during my tenure. (real motel/hotel) It was such a welcome treat too.

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I did a couple of years of "roadwork" - but not in the conventional sense. My college band was a "commuter band" that worked anywhere within an hour and a half radius of our hometown. We worked 4-6 nights a week, 45+ weeks a year for nearly 3 years - but slept in our own beds virtually every night. It didn't help my GPA - but did pay my living expenses.

This sounds like my situation, all through the 80s. I could almost always go home every night.

 

But I hardly every did.

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