On the Road Again

"cause I'll be gone 'till November"
-Wyclef Jean

Bertha, the Frogs Gone Fishin' RV is cruising east. It's 7:05 PM and there is a massive, crimson harvest moon firing up the horizon directly in front of us as we head out of town on I-76 toward I-80, Iowa, Chicago and the rest of tour. Call it East Bound and Down, call it National Tour. Call it what you want but this is our most ambitious undertaking, yet. We've hit Chicago and Cincinnati before, but the area east of Ohio is largely uncharted territory for FGF. That's all about to change. Some other things have changed recently and because we've intentionally been on the down-low about personnel changes in our organization, it's time to come clean with what's been happening, and what's going to happen inside and outside Frogs Gone Fishin'.

Steve and Mark don't play music in FGF anymore. It's something you don't foresee, but every band, it seems, goes through it. At some point life bumps up against everything you thought your band would be as a kid and you deal with what all of our twenty-something friends deal with, the idealism of youth fading into the harsher, but ultimately more satisfying world of getting business done. I will always love those two guys and wish them nothing but personal and musical happiness.

On bass and drums this tour are the Double D's, Dax and Dave, and at the helm of our eastbound ship is Double A (Aaron) our ever-trustworthy and efficient road manager. The man can cook, drive for HOURS, fix anything and helps keep us oriented toward our goal of playing as much music as possible, in as many places as possible, planned and unplanned.

Frogs have been as far east as North Carolina (we'll do Asheville on Halloween this year), and as far north as Cleveland, but never to New Jersey or New York as we'll do this month. The band is especially excited for a gig at Sullivan Hall in Greenwich Village, NYC, on Halloween weekend. Bringing Bertha and a band that's not exactly on a New York budget will be a challenge, but I wouldn't consider myself a touring musician if we didn't at least try and make this a viable route for ourselves so we can keep coming back in the future to build a fan base.

Frogs plan on taking a short break during the winter months, to solidify our lineup and add additional instruments to our sound. The only way to keep from calcifying is to grow and it doesn't ever hurt to build demand by restricting access. Again, you bump into the reality of paying your bills when you want to restrict the number of shows you play in a given market, but it's a big country! Then the reality of how much gas really costs us as a society manifests like some sort of giant pink elephant in the room which no one wants to address.

It was tough to hear when our business banker told me that it's harder to acquire small business credit under Obama than it was under Bush. I've given this administration the serious benefit of the doubt but, in the financial sector at least, they are failing. Not to mention the fact that the crooks who did serious damage to the world economy still have their jobs. Small business is what drives our nation forward, along with corporations. But I do know that in a nation plagued by debt and few job opportunities, new prosperity must come from a different place than corporations. Companies like that are too massive, too dense to move quickly in a world changing as rapidly as ours. We are one of those small businesses, and can attest first hand to the difficulties that entrepreneurs face these days.

But luckily for we musicians, our business is not a cyclical one, in terms of the entire economy. People, in general, want to go out, have a good time and listen to music, and I would suppose more-so in times of economic distress. But we are always striving, trying to book better gigs, farther in advance for more money. Being in Chicago and New York should refine our business sense, and what it means to be a musician in a highly, and in the case of New York, the most competitive scene in the world.

Bertha feels solid in the dense fall air, the engine aspirating that much better. There are so many variables on tour and all I can really hope for is Halloween not being that scary for the Frog's bank account as we journey to New York and beyond.