A day in the life of a working musician.. the behind-the- scenes drama of presenting Irish fiddle shows, running a band, dealing with the endless characters in the music industry, and keeping the dream alive.

Sunday, July 03, 2005

Harp and Shamrock Tour

After having such a great time on the road with the Welsh band, I decided to book a tour of my own. Since I'm from the West Coast originally and enjoy visiting there, that was the logical place to start. Or it seemed logical at the time... All the music books tell you to tour within a 100-mile radius of where you live, and I had already broken that rule by about 2500 miles, but once it was decided, there it was, the Harp and Shamrock West Coast Tour.
Forty-five phone calls later, we are playing everywhere from nice listening venues such as Portland's Backstage Gate (Artichoke Music on August 6th), to the Thurston County Fair in Olympia Washington - on the Schwab Tire stage, for those of you who are into tires.

What has impressed me the most is how many people have offered to help with the tour. I guess when you've been in the music business a while, you're often dealing with club owners that have to worry about their bottom line and get approached by way more musicians than they could possibly hire. I forget sometimes that there are regular people out there that love music and want to be a part of something bigger....