Photo credit: Robert Jensen
Tell us about your tour vehicle. Any notable breakdown stories?
I stopped touring in my van about 10 years ago, but these days I have seriously reconsidered van touring again, as have many of my friends. For the last ten years I flew into an area, rented a car, did a week or two of mad driving and flew home. But with Covid…who wants to deal with airports and airplanes and people massed together breathing the same recycled air?
Before the flying mode we had everything possible happen to us in the “van years”, ( a 2000 Chevy Express Conversion with the famous 350 engine, nicknamed “El Presidente”), including a tire blowout on the I-35 corridor between Dallas and Austin, which every road dog knows is a nightmare in a constant state of “reconstruction”. Our tire blew at 1 am in the morning going 80mph on our way home after a Dallas show, in a tight two-lane corridor with a massive semi going about 79 right next to us.
Somehow my son Cisco managed to get us off to the side with barely enough room for the van and he started changing the tire with cars and trucks blowing past him literally inches away. It was so awful that the mom in me just freaked out and I told him just drive the van down the embankment and over to the frontage road right now– hub, axle, wheels and bearings be damned! So he got back in and drove on the blowout over to the frontage road. Thank you Jesus…
Right about then the temp dropped a good 30 degrees and a freezing front blew in. Bless my son, he changed the tire out there in that freezing wind, while his old mom and our guitar player Mike huddled in the back and immediately started to come down with a raging cold right then and there, sick for weeks. Cisco was a dang champ. He didn’t catch the cold either!
Another time we were in Toronto doing a Midwest/Canada run and I had about $25,000 in the “football” (slang for the moneybag) when we decided to park and walk around the city a bit. Left the football between the seats. When we got back to the parking spot the van had been towed and it was evening. We had to cab over to a very seedy and not particularly secure compound lot, thankfully still open, but there was ‘El Presidente” in all its glory, football inside unharmed.
I donated that van to KUT in a pledge drive… it seemed only right.
How do you eat cheaply and/or healthy while on tour?
We include a healthy meal in our rider, and then we count on Whole Foods, which Cisco, who used to work at the Wheatsville Food Co-op in Austin, had titled the “Death Star” due to its capitalist standing with Unions. But “out there” Whole Foods is a lifesaver. All our hotel rooms have to have fridges so we can stock up.
I carry a collapsible cooler and a vast selection of herbal remedies, teas and formulas in various travel size bottles and containers, and I can pretty much treat most ailments out of that kit. I have smeared John Gorka with a clay poultice after a bed bug infestation in Tucson, dosed myself and others with immune tinctures when there’s a virus going around, and made a strong tea of Ma Huang to clear out laryngitis for long enough to get through a show.
If I can’t find healthy food I rely on my curry bouillon cubes to get me to a decent meal. I am super careful because I have gotten really bad food poisoning and many times had to get up at dawn and travel after an all nighter in the bathroom. Survival is an art form on the road!
How many strings do you break in a typical year? How much does it cost to replace them?
I don’t hit my strings very hard, and they rarely break. I just turn up my volume instead! 🙂 I like dead(ish) strings and am kind of known in some circles for using dead strings in recording. I like the thunky sound of them, warm and good for rhythm playing. So, value added there!
Where do you rehearse?
Rehearsal? What’s that?
What was the title and a sample lyric from the first song that you wrote?
That was 55 years ago and granny has dumped that information in order to remember something else, like where did she leave her car keys?
Describe your first gig.
See above! I did do a lot of busking in the 60’s and I vaguely recall getting $100 for the entire band to play a benefit for the Santa Fe Opera in 1968…might have been one of the first paid enterprises.
What was your last day job? What was your favorite day job?
I have only had a couple in my 55 year career. I answered telephones at an Austin switchboard service in the 80’s from 10pm ‘til 6 am, 3 nights a week. Basically I slept on a couch ‘til the phone rang. I also recall cleaning up a construction site in 1971. I sucked at that. I suck at everything actually, except music.
How has your music-related income changed over the past 5-10 years? What do you expect it to look like 5-10 years from now?
More dependent on touring and on-site cd sales, less on sales and merch outlets. Spotify and streaming have destroyed our world. Meanwhile my venue price has increased but my expenses have too. I was shocked during Covid to see that my ratio of income vs expenses actually improved while spending the year off the road. WTAF? That’s pretty telling!
What one thing do you know now that you had wished you knew when you started your career in music?
“Success” is relative. You can’t compare yourself with others’ “levels” of success. It leaves you bitter and competitive. Be happy for others’ moments in the spotlight and humble when it’s your moment. Stay grateful, have a beautiful creative life in the arts, with all the ups and downs, disappointments and achievements, wonderful supportive friends and MUSIC all around!
(That wasnt one thing, but it sort of was…)