Out East/99 Cents at a Time

Greetings from Richmond, Virginia. We got here late last night after driving all day. I try to route things so the jumps are small, but sometimes...you have a day off and a long way to drive. We went from Nashville to Richmond, and by the time we got to Virginia it was dark so I don't really know what Virginia looks like yet except the Richmond airport across the street from the motel. Yep. The drive was fun, though. Somehow we got to wondering what British rap sounded like, which lead to a big iTunes download frenzy of songs by British, Scottish, Russian, and Japanese hip hop. Check out "Bonkers" by Dizee Rascals. Cool song. On Wednesday we drove through Memphis from Little Rock to Nashville and found some BBQ. I discovered that my friend Tiffany in Nashville had at one point sold merchandise for Lady Gaga before she was crazy famous. Of course I flipped out. There's a Merch Person that I could learn from. Memphis! Yesterday we started off with a brunch meeting with Susan's awesome publicist Brandy at Noshville Deli in...yes, Nashville. Noshville This is our exploratory tour for the year...meaning these are all new venues and tried and true crowds and fan bases have not been built yet. Susan has worked hard to build Texas and the Rocky Mountain tour run, and the Southeast seems like a logical next step in terms of what is close to Texas and full of music fans. As the booker I won't lie and say it's easy to do these runs the first time - sometimes crowds are good, sometimes not. The venues we have booked are all great, though. The folks we have met have been awesome. And you have to do something the first time so you can build it the next time. We're taking advantage of the new strangely re-modeled Motel 6 rooms -- they look like IKEA spewed all over, in a good way. Gone are the weird floral bedspreads. It's hip. And it's cheap. Yay Motel 6!

Rules of Engagement: The Merch Table

All right, so my oldest and dearest job title with what all I do nowadays is Merch Girl. I started this little escapade about a year and a half ago, and while I've stacked on more responsibility, this one remains an important part of the tour day. Be present. When it's appropriate, like at a louder venue where people aren't just sitting and listening quietly, I stay at the merch table the whole time because people will come by immediately after particular songs and ask if they can buy that song. It's good to give people immediate gratification and it probably seals the deal a lot faster than forcing them to remember what song they wanted out of the 20 they heard. They're all my favorite but try this one. People ask me my favorite all the time, and since all of the albums on the table are like unique little snowflakes full of goodness and wonder, I can't pick. But I always do for the sake of giving the buyer some direction. They don't really care what MY favorite is, they just want some decision-making help. Know thy merch. It's not hard for me, because I love Susan's records. I came into the job already studied up on each album. It's been a big help when people will come up and say, "I like the tree song, where is it?" or "the one that goes something like, 'doo doo duh nuh dooooo,' I want that one." People get a kick out of an exuberant salesperson. I've had to sell merch for other artists that I've just met sometimes if it's a shared gig, and it's a LOT harder to even begin when I'm not familiar with their material. Some nights, it pays the rent. Ideally, if I'm doing my other job as the booker well, this is not the case, but...some nights the merch sales are what make the difference between the artist walking away with zero profit after paying the band and buying the gas to get to the gig versus walking out with an ok payday. I try to make this a rare occurrence, but that's how the gig cookie crumbles sometimes. (So if you're ever on the fence about buying a CD at a show and the charming Merch Girl doesn't convince you, think about this paragraph). Be part of the show. I find it always helps when people know me as "The Merch Girl." When I'm a character in this traveling road show that people come to see, it can be an extra bit of uniqueness to the concert-goer and potential merch buyer. Be a good example. When I'm at the merch table, which is sometimes in the back and sometimes front and center in the room, I try to be a good spectator. It helps that I love listening anyway, but I'm always aware that I need to show the respect to the performer that I expect the audience to give the performer. Sometimes it can't be helped (see point number one, when someone wants to buy something in the middle of the show), but overall I'm sharing in the experience the crowd is having, and that makes things work smoothly. And I have been known to give death-stares to really loud and/or rude people who are getting in the way of people's listening. There we go; some more notes from the road. I'm fortunate that my excitement and support for what I sell is 100% genuine. Your mileage may vary, but these things seem to work for us. I did get promoted to Super Merch Girl after all.

Spooks in Little Rock

So I've been quiet, I guess! Since Nashville it's been kind of non-stop and such. No excuse for not blogging, though. Maybe I just needed a little mini-vacation. I'm almost 27, for crying out loud...I'm old and slow, haha. So yes, Nashville was cool and I will write more about my thoughts on that town later. We're going back in February and I'm excited. We spent Halloween in Little Rock, playing a show and scaring people. Actually, our costumes, put together an hour before the show at a Wal-Mart near you...were awesome. Although things you snark on backfire sometimes. At Wal-Mart: J: "Hey Susan, wouldn't it be hysterically lame to have a fitted sheet for my Super Merch Girl costume? Hahahaha." Later at the show: S: "Um this sheet is fitted. Who picked out this sheet?" J: "Oops." Which just adds to the character of the Super Merch Girl ensemble, I say. Susan fashioned a grand logo in red and yellow and silver duct tape. Then I spray painted her glittery gold because her costume was that she went platinum in Nashville. WIN!

All the Way to Tennessee

Oh hello. I thought I'd take a break from looking for a record deal here in Nashville to write a blog post. I've been pounding the pavement, knocking on doors, hoping that someone in this town will recognize my potential as the next Taylor Swift. I'm just kidding, but I am in Nashville. We had a great drive out here, with shows at Studio Joe in Little Rock, AR and Hot Springs, AR as well as Memphis. Somewhere in Arkansas Susan and I songswapped in Hot Springs, something we have done before but haven't done in a very long time. It was fun, because we have all kinds of dirt to tell on each other from stage. Just kidding. We also know all of each other's songs, which helps. View from the songswap. Then in Memphis Susan did a true "in the round" with some nice folks. I had forgotten how musically influential Memphis is, and could only yell out "SUN RECOOOORDS!" when we passed the legendary studio. Maybe next time we can tour Graceland and see the Jungle Room. The Otherlands in Memphis Then we proceeded to Nashville where Susan had another "in the round" show with Jane Bach, Yvonne Perea, and Kelly Fitzgerald at The Bluebird. Jane is known for her hits with Reba McEntire and Jo Dee Messina, so that was fun to hear. And it was cool to see everyone's styles go back and forth. The show was sold out and there was a line out the door - The Bluebird is famous as a listening room, and every seat in the place was accounted for. I had to set up merch sales on the host podium. After the show there was another one starting, and I was asked by some normal looking guy if I would sell her merch. I explained I was not working the whole night, just for Susan's show. So I glanced at his CD and his name was Tony Arata, who kind of wrote "The Dance" for Garth Brooks. That really, really famous song. Dangit, I should have said I'd sell them! Sorry, Tony. Anyway, I'm currently supposed to be working on a project but I'm blogging instead. Right. Now you're all caught up.

East Coast Episode 1

Music Everywhere

I am so behind. I feel good about it, though, because there's lots of things stirring in my pot of projects. I just spent the morning at Whole Foods and saw Terri Hendrix and Lloyd Maines play for HAAM Benefit Day - the Health Alliance for Austin Musicians. That program does great things for a large part of the community in this town. They cover my teeth, yo, because my normal insurance does not...they help out a lot. This weekend's set of Susan gigs was awesome...I had my 2 weeks off from the tour life so it was good to hop in and go for some neat shows. Suz songswapped with Beth Wood, who is someone you all should see live as soon as possible. She's the real deal. That was in Possum Kingdom Lake, where I saw no possums, but I did see a lake. This house concert was in a COOL house. Beth Wood and Susan Gibson! Friday night Susan joined forces with Michael O'Connor who is one of my favorite people as well as guitarists. They played a great show at Dosey Doe in Houston, whereupon we wandered in a pawn shop before the show and I could have dropped a good chunk of change on DVDs, guitars, and gold watches. I never even knew I needed a gold watch. Or an accordian. Michael O!! Susan sang with Kyle Hutton for his CD release gig. Saturday was one of my favorite venues for a Susan show - the White Elephant Saloon in Fort Worth. This means...FULL BAND. The energy in the room was potent. I spent all night filming things for one of those aforementioned projects Susan and I are working on. I had four cameras going at once...we'll see how it all turned out. Also, the lighting all weekend was GOOD. I am only a good photographer when other people light things well. Don't ask me to do it. Tomorrow I fly to Albuquerque, where I have to ready the first real toast I have ever given at a wedding, for my best friend Jamie. I hope I can be witty and touching and all that while making everyone cry, but not crying myself. Hm. I'll be back in Austin on Monday, have Tuesday to get ready, and then on Wednesday we FLY TO NEW YORK CITY! So excited for this string of gigs. It seems like only this summer when I was on the phone constantly booking these shows. Wait, it was only this summer. Things come up fast.

August Recap...

Here we are. Here I am, here you are anyway. I'm in Albuquerque...not being a merch girl in Colorado. I quit the tour in a fit of frustration over a lost bag of Skittles in the van last Thursday. Just kidding. While I love touring with Susan, I have another job in Austin that must be attended to at the music school. It's good for me to have both, and I am fortunate enough to have both jobs let me be flexible with where I am at any given moment. I fly back to Austin tomorrow and Susan stays on the road for another 2 weeks. The first two weeks went fairly smoothly besides the gaping wounds on my feet (mostly healing well, one is still gaping and hurts right now...but it was the worst one so it's taking longer heal. Skin is pretty awesome, growing back over itself and stuff). We played at the Rhythms on the Rio Festival in South Fork, CO last weekend. We drove all night from Fort Collins to get there (translation: Susan drove all night while we slept and I took the last half hour drive in the morning so she could go to bed and sleep a bit before the festival). We stopped at a rest stop somewhere in CO at 3:30 AM and let me just say this...if you are a creepy dude, or any dude at all, or any creep at all...never ask 3 girls in a van at a rest area to jump start your truck at 3:30 AM. Ask a guy. Or call the cops. Or just wait for daylight. We left in a hurry and I'm sure creepy guy got a jump start...just not from us. Shudder. It was the first annual and went really well for a giant production like that in its first year. The scenery was awesome, the people were great. Susan played a great set and won a lot of new fans. I played what is called a "tweener" set between bands while Great American Taxi set up their gear. It's weird to play solo at a big festival. I felt like an ant on the big stage, but it was fun nonetheless. Even ants have fun. Then it was off to Taos, NM for two nights at the Old Blinking Light. The 2nd night we were lucky enough to be outside, and the view was gorgeous. Sunsets rock here. I have thought it for a while but really, mark my words, I am retiring in Taos in an adobe house. I can't wait. I want to retire when I'm 32. A few days in Albuquerque are good for meeting up with people I haven't talked to face-to-face in a while. I get to be a bridesmaid in my friend Jamie's wedding, so I tried on the dress today. I hope I don't trip in its fanciness - it will be a fun wedding! Currently listening to the new Imogen Heap album...she's brilliant as usual. My wound will continue to gape for a while. In exactly a month I'll be flying to New York City. Things swim in my head.

Coming Home Radio

Go about 40 minutes in on this interview from Coming Home with Dave Wheaton for a spot with Susan. She talks about our touring this summer...and banjos and donkeys. (There really were donkeys).

Email Convo with the Boss

Jpo: I got a new shirt suSANG: that's great!!!! where'd you get that? Jpo: i'm a professional merch girl. how do you think i got it? Hehhehhehhehhheh. Follow @supermerchgirl on Twitter.

Land Legs

All right. Back in Austin, jumping back into my other life as manager at Red Leaf School of Music. Our summer camp for kids starts next week, and I'm excited to be a part of making them into little rock stars. Take that, Jack Black. Dub is my co-pilot. The last leg of our tour was fun and the last bit of road home was slightly eventful...we had a 10 hour drive from Amarillo back home on Friday, and the van had gotten an oil change the day before we left. Outside of Plainview Susan got a dashboard light that told her the oil was too high...so we stopped at a Jiffy Lube and they had to let a quart and a half out. Ouch. Come on, people. So there we are, happily back on the road, I'm trying to do some writing, and there's a big "BRRRRRAAAAAAPPPPPFFFFFTFFFFFTTTTFFFFFFT" noise under our feet...the power steering goes out...the battery not charging light comes on. Egads. Luckily we are on the outskirts of Lubbock and Susan pilots the van to Joe Jackson's Transmission. All five of their mechanics were on the case immediately and we were on the road in no time. It could have been bad, but ended up being an interesting little sidestep. We left them with a stack of CDs in thanks. Video forthcoming. Ironic how we went about 5000 miles and that happens in the last 400. Chase and Jamie, the fan belt heroes. I sold one koozie in Amarillo. Susan made sure I got my 10% cut. I'll admit the first couple of days back I missed going somewhere all the time and I still do miss the constant 70 degree temperature average of the Rocky Mountain chain. But there are songs to be worked on and an EP to be made this summer. I'll probably head back out to NM and CO in August for a bit and I'll be merch girling around Texas in July. There's a lot to do...I just don't have to be on wheels when I do it. I learned some things. I learned you can still accomplish a lot on the road if you have a bunch of discipline and take advantage of technology. I discovered I enjoy the travel and the people and I really enjoy tour managing. I like making the bottom line work out to everyone's benefit...which is the job. If the bottom line is negative there's no tour and no tour manager. I'm fortunate to be able to work with an artist like Susan who has character and is a character. Witty repartee is our forte. I feel French. Now, about booking gigs in Paris...

Kerrville Folk Festival

All right, this is my 3rd year in Tejas and my first time at the Kerrville Folk Festival and all I can say is HOLY CRAP everyone is right. People rave about the Kerrville experience and it was just as cool as they all said. Which is rare to happen, by the way. We rolled in and I played the Ballad Tree as one of the high falutin' Regional Selected Artists (finding my name in the program made me yelp with joy)...but it was very laid back and fun and I met about 8 New Mexicans at the Ballad Tree. Which is an actual tree, or used to be, with a kickbutt stage next to it. It's a mini-hike across the massive campgrounds to get there, and up on Chapel Hill, no less...I felt like I needed to hire my own monkey for the trip. Ballad Tree stage. Tuning and chatting. Would you be my monkey? I want that little triangular pop up trailer on the corner. Then it was back to the mainstage area where I looked tough and checked in Susan's merchandise so that people could buy buy buy. And I had the night off from sell sell selling. I count EVERYTHING. Katie and I wandered backstage to the staff kitchen, where they served us some (what I assume were) vegan tamales and black beans and rice. Tasty. The whole staff was so happy to be there, too. Made us feel good. Then it was time for suSANG to rock the festival's face off, which she did. It was neat to wander the backstage area and also through the crowd and hear everyone's comments about how great the show was. Yay! Yay again! Afterwards we wandered around the campgrounds, which is the other main attraction of a 3 week folk festival...the mini-compounds that get set up and often have traditions of gathering for 20+ years. My favorite happening was when one of us exclaimed in the middle of the road, "We need a guitar!" And then a passer-by said, "I have one." And it turned out to be my friend Grace who I had met at a songwriting competition...so we all sat in the middle of the road and passed Grace's guitar around in the dark. That's what they call a Kerrville Moment. We had a late night and an early morning so we drove home...but I've got plans for next year already. I had better practice my tent-setting-up abilities...

A Big Day!

Someone buy me a corsage or something. :)

Westward Bound

I found Bueno Chile in a grocery store in Austin last week. It was probably an omen that I have to go to Albuquerque this week. Or something. Whew. As evidenced by my photo posting from the road this past weekend...we were around. Lovely house concerts in Houston and San Antonio, and two stops at Buc-ee's, the second time during which I caved in and bought a t-shirt. This truck stop sells everything from cast iron dutch ovens shaped like Texas to silk flower arrangements to pickled quail eggs (I AM NOT LYING). Susan and I did admire a girly cut tee with the Buc-ee's Beaver bedazzled on it in rhinestones, but I went for a more traditional print. This week we go to Lubbock, Amarillo, and ALBUQUERQUE. This is my first show there since November and my first non-house concert there in...two years. It's nice to play at a venue in your hometown, and AMP Concerts happen to be the people that hosted the very first house concert I ever attended, and the artist playing happened to be one Susan Gibson. Weird, huh? The circles that come back around again never cease to amaze me. My Big Giant Accomplishment of the weekend was getting the Boss set up on Twitter. She's going to be a great Tweeter, I can tell already. ...As long as she doesn't tweet embarrassing things her tour monkey does....huh.... Maybe I made a mistake. :)

Ballad of the Merch Girl

Thanks, Conrad!

At the Crossroads Again

We're driving back from Winnsboro, TX...Crossroads Music Company is a great venue about an hour and a half east of Dallas. It's run by my good friends Lynn Adler and Lindy Hearne, and the lovely and talented Kate Hearne. It's a wonderful listening room and one of my favorite venues ever. There was a full circle moment for me because last July I opened for Susan at Crossroads (re-live that thanks to the glorious blog archive) and it was my first weekend as being a merch girl. I was kind of along for the ride as far as being useful goes, and it was fun and a great weekend. But here we are almost a year later and I am now The Merch Girl, Tour Monkey, and whatever else you wanna call it. We went back to Winnsboro with much excitement, and I got to play with Marian and Kate (who is a killer guitar player). Susan then rocked the stage with Marian (she works all the time) with a great show that sucked the crowd in from the get go. At the end Susan had me and Kate up to play the song that Susan and I wrote together called "Still Lovely When You Cry." Then Lynn joined us for "Wide Open Spaces"...Kate called it an estrogen fest and then Susan deemed it "Festrogen." That might not sell well on t-shirts. Me, Kate, Marian, and Susan Festrogen? So there we go. So fun to return to the beginnings of merch girldom as well as hang out with such good people. There's more to this weekend story but that's another blog post... Photos by Lindy Hearne! Yay Lindy!

Forward Movement

Well all right. This weekend was productive...but first: HAPPY EASTER! I went to a sunrise service this morning but it was raining so they moved it indoors and it was more of a Cloud Service. But that's ok, too. On Thursday The Landlord and I got to work moving the merchandise out of the trailer I will be living in...or as she says, "We have to move the merch out so the merch girl can move in." She also suggested we just leave it in there because...merch IS my job after all. Somehow sleeping on pallets of CDs seems like it might give me back problems, though. This all involved putting the stuff into the back of a kickbutt old Ford truck. This also involved the Boss getting a kick out of making me drive this behemoth of automobilia. Collector's item. Awesome paint job. I did a good job. No one died. No trees were taken out. I did make the Boss do the reverse back up the driveway. Trees WOULD lose their lives if I had to go backwards. Respect trees: don't drive into them. We loaded up the merch, whereupon I found some retro stock, hand drawn by the artist herself. It's kind of a bright shirt. I got jokes about perhaps getting a construction helmet while I wore it. Thanks for that, friends. Friday was heading to La Grange to merch at the Bugle Boy (no, I did not wear that shirt) and see Susan and Beth Wood songswap. What a show. They complimented each other perfectly and I recommend you find yourself some Beth tunes. Good buddy Katie and I spent yesterday cleaning and sorting...we're not done and we need a trip to IKEA, but soon I shall have a homey little space. Photos will happen when I decorate, yo. And in the meantime...I NEED TO PACK. After I play a gig in New Braunfels. I need a nap.

Oh Nancy Drew

One of the good things about working with Susan Gibson is that she's full of wisdom. I've learned things like...duct tape stuff to your dashboard so it doesn't move around. How to make awesome soup. How to make a good campfire. Important things like that. The other day we were cleaning out her shed (which is not a Merch Girl duty but is entirely related and I will get into that in a future blog post), and Susan handed me this little gem: Now, I've read every Nancy Drew book there is to read of the old school variety, and a lot of the subpar but "hip" newer ones that came out in the 90's. Nothing beats the classics, though. This book is full of advice gleaned from the whole series. I've decided she would have made a great Merch Girl because she's a fast thinker and has the right tool for every occasion...while still appearing calm and collected. If Nancy Drew rocked a MacBook and an iPhone there would have been no criminals left in River Heights, USA after the second book. Some of the more prescient quotes: "Moxie and a good sense of balance are essential when crawling on a roof." "When pinned down by a large canine, instruct friends, family, even random passersby to direct a hose on the beast." "Don't force your date to go to a ballet or other activity that may not be to his liking if was knocked unconscious earlier in the day." "Don't say "well" all the time. It's far from well." All right, kids. A Saturday morning chuckle to start the weekend. Carry on, my fellow sleuths...

Dallas Oh Dallas

Warning: due to the graphic nature of this post and my ability to take close-up photos, some content past this point might not be suitable for people who get really icky and squeamish about blood. I noted last night that my week is divided into my "work week" at the music school which is 3 days, and my "work week" as tour monkey which is the other 4 days, and while I refer to the latter as my "weekend" it starts on Thursday. People get confused when it's Wednesday night and I say, "I made it to the weekend!" Which is not to say I don't work on the "weekend"...but somewhere there is a delineation of time. Anyway. Hello Traffic. You must be in Dallas. suSANG! played an opening set at Uncle Calvin's Coffeehouse in Dallas on Friday night. We got there early and sound checked and hung out in the greenroom. Their carpet was nice on stage. I noted that while I took this. Amy was with us and we messed around with the 3-panel mirror backstage. Then...disaster struck! A broken string during soundcheck. Time for Tour Monkey Duty. Now, I have no issues changing strings but if any of you have never done it before, you should be aware that getting pricked by the sharp end of a guitar string is a unique pain that is capable of throbbing for hours and causing me to bleed everywhere. I've done it more than I care to admit. Not always, but sometimes. Guess what? Ow. Primpity primp primp! Yay for cool mirrors! They have a neat backstage guestbook for the artists at Uncle Calvin's, and Susan has never turned down a pile of markers. She set to work on a self portrait. The end result was excellent and gave props to headlining act Pat Donohue. That will sell to the Louvre for millions one day, I bet.