Susan Voelz - The Musicians Guide to the Road: A Survival Handbook & All-Access Backstage Pass to Touring

Executive Editor: Bob Nirkind
Project Editor: Ross Plotkin
Production Manager: Salvatore Destro
Interior Designer: Meryl Levavi

Copyright 2007 by Susan Voelz

First published in 2007 by Billboard Books,
an imprint of Watson-Guptill Publications,
Nielsen Business Media,
a division of The Nielsen Company
770 Broadway, New York, NY 10003
www.watsonguptill.com

Library of Congress Control Number: 2007920285
eISBN: 978-0-307-78632-6

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or used in any form or by any meansgraphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or information storage and retrieval systemswithout written permission from the publisher.

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Its sort of miraculous how we meet the right people in this world who inspire and encourage us to open up and become who we are meant to be. Michael Foster Stewart asked me to form a band with him while I was still a classical violinist in music school. Poi dog Pondering, Alejandro Escovedo, Charlie Sexton, and Giant Sand took me on tour and showed me the world. My mom wanted to travel more than she did and always asked me what it was like on the roadthe land, the architecture, the accents, the flavor of a local meal. I wrote it all down. Years later I pulled boxes of journals from the closet shelf to refer back to while writing this book. I thank the entire Cast of Characters for their friendship and each memorable quote of perfection uttered during those colorful tours.

The book would have been incomplete without the help of everyone who kindly agreed to be interviewed. Youve given the reader a depth of insight that only your knowledge and experience can provide. Also, I thank everyone I pestered into sending tour forms and documents. These are golden. Im grateful to the photographers who capture an impossible subject and offered many, many photos to choose from.

And finally, I thank Frank Q. Orrall, my good friend and musical compadre, for taking me on my first tour and showing me, with his elegance and extravagance, not only how to tour well but how to live well.

Photo Credits:

Melissa dAttilio (The author at the Double Door in Chicago)

Rob Meyers (Matt Morrison unloading gear from the box truck)

Miko (Poi dog Pondering, circa 1988)

S. M. V. (Jared having morning coffee, front lounge of the bus in the Canadian Rockies)

Matt Carmichael (Guitar in silhouette and Frank Orrall swinging the light bulb of death overhead at the Metro in Chicago)

Tour forms and documents provided by:

Ben Richardson, Tour Manager and Sound Engineer for Alejandro EscovedoStage Plot, Input List, Day Sheet, Itinerary Page, Grady Rider

Gil Gastelum, Cosmica ArtistsWeekly Income Report, Weekly Tour Report, Backline List, Performance Settlement Sheet, Merchandise Settlement Sheet

Jackson Haring, High Road TouringPerformance Contract, Deal Memo

Matt Morrison, Stage Manager PdP and Thievery CorporationShow Advance Form

Frank Snowden, Snowden Custom CoachBus Lease Agreement

Poi Dog PonderingTechnical Rider

Additional thank you:

Dag Juhlin penned the back-cover text and seasoned the intro

Brigid Murphy performed the second editing of the introduction and epilogue

Jeff Voelz scanned and prepared photos and documents printed herein

A rock tour is one long kiss on the lips of excess.

It starts simply with a song you love. Then theres a melody in your head you coax onto a four track tape recorder set up in your bedroom. Youd love to hear your music coming out of a car radio. You imagine performing on Saturday Night Live. So you form a band with some friends, record a CD and go out on tour. Somewhere out on that road, you flip on a radio and there you are.

My journey as a touring creative musician began one rainy night in Austin, Texas, playing at the Continental Club with Ronnie Lane, Alejandro Escovedo, and the Seven Samurai. Wed first met the night before, rehearsing in front of a fireplace drinking rum in coffee cups. I was a classical violinist and had recently arrived in town with my Fostex four track, not sure what I was searching for but sensing Id stumbled into something. Opening the show at the Continental that night was a young band, Poi dog Pondering, who were about to record their first record and asked if Id come play some fiddle on it.

Poi dog Pondering and Alejandro Escovedo came to be the musicians with whom Id spend the majority of my musical touring lifefirst in a cargo van with a mattress in the back and later traveling on two tour buses; from driving miles to play at a run-down club with more people on stage than in the audience to storming the stage of a sold-out Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado, opening for the Dave Matthews Band; from Austin, Texas to the U. S., Canada, and Europe.

A friend asked me Why rock? Why go out on the road for two hours of rock? Because rock says I am and I can. Its every moment of your life that you held back finally set free, ablaze with both fury and delight. Its reckless and raw and selfish and truthful. You dont have to sell your soul for rock n roll, but you will have to risk revealing your soul to find it.

The idea for this book came in pieces. My friend was going on tour with Bob Dylan and asked, Whats it going to be like on a tour bus? I told her to sleep with her feet toward the front of the bus (see: Estefan, Gloria), liquids only in the bus bathroom, and never open a bunk curtain if its closed. At the same time, a new version of Poi dog Pondering was planning an East Coast tour and one of the new members asked, How many suitcases should I bring? I thought How many? It was clear that we needed a handbook. We were about to take seventeen people on a tour bus meant for twelve and only three had been on the road before. I wrote a short pocket handbook. Along with rules and tips, I included journal entries and Quotes of the Day (nuggets of accidental wisdom or droll non sequiturs uttered by sleep-deprived, anxious, or wine-filled tourmates) I had stealthily collected in a notebook on previous tours.

The pocket handbook may have remained a ten-page document but every time I came home from tour Id add more information, freshly minted revelations, and of course more quotes of the day. Soon it was a messy, bulging manuscript; a teetering, overgrown pile of data begging to be groomed.

The late Timothy White, former editor of Billboard magazine, read an early version. Its a remedy for the road, he said. Youve done a wonderful job. Add more serious, credible tips, fix the typos and send it back to me. Encouraged, I asked myself: What do I wish I had known? How could I have avoided all those unnecessary heartbreaks and headaches? So I broadened my scope to include other perspectives besides the musicians, to include the decidedly non-rock realities that ride shotgun on every rock tour.