News.

10.22.10 : 22 Shows, 22 Days

Despite having one day off, I’ve managed to squeeze 22 shows into the first 22 days of this crazy solo Volvo tour. I’ve already been to Canada once, and now I’m about to get on a plane and go back for a weekend at the Halifax Pop Explosion festival. I played a back yard in New Mexico, an arcade & toy store in St Louis, an Indie Week kick-off party in Toronto, a living room in Stratford, a high school in Northport, and CMJ in New York. I’ve had two great EIY meet-ups, seen dozens of familiar faces from years past, cemented friendships with people I met this past summer on the Warped Tour, made enough money from donations and the shows to pay for gas and food to get me from Los Angeles to New York City, and have slept on about 20 different couches. I’ve averaged about six hours of sleep per night, and four hours of driving per day. So far, so good. SO far. SO good.

I’ve had a couple of moments that have made me question why I’m doing what I’m doing, and whether or not what I’m doing is good, or matters at all. So many people are in bands for self-serving, narcissistic reasons, to feed some craving they have for attention or adoration. I admit that when I was younger, there was a bit of this in my subconscious reasonings for playing music. And really, what’s the point of being in a band that puts out albums, plays shows, or goes on tours, if not for these selfish reasons? It’s one thing to play guitar in your living room, or record songs for posterity; it’s another thing entirely to put all this money and energy into trying to get in front of strangers and use your music to get people to like you or give you money. (I’m in the middle of a rant and have decided not to stop; forgive me.) If there is a demand for it, then it makes sense to supply the music to people. But most bands are simultaneously trying to create AND supply the demand, which seems weird to me. It’s not like launching a company that makes screwdrivers, because everyone needs screwdrivers, so the demand already exists for your product and all you have to do is figure out how to make your screwdrivers better than the next guy’s. But do people need Gardening, Not Architecture? I don’t know. Could they grow to need it? Yes. Can I make a better electro-pop product than a lot of other electro-pop bands? Absolutely. But I’m still, constantly, questioning my motives for trying so hard to put my music in front of people.

That aaaaaalllll being said, I’m definitely achieving the goals I set for myself on this tour: to revisit the cities I played on Warped this summer, to hit the cities where I made friends on the 2009 tours, to revisit Canada, to sell merch at every show, to play some bigger venues, to play festivals like CMJ and HPX, to have EIY meetups and stay connected to that network of people across the country, and to stay in the black from week to week. Musically, I have pretty much hit the ceiling with the current live show, and can’t really improve it without new songs and a new presentation. I’ve decided that this will be the last tour with the light wall, if for no other reason than that it seems to be developing some glitches (even robots eventually die). If I can take it overseas in 2011, that would be great, but the US and Canada won’t be seeing this specific light wall ever again, after the end of this year. I’ve also decided that it’s time for a new album — way past time, probably — and I’ll be focusing all my time and energy on writing and recording those songs between and December and… February? March? 2011. And with a new album will come new ideas, new inspiration, new imagery, and maybe some new faces. I’m glad I’ve taken this long to start thinking about that, because it means I’ve been more focused on the journey that has brought me to this point, than on worrying about what lies ahead or whether or not this is going to work as a long-term plan. Hopefully, in that time, I’ve managed to create a demand for the music I’m making, so that putting out another album and continuing to play shows and sleep on peoples couches will not be in vain.

I’m looking forward to the next 35 days, and the next 100 days, and the next 365 days of The Great Experiment: Gypsy Life. Right now, I have to get on a plane for Nova Scotia.

Love,
Sarah