EEEYOWWWW!! Welcome!
Allow me to introduce myself. My name is as written, and my life is music. There's not much more to me, it strangely sums me up. That's why I hadn't jumped knee deep into this blogobiz everyone is so geeked on lately. What's so exciting about a guy getting up in the morning, making music for about 16 hours, then going back to sleep?
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Dear First Time Reader,
Well.. I received a notice last year, postmarked from a court in Philadelphia, the bad news kind with serrated "bend and tear here" edges. The paper was dutifully filed in the same pile reserved for unpaid bills and unreadable IRS notices, and long since forgotten, when, in a sober moment this week I came across it again.
In my haste I had ignored the fine print - a judgement in my favor! A class action suit brought against credit card companies for overcharging on foreign transactions meant money was earmarked for, yeah, yours truly.
Money is good. We like money around here. They didn't ask much of me in return, just my name and address... and uhh, an estimate of how many days I had been out of the states in the past 9 years.
Wow. Music has brought me to every continent. I feel so fortunate, but the memories are blurred.
So I started to count.
There was the week-long tour to Brazil, where the promoter nickeled and dimed us start to finish. A week starting in Singapore eating my way across town from the long stands of hawkers to the tourist ridden Raffles followed by a drive up through Malaysia and it's endless rows of Palm Oil Farms, to Kuala Lumpur's strange nightlife and monkeys hissing at gawking admirers at the Batu Caves. 10 days in Spain, drinking canas in Madrid, eating paella in Valencia, up to the crazy beach concert in San Sebastian. Italy.. how many times have I been to Italy? Twice? There was the quick trip to Milan, then the long trip through the south of Italy with our crazy loudmouthed road manager, exploring castles in Napale, ending with the show inside the winery in Catana. Wait, 3 times, I forgot the weekend out to Rome. Indonesia. Twice. The first time when I got a flu and the band left me part-way home to sweat it out in a hotel in Taiwan. And the second time they had made phone cards with the band promo picture on one side - the year between the two trips apparently perfect timing to blow up a live house band in Jakarta.
England, how many times?? Twice to the manic Southport Weekender party at the ugliest rainiest nastiest resort you've ever partied your ass off at, Manchester, Leeds, London, London, and London umpteen times. Didn't I go over to Europe for a month once? I remember driving through the Baltic States with two old Lithuanian drivers chattering the whole way and getting the us all sick to our stomachs. The trip to eastern Hungary where I drank too much Unicum with a group of local headbangers and found myself throwing up in a train ditch wondering which way my hotel was.. The show in Berlin that was still going on when I woke up in the morning; crazy Berliners partying through the morning next to the Berlin Wall. Two trips to Istanbul where the ultra hip Turkish kids strangely reminded me of New York, coexisting with Muslims carrying on in ancient style. Cape Town where I spent a weekend watching amazing African music that will never come to my continent & I had that blowout screaming match with the promoter as he threatened to cancel our flight home. That's the trip where I ate worms. (don't ask)
I know I'm forgetting something. Korea. France. Ireland. Norway. Does Canada count?
All these lost memories and fading details cinched it for me on the blogosmear. It's time to write shit down and take a moment and present the special bits and pieces from my days for you (if yer innerested), and frankly, for my own cluttered brain-o-sphere.
Maybe my grandchildren will read this blog, think long and hard... and become accountants.
By the way, if you're curious, what the hell did I do to forget the kind of shit I shouldn't forget, well.. I don't honestly remember. But I'm pretty sure I didn't inhale.
With love,
Ethan
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