[Dixielandjazz] How one Band Tours

[TCASHWIGG at aol.com]

In a message dated 1/8/05 6:35:04 AM Pacific Standard Time, 
barbonestreet at earthlink.net writes:

> 
> Touring Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma? Wow, there's money in the boonies, as
> well as Kenton interest. And yet Dixieland Bands can't find work??? :-) VBG
> 
> Cheers,
> Steve Barbone
> 
> 

Yes, indeed Steve:

There is more work in the Boonies for OKOM bands than in the Big Cities, 
primarily because the OKOM Audience almost all moved to the Boonies over the past 
forty years, to be back near their roots, or family members, or trying to 
escape the RAT Race and life style changes and pace in the Big Cities.

I recall reading a report a few years back that most Americans move at least 
once every five years.

Hence we have in California Dixieland Bands and activity in Lodi, Napa, San 
Rafael, Modesto, Antioch, Richmond, San Jose, Monterey, Placerville, Fresno, 
and Sacramento, Palm Springs, etc. Menlo Park, etc, but even there it is 
scattered at best.

But one has to look very hard to find any in San Francisco any more.

I know it will upset most of the Dixieland players in Sacramento, but 
Sacramento is still considered the BOONIES by many folks who are long time residents 
of San Francisco, in spite of the fact that Sacramento is our State Capitol.  
Same opinion runs rampant in Los Angeles.

In my early days in music, Sacramento was considered the place you stopped to 
get Gas on the way to Reno or Lake Tahoe to play the Casinos, and if you had 
a car that got good gas mileage and you could make it you did not even stop 
for gas.

Even you Steve live out in the Boonies don't you:))  or do they have Horse 
Ranches in Philadelphia these days, :))    I am considered to be living in the 
Boonies as well by many of my guys who still live in the inner City and I don't 
even have a horse :))

But I do have 30 Australian Cockatiels for an alarm clock, Red Tail Hawks, 
California Condors, and two Golden Eagles, Opossums, raccoons, squirrels, deer, 
coyote and skunks, Canadian geese, cormorants, gulls, and assorted species of 
ducks and mountain lions all in a ten minute radius.  And I am only thirty 
minutes from downtown San Francisco.  If this is living in the Boonies, I gotta 
admit I love it.

Maybe I should start a Bluegrass Band series here, and do country hoe downs 
on Sattidy night, since there is no OKOM in Lafayette unless we have a 
rehearsal, :))   My band has only played One gig in Lafayette, and we had the Front 
page of the Entertainment section and the Front page of the local newspaper and 
a feature story when we did that one.   Great success at the annual Wine & 
Arts Festival, but not too many gigs came out of it because this is a community 
full of folks with "deep pockets and very short arms" and we are just too big a 
band for them for most events.  And there are no real venues to house us in 
this city anyway.   Not to mention the strange political climate in the area.

The Hottest jumping joints in this city are Petar's Restaurant which has a 
small lounge with a Neil Diamond, Tom Jones, Barry Manilow style piano bar 
Karaoke setup for the senior divorcee crowd, and around the corner is a Biker Bar 
that has a really crappy for (30 years) local rockablues band, wow are these 
guys pathetic.  They are very happy however because they are the only group in 
the area getting paid what they are really worth, $25.00 a night, and even that 
is more than I would pay them, they are so bad I drive around the block just 
to not have to hear them.  :))

Cheers,

>From the Boonies, Could that be how the Boondockers got their name??  :))

Tom Wiggins