When we’re on tour we average about 5 hours of sleep per night. A typical day is wake up at 10, get to airport by 12, land at 4 and drop our bags off at the hotel, eat something and go to soundcheck at 7, dj from 11-3, get paid by 4 and try to go to sleep by 5. That doesn’t sound too bad until you do it every day for weeks on end. I know, boo hoo.
Smalltown DJs own a club, a clothing and record store, a shoe store, and a record label in Calgary. We went out for two weeks with them last year on the Northern Exposure tour through all of Canada plus Brooklyn and Philly, and in March they are coming down to SXSW in Austin and WMC in Miami, plus a gig in DC. They are the funniest dudes I know. Mike (left) was gooned in this picture.
In Alberta they were selling brass animals on the side of the road. L-R Smalltown Pete aka Canadian Football Pete, Cosmo “Cook Coffee” Baker, and me, the Little Man of Hate.
In Billings, our dude Jimi Scott got a Rub banner done up at Kinko’s. I left it on a plane roughly 10 hours after he gave it to us. So far we have lost a cell phone, a microphone, an M-Audio digital recorder, a Money Studies roller bag (which was recovered broken), a whole bunch of CDs, and I’m sure some other shit I’m forgetting.
Still it’s all worth it. I can’t imagine doing anything else for a living.
Some pictures from Edmonton here.