We Had a Gig, and You Weren’t Invited

Gosh, Chad.

That seems a little counterproductive, doncha think? I mean… you’re in the business of making fans and playing shows, right? Doesn’t it help if you, you know, invite people to come hear you?

Well… technically, yes.

Tuesday afternoon, our friend Ash called. Aly and Ash are good, longtime friends, and quite creative, both on their own and as a couple. Ash sings with a band of talented lads called Give Away Your Hearts.

He told me that they were playing a show this upcoming Sunday in Ventura, and he wanted to know if we wanted to come open for them. Turns out we couldn’t make it in time to open for them due to another commitment, and because Ash is just cool like this, he goes, “Fine… we’ll open for you then.”

Now, Erica and I have been approaching the live thing with fear and trembling, I can’t lie. All ya’ll know that when Mike, Dana, Rosy, and Corey join us, the rafters shake and the house is rocked. However, and this has been an ongoing problem for us, is that these guys are busy professionals, and play they music for a living. It’s not a hobby… that’s why we like them.

However, coordinating schedules and making sure we have a big enough venue to justify paying for their time has proven difficult. When you’re an unknown indie, you can’t be sure that a hundred people are gonna show up, and enough of them are going to buy your CD for you to afford to pay the band and break even. We realized pretty quickly that it was simply not economically viable to take the band wherever we went as we were building a following. When the full Dailies band plays together, there are nine children represented between the four families. Kids gotta eat!

So, when we were writing this second record, we asked ourselves over and over again, “Can we play this song with our without the band?” See, Erica and I are singers, first and foremost. We both play piano, however, nothing screams NOT INDIE ROCK like two piano players in a band, in my ever so humble opinion. Maybe two french horn players, but that’s about it.

So, Erica took it upon herself to learn guitar, and I started playing bass, in fact some of you remember that I actually played bass on “What it Is.” You’ll also notice that I hired a pro for the second record, so you can imagine how I felt about my own performance. The bottom line is that we’re not great instrumentalists. We have devoted most of our musical energy and time over the years to develop our singing ability.

We’ve started finding places to play, with just the two of us. We played a dinner party a couple of weeks ago, totally unamplified. We played a mom’s group at a local church (don’t ask.) Today, we played a bar.

We didn’t invite you, or even tell anyone, because we’re finding our way. We’re not ready to sound the alarm, and invite the world to see what we’ve prepared. We need to play a few more gigs under the radar and figure out who we are as artists separate from the band.

Oh, be assured, the band will play, and they will bring the thunder. But sometimes, they won’t, and we must be ready. Today we played for a handful of people, only a few of whom had any remote investment in us personally.

But it still worked. It was rough, but it worked. We held them in our little musical bubble. We played for maybe two dozen people in Ventura in the middle of the afternoon, but I will go to sleep tonight feeling like we took a major step towards the future.

Aly shot some video. I look forward to editing together a few snippets to share with you all.

We promise to invite you to the actual gig next time.