Oh hello, 2018

This is Page Campbell writing. My sister Claire (she’s the best) spent a lot of time blogging in the early days of Hope. She magically managed to document what is now a foggy dream of the early 00’s, and I am in her debt for that. We still make music together, as we have since we were actual children living in the same room (it was a big room- it was an attic and a sanctuary), we just don’t blog about it as much as we used to.

I don’t know that I have ever truly blogged. Im going to tell a tour story.

One time in 2013? (Claire- fact check me) [Will do! - IN BOLD ITALICS] we went on a tour with the talented Alex Neville. We were even in the New Yorker- someone painted us for a blurb about our show in NY and we felt so special [Yes! I posted it below.]. And yet, we played in a bookstore in [Metuchen] New Jersey and we made $7. Rather than buy a book with that money (perhaps we should have perused the self-help section, or the section on How To Run a Business)- we chose to dole it out. $2.33 for each player. Is this getting exciting, or what? <<Is what Alex was thinking.

[We met some Irish dudes in Metuchen and I made out with one of them in a darkened doorway at 2pm.]

We retreated to our vehicle and loaded ‘er up. Claire cranked up the focus wagon. She’d recently bought this 2004 focus wagon for touring. But the Focus didn’t crank. I guess it had ADD, cause that Focus was OFF! Get it?

It wasn’t ADD though- cars don’t get ADD, and our Adderall supply couldn’t help us (we kept it on hand for all-night drives, although these days I’m more inclined to throw some money at a Fairfield Inn and forgo the untenable effects of a time-release upper). Do you know what Lady Ford Focus was all funky about? A busted ignition switch.

And so we waited on the one on-call ignition man in Metuchen, NJ. He had been asleep and we had woken him up. He mentioned that several times- “You know it took me so long to get here because I WAS ASLEEP”, and so I remember that detail. I can’t remember my Grandmother’s maiden name [Paternal REGALIS; Maternal ASHMORE], but boy do I remember that we woke up that guy in Metuchen. [Actually, the ignition man was asleep in Brooklyn, which is why he was so expensive. He had to drive from Brooklyn, NY to Metuchen, NJ in the middle of the night to milk three hipster bozos of all their tour earnings.]

I want to tell you that the car repair cost exactly what we made at our show- $7. So I will tell you that! It cost exactly $7 to get out of Metuchen. It paid for itself. And what more can you ask for on a tour in this day and age, but to break even? [It was more like $500 and it sucked.]

And that’s the first chapter to my new book BREAKING EVEN, which you can find in the How To Run a Business section at you local bookstore.

Until the next story,

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