Thursday, October 30, 2008

Unconventional Tour: Austin

We arrived in Austin just in time to set up, after our night in Tulsa last night. As soon as we finished our show in Tulsa, we drove 100 miles, got up in the a.m. to close the distance...... There's little time to upload video or write... After unloading equipment from the truck, setting it up, playing, talking, listening, breaking down the equipment, loading the truck, it feels like we've moved house 4 times in one day. I'm not sure people understand the effort that goes into presenting a show like this. We all wear so many hats, and we must switch gear from roadie, techie, organizer to performer, speaker, presenter, merchandiser, and hope that no one gets hurt, nothing gets lost, be vigilant, and yet hopefully, have some fun ourselves....

We have now dubbed this "Unconventional 2008: Making Friends Tour". Perhaps the Making Waves Tour is just the little drop of the pebble in the water, and there will be a ripple effect outwards. Perhaps we might inspire someone else to do the same, do it better. I have dubbed it the "Tour of Faith". We started with little money, and at each stop we hope to make money to get to our next destination. We don't have corporate sponsors; we had a couple of small donations before we began. There was no reserve, nothing to fall back on. We proceeded because we had gotten an enthusiastic response from various organizers and organizations.

.After the show in Austin, we're in a Motel 6 (courtesy of one of the organizers) after a really great evening at Ruta Maya. Jack Blood spoke to the audience which was the core of the finest of Austin organizers and activists. The big question on this tour has become, "Do people care?" Most of our audiences have been the hard core organizers, people who care.

Since we'll be on the road for 2 days, on our way to Albuquerque, the footage from tonight, which includes a fantastic program from Three Shoes Posse, The Away Team, and the Free Speech segment....Check back later to see video clips from tonight and from Tulsa..... More hours in the truck tomorrow...

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Unconventional Tour -Bloomington, Indiana

The winner of the Free Speech Contest in Bloomington Indiana at Players Pub October 23

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Unconventional Tour - St. Louis

Hiphop duo "Family Affair" performed for the Unconventional Tour in St. Louis on October 26 at the Community Arts and Media Project.

Monday, October 27, 2008

Unconventional Tour - October 24 - Chicago

Jim Post joined the Unconventional Tour in Chicago. Here is one song from his set, more to follow.

Unconventional Chicago

We had a great night at the Heartland Cafe on Friday, October 24. We're now calling this our "Meet our Friends" Tour...Opening with Jungle Cities followed by a couple songs by The Away Team, Jim Post kept us laughing as the lightning and thunder claps answered. Swizzle Tree played songs from their newly released EP... We'll get some of each of the acts up shortly. When each of us has so many tasks, and we get up and drive, uploading gets to be challenging. Tonight is St. Louis. This clip is where Jungle of cities, Swizzle Tree joined The Away Team on stage to sing "No En Nuestro", learning the chorus as we set up....

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Unconventional Tour Oct. 17 Little Rock

The Unconventional Tour in Little Rock, at the Market Street Cinema, Oct 17-18 with music by Jack Sundell, Chris Long, The Away Team, and film showing of "Electile Dysfunction" with Q & A. This is a clip of Jack Sundell performing "Who Would Jesus Bomb". He also spoke about the no-coal rally on Oct. 18 at the Little Rock State Capitol building, and did a song related to that.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Unconventional Tour in Little Rock!

Little Rock is like the friendliest place on earth! Come to the show. 1521 Merrill Drive, West Little Rock http://www.marketstreetcinema.net Come and meet us. We want to make friends! Food, live music, film, freespeech contest, more! We got across the desert, Oklahoma, with our horse trailer/camper. 1555 miles...... This is the "Dog and Pony" show without the dog and pony. We're here! WHOO HOO! Stay tuned for tomorrow and Saturday's video of the show.

Monday, October 13, 2008

Unconventional Tour on the Road!

It's Columbus Day, national genocide day for Native Americans. Isn't it strange what we celebrate in this country? We eulogize the best and the worst in us. We're launching into the great unknown. It somehow seems appropriate.

The donated RV proved too small, and the hitch was a glitch, so we hastily had to make other arrangements. The "other" arrangement is a horse trailer courtesy Dawn who owns an Arabian stallion. This is a four-horse trailer with sleeping and living facilities, although we're sure the amenities are slightly less than the RV. First night we're in Williams Arizona. We arrived at 11 pm and the manager just let us in for free to the RV Park. The temperature is 23 degrees and the wind is gusting around 30 mph giving it a chill factor of winter. We stopped on the banks of the Colorado in Needles, California, where it was a balmy 71 degrees, and cooked some Italian veggie sausage, mushrooms and tabouli looking over the river, the moonlight.

We're all asking ourselves. "Are we really doing this?" Traveling 6200 plus miles across the Nation.......3 weeks to go before the general election. Two weeks for an October Surprise...... What might they pull? Nancy Pelosi has already declared Martial Law in Congress in order to ramrod through the Bailout Bill -- socialism for the crooks running banking corporations.

Through the miles we're listening to books on tape -- The War in the White House by Bob Woodward, providing our in-house entertainment for this leg of the trip. What a bunch of idiots are running our country. One could go into any town and randomly select any group of individuals to run the country and they would do a better job than these shitheads. From what it appears, it looks like they deliberately screwed up the Iraq situation to make it an ongoing cash cow for the military industrial complex.

And is the financial crisis still not on the table for the Palin/McCain ticket? We know who really wears the pantsuits in this campaign)
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Sunday, October 12, 2008

Unconventional Tour Oct. 9 Free Speech "contest"

At the kickoff party for the Unconventional Tour, each entry is given 2 minutes (or less ) to state the most important political issues of the day.....the prize in this case was a t-shirt.....