From June 21 Onward

Plastiq Americana

March 8, 2003

         I'm so tired. It's been quite a day.
         Today my band, Plastiq Americana (name still being discussed), was going to audition for a place at the Wichita River Festival, where there are potentially scouts for record companies. Very cool. But it made the day hectic.
         To start with, everyone's conflicting schedules gave us only today to practice a song our lead singer wrote. It was the first time we'd ever hear the song, too. No big deal. We met around 1:00 pm at the bassist's house to practice. We practiced the song for a straight three hours, and we had it down.
         Because we didn't know the exact location of the auditions, only the name and address of the church, we gave ourselves plenty of time to get there. They started at 7:00 pm, and we left at 4. We packed up the drums, guitars, amps, speakers, guitars, and other implements of destruction, and headed out to eat at Taco Bell. Yum. I love the Grilled Stuft Steak Burritos. Anyways, after eating we had about 2.5 hours to get there.
         The street it was on did not flow like a river. Instead, the name of the street changed several times along it's length, broken up in to various areas of the city. One moment we were on Meridian, Womer the next, and then Amidan. We looked around for a 1.5 hours, seeing churches everywhere, but not the one we wanted. Then, after stopping at the wrong church for directions only to find nobody was in the building, Carp's Jeep refused to start. Great. We tried driving Ryan's car to the gas station to get some jumper cables, but nobody had any. Then we parked Ryan's car right up next to the busy street and turned the hazard lights on to get someone's attention. I was outside waving for people to help us. It was cold out today, with the addition of very strong Kansas winds. It wasn't fun. And for that, only two people stopped, but they didn't have cables. Fortunately, our guitarist brought his cell phone, and we called Carp's dad.
         He arrived there a while later with some cables. Didn't work. The Jeep's starter was messed up. So we packed all the equipment into Ryan's car and Carp's dad's car, which were both compact. Still, we managed, though I had the rim of my floor tom jamming into my knees. We pushed the Jeep into a parking place and his dad called to have it towed. Finally, after about 40 minutes of delay, we started off again.
         We drove all around the various sections of Meridian, trying to find the place, but to no avail. Until we stumbled across it, obscured by a few commercial buildings. Turns out we'd passed the place several times during our trek.
         No matter, we were there. The journey was long and hard, but we were there, and just in time. Unfortunately, the fee for bands was in fact $100, not the $25 we were expecting. Wonderful. And bands weren't auditioning that night anyway. Hahahaha... Ryan almost had the lady in charge charmed into letting us set up and audition anyway, and she said our style was just what she was looking for, but Carp's dad was reportedly not too happy at this point. So we got her card, gave her a contact number, a little disappointed.
         So the audition is scheduled near the end of the month, and I need to come up with $25 to contribute to the fee. There are some good points, though. We now have time to practice some more, and maybe even write a few more songs and practice some covers. Ah yes. Time to start waiting again.
         So that was my day. And I'm exhausted. And I have to make a CD with a nice looking cover for a project that's due Monday. I have to do this tonight. As well as get back to work on the website. Ugh...Thank the Lord for Mountain Dew in all of it's caffeinated goodness. Recommended listening: Dead Leaves And The Dirty Ground by the White Stripes. Goodnight.

~ Dris ~