Where We R Now- A Recap
Some of you may already know, we started writing music together about 3 years ago after Michael’s departure from his previous band, The Flaming Lips of 38 years. Last November we booked our first shows as The Lolly Bombs but weren’t confident just playing as a duo. We had been trying to manifest a full band for a while before we got our first shows, we even played with several people around LA over the course of a few months, but nothing was working out. We met a lot of cool people and talented musicians along the way. Random synchronicity led us to Michael’s old bandmate from Oklahoma City, Nathan Roberts who plays drums and Julia’s friend of a friend from Indianapolis, David Jablonski who plays guitar. Having them play with us was a victory and we loved it! We had a great time and could see the potential we had as a band!
However, we were using our own money to make the full band experience happen and realized this wasn’t sustainable. We need to make money for this musical endeavor to work. We continue to keep going even though money is tight.
We realized that we needed to solidify ourselves together first before we continued to add more people to the mix. Combined with the logistics of managing a band with members in far flung parts of the country, who also have their own lives and schedules make it challenging. We do love challenges, but there comes a time to face the reality that we can’t afford to finance this all on our own. Flying everyone around, feeding them, paying for lodging, much less actually paying them. This is why we are doing this tour mostly as a duo. If we get more money, we hope to get the band out. We are working with what we got as we go.
Our musician friends in the Catskills, NY, Faith Kelly and Caswyn Moon (A Couple of Wanderers) who host and play open mics (which is an event, usually at a bar, where anyone is allowed to get up on stage and perform) encouraged us to explore the open mic scene in LA. We decided then to throw ourselves into the open mic world. Finding all the open mics in the LA area and play live in front of people as much as we could just the 2 of us, which ended up being 4 nights a week for almost 2 months. Doing this has strengthened our confidence as musicians and performers. The experience was invaluable; however, open mics are not filling our bank account. In fact, we are spending money on beer, food, and gas when we go to these cool establishments that host open mics. We have so much love to the places that are supporting musicians in any way they can. We want to play more, but we also need to get compensated for it. We are tightening up as a duo, finding our sound and allowing our songs and stage presence to evolve even more.
We continue to maintain our daily rituals the best we can to stay in good health with ourselves and each other while weaving in a schedule of rehearsing, practicing, playing open mics, making videos, booking, PR, networking, whatever we can do to make this work- all on our own- Me and Michael- which is what all DIY musicians have to do to make a living. We communicate daily about what we are striving for so we can strengthen our support for each other. Music and this business has become our whole lives.
We decided to create a tour that would be more conducive to where we are at this time. Our Catskills friends, Faith and Caz who constantly encourage us mentioned a festival that they were playing. We applied and they said yes -then we said ‘Yikes’. This festival is in Greenville, North Carolina- Spazz Fest which is about as far away as you can get from where we live without falling in the Atlantic Ocean. With our foundation and our new found confidence from all our open mic performances, we decided we could and should embark on this cross country journey as a duo. We keep taking action and finding ways of saving money to make this pilgrimage work.
We are so thankful for all of these experiences- the good and bad that have led us to where we are today. We are learning from all of it. Looking back to see where we were to where we are now is filled with pulling ourselves out of something that was toxic and unhealthy and transforming it into our art. We aren’t quite out of the woods, but it is all a journey and something to learn from and fight for. All of which are valuable experiences none the less. It truly is something special and also humbling to share our ongoing experience. Although it is hard work to go out on a limb and do what we have so much passion for, we wouldn’t want to be doing anything else. We are hoping to find some financial stability in all of these endeavors at some point. Stay tuned to find out what happens next in our ongoing adventure of Can we afford to do the thing that we love to do for a living?
