If any of you have been to any of my concerts recently you have no doubt heard my ramblings about being middle aged and on the road. I have even written a song or two about it. I think just the time my head begins to catch up with the notion of being middle aged I will probably be a senior. Indeed, finding myself in an ironic mood, awhile ago I ventured into Denny's restaurant just to take advantage of their seniors menu, (I don't know if I can recommend doing that). When I got home I sat and stared out my window in silence for awhile trying to comprehend the significance of what I had just done. Strange days. Just when you think you might finally have something worthwhile to say at your concerts your body starts complaining that you talk too much:) 

I often think about how absurd it can feel driving all over the country doing solo gigs all by myself. I mean, is not a strange way to make a living? I get the sneaking suspicion that it is a younger man's job. Don't get me wrong, I will probably be doing it to some degree as long as there are people willing to listen to my songs and stories. However recently I have made the decision to slow down just a bit and concentrate more on helping my wife in her publishing/writing business (La Plume Press, Lee Strauss books. Check it out online). I also hope to plug a bit more into the local music scene here in BC which is something I have neglected to do for many years now. This will be easier on my middle aged frame (jet lag sucks) and less hectic. To that end I will not be going back to Germany for my normal spring touring season. Instead I will be hanging out in Mexico for February and then coming back to Kelowna from March to mid August. I will probably accept some gigs during that time if they are somewhat regional. Our oldest son Joel, will be getting married on our front lawn in July. We are very, very excited about this and so I want to be totally present and un-distracted for that. I plan to go back to Germany for 4 months of touring in the fall. My calendar for those months is already starting to fill so if you are a promoter or interested in a house concert, best contact me soon.  

It's a big decision for me not to tour in the spring as that has been my rhythm now for many years but it feels right. I used to be the guy who was always itching to go faster. Strange when 'faster' pales in comparison to 'slower'. I hear Golden Griddle restaurants now have a seniors menus. See you there. 

 

Recently I did a series of interviews on the subject of art and beauty. My first 'victim' was non other then world-renowned guitarist and friend, Vickie Genfan. She was one of the very first people I thought of when thinking about this theme. 

If you are not familiar with this guitarist, widely regarded as one of the best in the world, please do yourself a favor and check out http://vickigenfan.com and prepare to be amazed!

*In this blog, I have chosen not to name the actual show or use any names associated with it. Legalities sometimes get  strange in these days of trademarked logos and names. Let’s call it GMS ‘German Music Show’ for short.
 
It just seemed like an odd fit; Me on a TV show with glitzy lights and ‘judges’ and ‘phone your votes in’ and all the rest of that stuff. That’s probably why when I first got the email from GMS, I thought it was a scam. 

“We are excited about your music and would love to support what you do.”

“Ya, right.” I thought. “Now I know it’s a scam. It would be a first for me if anyone in the music/entertainment industry was excited about what I do, in any country. I am the classic ‘Invisible Man’ when it comes to the music industry, and I have been for most of my career.

After asking some of my musician friends about the show, and discovering that they actually seemed to like it, I finally called back after almost a week. I even called some past candidates from previous seasons before I called GMS back.  The lady on the phone seemed excited that I called. She was very polite and even patient with my surly attitude.

“Look”, I said, “I am not a pop star, I don’t have a cool haircut, I am way older than what you seem to realize, my German is not great and, by the way if I stay up too late I get cranky.”

“That should end it.” I thought.

After a good 5 seconds of silence, I heard her slowly say, “Wow. Besides your music, those are exactly the things that make you interesting to us. Can you come to Berlin for an interview?”

Crap.

The date they wanted me to come just happened to be at the very end of a 10 day tour during which every night I had told the audience about my dilemma. They were all thrilled. I was cynical. Just to have fun and be slightly rebellious, I turned almost every concert into a mock ‘GMS’ night and sang a bunch of cover songs to which they had to ‘buzz’ me or not. I even had some turn their chairs the other way. I told them I had not yet decided to be on the show and had yet to meet the ‘important’ people who run those shows. ”No doubt once they meet me they will run away so I might as well have fun with it while I can.” I said
.  
I finally made it to Berlin and in a small room in a TV studio I sang two covers for some TV producers and record executives for GMS. They videotaped it. My voice was very raw from 10 days of touring. I was then interviewed for almost a solid hour about everything from why I wanted to be on the show (uhm, you contacted me...) to discussions about marriage and how is it that I managed to stay married for 29 years. A strange interview, but the lady was polite and cheerful. She seemed to want to know everything about me.  “Actually, my reason for being on the show has a lot to do with a humanitarian project that my wife and I represent.” I explained. “ I am thinking the added exposure might help spread the news about this work.” She wrote every detail down and the interview was also videotaped. I neglected to  tell them that I knew I didn’t have a hope in hell of ever winning the show and that actually, I didn’t want to be the next ‘GMS Singer of Germany’. I think I might actually be quite uncomfortable in the winner's circle, thank you very much. I don't have the right wardrobe for one thing.  However,  I thought maybe that might put a damper on the otherwise cheerful interview. But I got the feeling they already knew all of that. They needed someone older on the show to make their roster interesting, I wanted the exposure. Win/win as far as I was concerned as long as they don’t make me sing some banal pop song. I mean...they wouldn’t do that, would they?

They didn’t say much. A lady came out with a clipboard and wrote down my waist size, eye color and then looked me up once and down and said ‘casual’ before disappearing without another word. Someone then handed me a very large contract which stated, among many other things that I was not to breathe a word about this to anyone.

Ooops. Oh well. All those audiences last week will likely forget I ever said anything, I mean there was alcohol being served most of those nights.

So this is how the story started about a middle-aged singer/songwriter who found himself suddenly surrounded by mega-talented, (and very young) singers on the set of  one of Germany’s biggest music/casting shows. I felt like a university professor, having breakfast with the students every morning. “Now class, settle down.” Most of these kids are the same age as my own children.

Here are some high points, low points and some ‘ behind the scenes’ observations:

High point #1- I made a lot of new friends there. It was truly an honor to meet some of these young people. I think I have about 50 of them on my FB feed now. On the show they sort of cast me as the Father figure. I sometimes did feel like that and for the most part, I did feel both respected and at ease with these kids.

Low point#1-I stepped on her foot. My coach, I mean. You know, that famous singer? When she was kind enough to invite me on her team and came up on stage in front of a kajillion people at the B* Audition. I stepped on her foot. You don’t see it on the camera, but I was totally on her foot.

Observation #1-I thought I could sing alright. Some of these young people, many with almost no stage experience and some as young as 16 years old, can sing circles around me. I am a songwriter, guitar player, story teller, singer… in that order. The focus has never been on my voice, that has been just a tool to tell the story with. These young people are singers. Some are barely old enough to tie their shoes, but they can sure sing. Walking around the hotel listening to the sound of them practicing in their rooms.. sheesh. I felt like Niel Young at a pop star convention.
 
Highpoint #2-I actually learned something from the vocal coaches. Not a lot, but I did learn a few things about my voice that I never knew before. An old dog can learn new tricks if he has the right attitude.

Lowpoint #2- The blasted interviews. All were in German and my German sucks. The singing in front of millions of people was the easy part. Try being articulate and honest in a foreign language in front of those same millions of people. I lost sleep over it.  I must have done at least 7 interviews just for the B* Auditions alone. What you see on the actual final edit is the only 4 sentences they could use that actually made any sense. I will say though, that except for one very bad interview during the ‘Fight  Rounds’ (I mean bad. By the end, the interviewer and I were glaring at each other and as I walked off.)nearly all of the interviewers were patient with me as I tripped over my own tongue committing one faux paux after another.

High point #3-Meeting, befriending, and ultimately sharing a very special moment on-stage with a wonderful singer/songwriter ________. What a pleasure getting to know this very special young lady who reminded Loralee and I of our own daughter who is almost the same age, height and hair color. We  become fast friends almost in an instant and singing together was as easy and natural as it looked on the show. A  truly delightful experience. We plan to do more performing together as soon as possible.

Low point #3-“Norm Strauss to make-up please!” I learned to despise this sentence. In June, during the production of the B* Auditions, it was sometimes 40 degrees Celsius in Berlin. Make-up people followed me around everywhere with buckets of face powder. I guess at my age, you need to keep the layers on thick in order to not scare the natives. I sometimes tried to hide from them but they always tracked me down. They had wireless headsets and stuff.. they were like the FBI or something. I couldn’t get away.

Observation #3-The general atmosphere on the backstage set of GMS, at least what I saw, is quite positive. The employees, (someone told me 300 people or more work at GMS during production?) are cheerful and seem to take a genuine interest in each of the ‘talents’. Also, those of us on ‘Team _____’ had the pleasure of getting to know _______, ___ (her producer) and ____ (vocal coach). The whole team was both professional and extremely personable. This is the kind of thing that impresses me most when I meet someone famous. I have little time for the big egos that too often plague the music world.  However, the open hearted, genuine and highly artistic Frau ______ that you see on the show, seems to be very closely related to the same Frau ______ backstage I am happy to say. I enjoyed working with them all very much and was also delighted in the song they choose for ‘fight partner’ and I to sing.

Well, that is a very long story edited to probably just a bit too long for a blog. At any rate, just so you know, that last moment for me on the show; that moment when ‘fight partner’ l and I are standing there with the moderator like two prize fighters awaiting the decision; was both gratifying and terrifying. It was a great musical moment, and the judges heaped a lot of praise on me for which I am both humbled and excited about, (what great promo material!). But actually what was going through my mind that moment was the fear that ______ would choose me over ‘fight partner’. I was not emotionally prepared for that, had not rehearsed any German phrases for  it. I was just thinking, “I had a great time, but this moment is too perfect. Let it end now. ‘Fight partner’ should go further on this show, not me.

Ha! What a moment. What a relief. I almost ran off the stage. Maybe shows like this belong to those still a little more ‘wet behind the ears’ and perhaps those also more philosophically suited for a show that pushes music as ‘competition’ rather than for what it naturally is; harmony and community. However, that’s show business and you can say what you want about the what happens in front of the camera, behind the camera the true nature of music was still being felt in backstage jams, spontaneous collaboration and friendship.
 
 
They thrust me into a bigger spotlight for a moment. I have never been good at self-promotion, so this is helpful and might even help me find more people willing to listen to me.. more of what some people call ‘fans’, but I am happy to be out of that same spotlight and back into where I can actually see my audiences face to face and where wild-eyed makeup artists are not following me around. Performing for me has never, ever been about the "Voice', it's always been about the story. To suddenly be put in a situation where my songwriting was absent, the story was not told, and my guitar playing hidden behind the sound of a (great) band, was a slightly weird experience. My voice, the thing that I always thought the least important, suddenly made to be everything. Well, it took some adjustment, and as I said I felt out of my league with some of these young mega-singers and to be honest, the producers of the show did do a pretty good job of telling a bit of my 'story' before the 'fight episode', I was happy with how they edited all of that. Professional, interesting and respectful to the artist. 

Thanks GMS and thanks to all those who watched and were rooting for me. Special thanks also to Sigrun Czech, Job Toet, Arno Jordan, Adriane Thome, Carinha Bleckart, Mark and Coreen Biech and of course, my wife Loralee. These people made up my ‘cheerleading section’ that you see backstage on the show. They were all real troopers and had to stay at the studio for long hours waiting for my segment to be taped.

I have done more interviews in the past three weeks than my entire lifetime of being a music artist. Most of them, surprisingly enough, have been in Canada.. Where they speak English in most places. Ha!   It all ended even better than I had hoped. It even could be that I am not as much the ‘Invisible Man’ that I once was. At least for a moment. Anyways, maybe I will see you on the road in 2016 somewhere between Vancouver and Berlin.

Our project in Romania http://www.newhorizonromania.com/
 

 One of the first songs I remember hearing on a record was ‘In My Room’ written by Brian Wilson and sung by The Beach Boys. I think I was 10 years old or so. Back then I often wondered what Brian Wilson’s room actually looked like and how did it inspire such a beautiful melody. As a songwriter I am often aware of how my surroundings affect me. For me, how a room looks, feels and most importantly how it sounds can play a profound part in how a song is formed. This is especially true when the first idea for the song hits me. Crafting the song is one thing, but getting the initial inspiration is a moment that is wrapped in an acoustic mystery of spirit, sound, mood and lighting. Elements that somehow all come together in a moment of focus something like a photographer adjusting his camera lense.
I have written quite a few songs here at Castle Rhorsdorf over the last two years. I walk through the rooms here sometimes and remember that moment when a particular song idea came to me. Some of the songs have since been recorded (some of them mixed and mastered right here in the Castle Studio). I know friends who have come here and also written songs within the creative spaces of this place and its creative community. I have also helped co-write here. In fact there is probably a song being started right now somewhere at Schloss Rhoersdorf. It might be in the library or the Carlowitz room (on the Boesendorfer grand piano maybe) or in the studio itself. Yesterday I went in to the control room and strummed a guitar for a few moments. Right away a nice idea took form… I think I need to get back in there and see where it leads me.
In the band hotel we have several theme rooms like the groovy ‘70’s room’ or my favorite- the ‘Black and White Room’. I took a look today at the newly renovated room and right away started humming the famous Beach Boys song. I wonder how that song would have turned out if the young Brian Wilson had spent a few nights in that room back in 1963.

 A few days ago my wife and I were travelling through Bavaria and we stopped in Nuremburg to do some sightseeing and visit some of the 2nd World War Memorials. One of the spots I have always wanted to see was the site of the huge Nazi Rallies that you see on a lot of on documentary footages. The exact place where Hitler walked up to the podium and delivered his fiery lessons on hate and arrogance. The place is called 'Zeppinfeld' because thats the field near where the first Zeppelin landed succesfully. The huge field and collonade ruins are right beside an idylic little lake that you can walk around and enjoy some nice scenery. The grandstand (collonade) where Hitler and over 200,000 Nazis gathered is now a place where skateboarders can practice thier tricks and you can play a great game of ball hockey or take motorcycle lessons in the lot. 

If your a guy with a good imagination, you stand on the podium and stare out over the huge field. You can start to imagine the insanity of the man and of those days. Too much power sitting on the shoulders of one man. Too much blind trust in dogma. Most of us do not have the moral fortitude to handle so many people trusting in us for so much. We get the God complex too easy. Ultimately it turns us into devils. We tend to want to control each other. It gets ugly.

History lesson and thesis on human morality almost over now. You can take a look at the video if you want. 

 

It never ceases to amaze me how thin the line is that I walk on as a singer/songwriter. I can be going along concert after concert thinking that my confidence is great, timing is sharp, I am feeling connected to my audiences and what I do is important and then wham… it hits me out of nowhere; a bad night. The symmetry is off. The jokes don’t work, the stories sound inane to me and the songs are flatter than a stale beer. I am background music… my worst nightmare. I think Paul Simon wrote about it,

“.. and all my words come back to me in shades of mediocrity like emptiness in harmony.. “

I didn’t see it coming.

The effects are profound and immediate. The veneer of confidence that I was imagining to be a foot thick is suddenly revealed as paper thin. Suddenly I am a washed up has-been and I never want to see the front end of an audience again lest I die a thousand deaths all over. I know these ‘gigs from hell’ have to happen from time to time, but why is the feeling of wanting to quit so strong after a night like that? Am I that fragile? I have ‘quit’ being a performer about 134 times. And those are only the ones I can remember.

When I get the courage to look in the mirror, I often ‘reflect ‘on the weird life that a singer/songwriter chooses to live (oh yes, it’s a choice). I mean think about it. Our job is to fill a room with people who we expect to all sit quietly and listen to our every word for 90 minutes. What a tormented way to pay the rent. God help me from ever becoming narcissistic because my chosen profession can lead me down that path if I don’t find some grounding.

There is of course the song you labored to write, the hours of practice you put in and the courage to bare your soul in front of strangers. But the real tension for a lot of us is that we have fallen into the trap where our art defines us. We have embraced the notion that what we do is who we are. I have often stared at my hands wondering what else these things can do. I don’t mean paint or sculpt. What else can these things do besides art? Something else important.

This is why the motto of ‘Faith, Art and Justice’ has some solid meaning for me. I believe it is important for me as an artist to be active in life in such a way that I am afforded a different view. I need to be doing stuff that doesn’t benefit me directly, when I am not getting approval for my art. Something that is helpful to others and the focus is off me completely. As I look around the industry of music I see that many artists must have come to the same conclusion. There have been many charities and causes that are supported by, and founded by music artists. Bono for example, has not only founded his famous ONE campaign but also supports 31 other charities around the world. The list of celebrities that heavily support charity is long with many of them not only writing cheques but actually getting their hands dirty in the work. I like to believe that it goes beyond the need for tax write-offs and easing of conscience. I think that for many of them the motivation is to have a stark reminder that the world does not revolve around them. That’s a healthy motivation. Faith, in the same way is also a positive agent for this in my life. It’s simple; I am not God. I am not even a god. I think someone else is and He does a better job of it than I ever would.

I am no celebrity and I don’t have a lot of money but in whatever way I can I want be involved in helping others somehow; especially if it is someone less privileged than me, especially if it involves me putting down my guitar once in a while. Not because my art is not important but because I need to know that after the painful gig I just had there is still a reason for me get up the next morning and carry on. I might have do what my friend Narcissus did not do; I might have to look beyond my own mirror to find that reason but when I do I suspect that I will be able to look that gig from hell straight in the eye and then move on.

I have just returned home to Canada from a month long tour in Europe that took me all the way from Dresden to Milan and then up through the heart of Germany all the way to the Island of Sylt. Twenty dates in all, some larger gigs but mostly house concerts and seminars. Tours like this are often exhausting because I am travelling mostly solo and I am constantly in the close confines of living rooms mingling with strangers as opposed to waiting backstage somewhere for the show to start and then walking off to retreat backstage again after the show.




However, being a singer/songwriter has always been not just about the show but also about the people I get to know along the way. This is the best part of being an artist. I came back from this trip greatly impacted by the sheer amount of wonderful folks I got to know in the last month. Folks who attended or hosted a house concert who were strangers and then friends in one evening. I have amassed a huge fortune in relationships all over the western world because of what I do for a living. I feel like a rich man, so many great people. There was the optician who gave me a free prescription and a pair of glasses after he heard I had lost mine on the plane. The lady who owned a wellness spa who insisted I have a hot paraffin bath for my hands. The Syrian couple who always host me for a Syrian feast every time I am in town (I eat until I can’t stand up). The old Italian guy who insisted I take home a bottle of his best red wine and the man who took me sailing for a day on the Bodensee and many, many more. Kindness running rampant all the time on these small venue tours when I can’t hide behind any superstar image or stage lights and I have to look people in the eye. I like feeling less like a celebrity and more like a common troubadour. The crowds are smaller and the CD sales are less, but the perks are through the roof.

 
These days, when I hear someone say “God spoke to me,” my first reaction is to cringe. Just being honest here, but I have seen too many people say they have received directions from The Almighty and then try to use those directions to manipulate. Sure, I do believe that God speaks to those who want to listen but I think it might happen in surprising ways and the results are usually profound if not mysterious. In the first few moments of this trailer, former pastor and onetime Christian Right operative Ed Dobson says that God spoke to him and I believe him.

I had a friend of who died of ALS a few years ago. It was a slow and painful process. He kept an online journal that described his experiences in detail. Those of us reading felt like we were getting a rare glimpse of something very bittersweet and special. In my observance, many people who are in Ed’s position experience a clarity that is hard for the rest of us to obtain. The hearing becomes acute, the sight becomes keen. The themes are usually the same: a distillation, a refocusing…a sudden insight as to what is really important and what is peripheral.

Ed used to speak in front of thousands at a time. We would have said he was a man of great influence. He says now that spending time with people one on one is far more important. We would say that Ed was at the top of his game when he was struck down. He says now that he was blinded but now his sight his clear. We would say that Ed had purpose and was accomplishing big things. He says now that the things that compelled him were only distractions. There are some huge lessons here.

It takes a lot of courage and humility to have the attitude of Ed Dobson. Two attributes you would expect from someone who actually has heard from God.

Check out Ed's story here.

Definitely one of the more exciting things I have had the privilege of being a part of is the Hope For the Nations-Romania Project. My wife, Loralee , and I have served as Canadian liaison for this humanitarian effort for many years now and still travel to Brasov to keep ourselves updated and help out in any practical way we can. We recently had our friends and HFTN.RO Directors Mark and Correen Biech visit us in Kelowna for our annual budget meeting. These meetings are always extremely inspiring (yes, a budget meeting can be inspiring) and usually a lot of laughs too. This year they brought with them a special gift. Yes, it’s a bowl of crap! Nobody at the meeting wanted to open it, but we were told it was actually fish eggs.. some kind of caviar or something. Mmmm.

This bowl of crap is sitting on the year end report papers that outline what our project accomplished in 2011.  I’ll give you a few details on the newest sub-project, the Mobile Medical Unit (MMU).

Because of concerns in the rising incidents of Tuberculosis in Romania we decided to buy an RV and outfit it with donated medical equipment from Western Europe and among other things, use the MMU to start TB testing in outlying villages in collaboration with the Romanian Department of Health. As far as we know, this is the only MMU doing testing for TB in areas of the country where the average person might never even see a doctor during an entire lifetime much less take test for TB (which they couldn’t afford to do anyways) Out of 300 people we have tested roughly 50% tested positive for TB.

If these statistics hold true across a larger portion of Romania (which is probable) that would mean that our MMU unit is on the forefront of detecting what could turn out to be a major epidemic of TB. This could easily spread well beyond the borders of rural Romania into the rest of Europe. If left untreated, TB is a killer of 50% of those it infects; Men, women and children. The statistics we have been able to provide from our trips to the villages are shocking to the Romanian Department of Health and they are now implementing a treatment plan for those who whom our tests have diagnosed.




Another great project of 2011 was a organizing a successful medical training conference where doctors from Western Europe came to instruct doctors from the East in performing complicated congenital malformation correction surgery. Many children in Eastern Europe are still being born with defects as a result of the Chernobyl disaster. Over eighty children have had free corrective surgery by participating in conferences!
Loralee and I plan to travel in the fall back to Brasov to help with ESL training for children and other projects. Some of the people we visit when we go to Romania are living in conditions that most of us in Canada cannot imagine. It changes your perspective when you visit someone living in comparative squalor; someone who is trying to live a dignified life and yet cannot afford the most basic of what we take for granted every day here. Often it’s a glimpse of the nobility of the human spirit. You can read about it in a report (or on this blog) or watch it on TV but sometimes I need to step into the rarified space of a ramshackle shack in a poor village to really see it. I am grateful for that bit of perspective and as an artist who is trying to say something with his music… perspective is always good.

Here is a video of project Director Mark Biech describing some of the plans for the MMU. This was shot just after they purchased the RV and before it was sent on its first mission.

 
The gig was in a coffee house in Altensteig, Germany, which is a beautiful little hamlet in the Black Forest. My hotel that I had booked online was in a nearby village about seven minutes away. I didn’t realize it was in a different town, but hey, no problem. I had an hour to unpack, shower and get to the sound check at 6pm. All I needed to do was get the gig address from my online Google calendar. No sweat.

There was nobody at the front desk so I rang the bell and waited. The place was kind dark and musty smelling and there were two old guys sitting at the bar drinking beer and staring at me. Finally to my surprise, one of them got up ( I’ll call him Fritz) and started shuffling towards me muttering under his breath. I understand German perfectly well but Fritz’ Bavarian accent was off the charts. In my best German I told him I had a reservation under the name “Strauss”. He shuffled right past me, saying something about “reservation means nothing here”. Then as he randomly picked a key from dozens of keys hanging on the wall I understood. I was the only guest. Weird.
That was the beginning of a strange night. As it turned out, there was no internet in the hotel. Sure, there used to be, but it hasn’t worked for a long time and, no, there is no cell service here. If you walk across the street to the railroad tracks and hold up your phone you might get something. I tried. It didn’t work. (The old guys in the bar probably had a good laugh at that one.)

How was I going to find the gig? I ended up getting back in the van and driving toward Altensteig, and once I got cell phone reception, I phoned a friend who knew where the gig was. But not before Fritz stopped me in the parking lot to let me know that the hotel shuts down at 10 pm and if I was staying out longer he was going to have to show me the secret door. Secret door?? Crap. And I was almost an hour late for sound check already.

After the gig I found myself out in the middle of backwater Germany in the pouring rain. I was 12:00 midnight, and I was trying to find Fritz’s secret door in the back of the hotel somewhere. I finally got into the hotel but then I couldn’t find the hall lights. Seems they had also been shut down. I was on the first floor. My room was on the third. I was alone in this place.Thank God for my iphone which may not get phone reception here but it was now my flashlight and I read the room numbers by its ghostly light. I navigated through the maze of hallways and stairways--rooms 114, 116, 118….Where’s the elevator? Oh it’s turned off. Crap. Where are the stairs? Found them. Rooms 202, 211…. I was sure there were aliens in here waiting in the dark around the corner. I kept repeating to myself “I have a strange life, I have a strange life.”…250, 251…. “WHERE IS MY ROOM!”

Twenty minutes later I was finally in my room. It smelled super musty and my skin had that crawling thing going on; especially after I found a large spider on my bed. I turned on all the lights, swallowed two sleeping pills and prayed for sleep to come quickly. I tried to watch TV, but of course, no signal.

Here’s some good advice for all you touring musicians. Take it from a fool who knows; always have a hard/paper copy of your tour details and addresses with you. Don’t just keep them on your iphone or even worse, stored on your google account online. Especially when travelling abroad. Also, check and double check your hotel bookings. Do what I didn’t do in this particular instance; read the reviews.
How about you? Do you have a “got lost on tour” story?