Do you know what sucks? the holocaust that's what sucks. Also on a slightly unrelated note playing to a bunch of people who don't care that you're there sucks. During my earlier months my plan was to get out and play whatever gigs I could so that I could get exposure and experience doing this solo thing. Amazingly now I feel much more comfortable on stage on my own, the almost crippling fear I was feeling having to be the sole person desperately trying to hold a crowds attention has dissipated now that I have done it enough times to find myself a rhythm I'm comfortable with, and thanks to some rather kind feedback from friends I have a good idea what works and what doesn't.
That means that those earlier shows were in no way a waste of time but now I need to start paying my reputation attention again. I think begging for shows each month and playing to crowds who aren't really into the kind of music I play is gonna be damaging for Red Rag Front as the loss making enterprise that it is. I don't expect people to know all the words to my songs, but I expect people in a crowd to maybe own a Chuck Ragan album or the like and to have an appreciation for the style of music I play. These were excellent lessons I learned playing in Worthing last month and I have come to a decision regarding my gigging future.No more will the Red Rag Front be darkening any generic acoustic evenings, it was by pure luck that I had one acoustic show with Andrew Maclaughlin which turned out to be excellent due to our similar taste in awesome punk and playing with real punk bands made me understand that that is where I belong full time. I'm fully willing to only play a few shows in a year as long as each of them are as fun and rewarding as that Worthing show.
I put this sentiment out there via Facebook this week and was truly happily surprised to get a response back from the Recluse Club guys. They are super awesome and people should go check out their Bandcamp if they don't believe me. This is the type of thing I wanted to be doing when I started Red Rag Front. I don't want to have my name in bright lights or to have a huge following, I just want my punk rock friends to know that they have a solid fun opening act for their shows any time the space is available.
So here goes the next stage in my Red Rag career. Will it all fall to pieces around me? maybe, but I've kept myself going for a while now and I'm gonna enjoy all of it whilst I can.
