I apologize for the hold up on my report from the road. As I was planning on sending you my first 2 week update, I hit a snag in southern California with some car repairs. Then, once I entered Texas, things became very hectic. I had some long hauls, some cold, lonely nights, some crazy shows, and I’m not a very dedicated computer user to begin with. I was really hoping to document (or blog) on the state of my tour pre- & post-election. Alas, here I am, and here it is.

I know I left Chicago during one of the most economically trying times in our country’s recent history. Gas in Chicago in mid-October was still in the $4.00/gal range. As I booked some of my final dates for a month-long tour I knew I was in for some long, expensive drives. I had been thinking about this tour all summer, and I was fairly confident I had an idea of what potential strain lay ahead. My vehicle was a 1991 Dodge Caravan I bought off Craigslist for $800. With 230,000 miles on it, and more fluids leaking from it than actually flowing through it, Tim (my van) was at his best getting 26/mpg on the highway, and as low as 12 mpg in Chicago city traffic. My ultimate goal for the solo trip around the country in support of a new EP I was selling for $6.00 was “don’t die.”

I played thirty shows in thirty-five nights and consider every show and the tour to be a success. There was not a single night where merch wasn’t sold and only a couple of non-paying shows. Some shows paid out hundreds, some shows paid out 20 bucks, but there was never any total loss. While there were a few bleak stretches, panic never really set in. I had some trouble calculating drives vs. sleep time and found myself restless. Sometimes obsessing over how to maintain efficiency and maintain Tim’s health ad nausea. It was probably my general anxiety, but I found myself calmed and blessed by some incredible gas prices right out of the gates. Hello $1.90 Minneapolis! $1.85 Dakota, Montana!? $1.78 Texas!? I am only one mouth to feed, I am responsible, and I was happy to be out playing music. It was incredible to have the gas concern cut in half so early into the trip. And every stop I made, I sensed that people were out to hear music and were happy to fill the hat being passed around. I definitely picked up on people’s excitement before the election. From what I could tell, people were excited to be out, even on the week nights, talking, watching CNN in the bar and seeing music...not to mention picking up the new CD.

I spent 6 days in the Northwest with my friend Sam Humans who plays as Modernstate. He helped cut some gas prices down and also hooked us up with some great shows that paid and fed us. The van’s speedometer went out in the mountains of Montana, but somehow returned to us in Idaho. The autumn splendor was awe-inspiring every mile of the trip. I could not think of a better time to be out on the road.



You’ll find some rounded gas amounts on the spreadsheet, but the book that I kept and wrote in has all the exact amounts and a folder-slot for the receipts. The merch/door money is totally accurate. There may have been a few personal purchases that did not make the list, but I’d say you have a pretty good luck at one bum out on the road. I kept my food expenses low by always having a gallon of water in the van as well as a thermal food pack I kept sandwich materials in. Groceries are the way to go. Larger “misc” purchases included oil and coolant. You’ll notice a $391 on 11/5. That is from a radiator I had replaced in the van. There was also a slightly devastating layover in Las Vegas. I only had a couple nights in a motel, slept in the van mostly, but was welcomed into many homes along the way as well.



The balance at the end of the trip came up positive… While I do not have the amount in my wallet, I have some and feel good about the whole trip. I look forward to applying what I’ve learned for the spring. So long as Tim hangs in there.

So, there you have it! The Heligoats made out pretty well on the road—thanks in part to lower gas prices—but keep in mind that his balance came up positive $326 for four weeks out on tour. That's $81.50 a week, which ain't exactly minimum wage. Breaking even in the biz is the exception, not the rule, so Otepka should be applauded. But if this kind of money is a success, then the CW of "make it back on the road" still remains weak.

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The Heligoats

It got me thinking about the whole "touring equals profit" bit of Conventional Band Wisdom, and how, more and more, it seems to be something of a lie.

Never mind the fact that this idea is extremely rock-centric; smaller hip-hop, R&B, and pop acts don't really have the network of smaller venues where they can rake in this alleged money. With gas prices still pretty darned high, the economy doing its best late-period Ottoman Empire impersonation, and a general lack of importance placed on the procurement of music via the exchange of goods and services, this whole gas shortage just seems like piling on.

Having been a publicist, I've dealt with a lot of bands on the road, and I remember back in 2004 that bands would go on tour with glee. Back then, gas prices were higher than they'd ever been; the national average was around $1.74 in August 2004. Oh, to be young again! My band was pretty new at the time and just starting touring, and I distinctly remembering the total gas cost of taking my car to Louisville and back from Athens, Ga., being around $100. And keep in mind that people were still buying CDs then! There was still a chance of making a profit.

Now, it's doubtful. More and more of my artists were telling me that they had to work a day job and couldn't hit the road. At first, I thought they were missing out on golden opportunities. Hit the road! Make new fans! Do it the way our indie forefathers did it! But these days, a day job seems like a way to go. Unless someone provides me with a statistic that people are going out to shows more, I'm gonna assume that they aren't. Going out costs more for music consumers: ticket prices are higher, traveling costs are higher... hell, beer costs are higher. Bands have to ask more from clubs. Clubs have to charge customers more to cover the bands, etc., etc. It's a downhill slide that ends with the music consumer eating a load of crap.

Let's crunch some numbers:

• My band, Wilson Phillips Milk of Magnesia, is playing a show in Charleston, S.C., a little weekend jaunt. It's 267 miles from Athens. We'll round that up to 275 counting stops, etc, so the total round-trip distance is 550 miles.
• Our van gets 15 mpg going downhill at 55 mph, but let's just be charitable and say it gets that because South Carolina is flat.
• WPMoM has a guarantee of $150 at the 350-capacity Club XXX, which is an OK guarantee, truth be told.
• There's some good local press running before the show, we have two local bands on the bill with WPMoM, and about 100 people turn up at five bucks a head.
• After taking out production costs ($150), the club splits the door ($350) between the three bands. In fact, one of the bands is nice enough to round our cut up to $150 because we're the out-of-towners!
• We sell 10 CDs at $10 a head for a profit of $100 (not taking into consideration what we already paid for these). Wow!

That's a pretty good night in the indie world by any measure: solid guarantee, triple-digit merch sales, and a good cut of the door. But let's look at how much gas cost sucks out of that.

+$100 for the $100 guarantee
-$146 for 550 mile round trip ÷ 15 mpg x $4/gallon gas
+$150 for the door
+$100 for merch sales (not counting the investment that already went into this)
=$204

Now, this is without anybody eating or drinking anything, nothing breaking down, and everyone crashing somewhere for free. Most bands I know would consider this a successful show, but remember that taking this band on the road is supposed to be how the members make money. WPMoM has four members, so each person's cut is $51. And keep in mind that this is a good night. A really good night!

It's easy to make this kind of argument with a hypothetical, so let's look at a real band on the road! Athens' band Hope For Agoldensummer (disclosure: friends of mine) conducted a short tour in the spring of this year, and made it "open book," so to speak; they put up a handy dandy little spreadsheet of their expenses for us to look at.

The average gas price when they went on tour was around $3.60 a gallon. The band traveled, over the course of two weeks, as far away as Michigan in a journey that went up the East Coast, over to Chicago, and back down to the South. They are a drumless trio that can travel a little bit cheaper (check out the lack of food costs?!). They paid themselves each $500 for two weeks worth of work (to make up for not having a job). In the end, with some good door money along the way and solid merch sales, they still came out in the hole. Yes, they did have to repair their van for $885. But take that out and they still clear $353! And repairs are the kinds of expenses that seem unexpected, but often are the rule rather than the exception when touring in a van. $1030 for fuel costs. Just four years ago, that cost would be halved! The band would have at least broken even! Now, they are $500 in the hole. And what can $500 buy a band? A whole lot, actually. How about two weeks of non-commercial/college radio promotion? Or another small pressing of CDs? Or a lot more t-shirts? Or further repairs of the van? Or a couple of days in the studio? Or an amp?

And there are so many bands just like this out there, toiling away under the notion that it's a meritocracy, that just one more town and one more show will make all of the difference while bands that haven't played 10 shows (but happen to live in Brooklyn) become Bands To Watch and are magically whisked away to Best New Musicdom and record deals, and, ironically, the tour support that fake bands like WPMoM or real bands like, er, HFAGS need.

I fully admit that touring is still the best way to put one's music out there into the public, and that it's still the most effective way to make money for bands when it's truly successful. I just don't believe, given the current economic climate, that it's the fiduciary panacea that people think it is. Not to mention that right now, it's a pain to find gas in one quarter of the country.

Think I'm a Negative Nellie? Think I'm taking a small sample? We'd love to hear from bands, labels, and more as to whether touring is actually effective.

Well, I'm pretty sure that it means that Live Nation chief executive Michael Rapino was right to put his foot down about lucrative 360 deals that are based off an unproven business model. But other people in the company are more optimistic:

Arthur Fogel, chairman of global music and CEO of the global touring division at Live Nation, projects the tour will gross more than $250 million in ticket sales - surpassing her record-breaking "Confessions on a Dance Floor" tour two years ago, which pulled in $195 million worldwide.

But just over half of the 43,000 seats available for a Nov. 6 date at Los Angeles' Dodger Stadium - 27,000 tickets in all - have been sold in their first three weeks of availability, raising red flags about the limits of US demand for the 49-year-old Madonna at this stage of her career.

It also comes as Live Nation's management has been at odds over the strategy of handing out big-bucks, all-encompassing contracts, known as 360 deals, for aging stars like Madonna and Jay-Z. The rift led to last week's exit of company chairman Michael Cohl.

To be sure, Madonna's sales have been better at other venues.

A Nov. 4 show at San Diego's Petco Park has sold 29,000 of 35,000 seats. And over 33,000 out of 42,000 available tickets were sold for a Nov. 26 stadium date in Miami. ...

Fogel, who has produced Madonna's last three tours, said concern about ticket demand is overblown.

He noted that there are close to five months to go before the US stadium shows in question open, and each one has already grossed $3 million to $4 million in sales.

Perhaps people are waiting until right before the tour, so they can avoid Ticketmaster surcharges, or at least figure out whether or not they can afford to fill up their gas tank and shell out the cash for a nosebleed seat? Either way, I'm sure Madonna is taking comfort in the fact that she'll always have Dubai to fall back on should times get really rough.

MADONNA SALE$ SAG [NYP]
Madonna [Ticketmaster]

Robyn/Madonna:
26-August Nice Stade Charles Ehrmann
28-August Berlin Olympic Stadium
30-August Zurich Military Airfield Dubendorf
02-September Amsterdam Arena
04-September Dusseldorf LTU Arena
09-September Frankfurt Commerzbank Arena
14-September Lisbon Parque da Bela Vista
23-September Vienna Danube Island
27-September Athens Olympic Stadium

Sticky And Sweet Set List? [The Diva Report]

June 17: San Diego/San Diego Sports Arena
June 19: San Jose, Calif./HP Pavilion
June 21: Las Vegas/MGM Grand
June 22: Phoenix/US Airways Center
June 25: Los Angeles/Great Western Forum
July 2: Seattle/Key Arena
July 4: Vancouver/General Motors Place
July 7: St. Paul/Xcel Energy Center
July 9: Chicago/United Center
July 13: Dallas/American Airlines Center
July 14: Houston/Toyota Center
July 17: Toronto/Air Canada Centre
July 18: Montreal/Bell Centre
July 21 and 23: New York/Madison Square Garden
July 26: Philadelphia/Wachovia Center
July 27: Boston/TD Banknorth Garden
July 29: Washington, D.C./Verizon Center
July 31: Atlanta/Philips Arena
Aug. 2: Tampa/St. Pete Times Forum
Aug. 3: Sunrise, Fla./Bank Atlantic Center

Number of shows
-2006: 59
-2007*: 30

Gross receipts
-2006: $35.2 million
-2007: $12.1 million

Total attendance
-2006: 645,782
-2007: 200,047

Seats filled
-2006: 96.1%
-2007: 63.3%

That's quite the drop; an analyst quoted by USA Today says that last season's top four—Taylor Hicks, Katharine McPhee, Elliott Yamin and Chris Daughtry—were more compelling than this year's; I'll give them Yamin (whose decision to go indie is looking smarter by the day) and Daughtry (even though his arena-rock bombast sounds like bar-band muck), but the blandtastic, toe-serenading McPhee? Really? Anyway, given that Hicks went from helping fill arenas last year to playing much more intimate venues this year, though, these numbers should give whoever's booking the forthcoming tours for the top Idols pause, or at least inspire them to look up the phone numbers for thousand-capacity rooms around the country.

"Idols Live" Tour Now Facing Empty Seats [USA Today]
[Photo: AP]

Differences between the two January-July tallies also make clear that acts that do tour are not doing so in conjunction with the release of an album. And the ones that are may only be able to fill moderate-sized venues.

Maroon 5, which could sell 2 million copies of late-May release "It Won't Be Soon Before Long," won't tour the States until the end of September. If the band doesn't register a second hit from the album by then, it's likely the album will stall at about 15,000 disc sales per week, hit a cume of 1.5 million and promoter Live Nation may have considerable ticket inventory on its hands.

On the other side of the equation, Toby Keith is booked solid through Sept. 29 and should make the year-end list of top-grossing concert tours. But his album "Big Dog Daddy" will need to keep showing legs to get into the upper reaches of the year-end SoundScan chart. Disc opened at No. 1, selling 204,000 copies, and in the three weeks that followed sold another 155,000. A good rule for most albums is that they should be able to sell in four weeks the same number of albums sold in their debut session. Kelly Clarkson had planned to promote her album "My December" with an arena tour that would begin a month after the album's release. But ticket sales started out slow, she fired her manager and the tour was canceled — all prior to the June release of "My December."

One former member of Clarkson's camp says she would have needed a hit single or two to sell out arenas and that too many of her advisers were ignoring the fact that she had only sold 60%-70% capacity on her previous tour, one that accompanied her multimillion-selling second album.

It's not the Clarkson news that's eyebrow-cocking as much as it is the tidbit about Maroon 5; "Makes Me Wonder" originally surfaced around these parts back in March, and the other day a friend noted that it had been sticking around the VH1overse for an awfully long time. (It's been on the Billboard Hot 100 for 15 weeks.)

"Wake Up Call," the album's second single, apparently went to radio last week; Long is currently hanging around the lower reaches of the Billboard 200's top 20, having sold 39,000 copies last week, but the 998,000 copies it's sold so far are a long way from the 10-15 million units-sold total needed to break even on the Octone deal. Will "Call" fire up the record buyers in time for Maroon 5 to hit the road? Or is Universal waiting for Oprah to start her "Record Club," which would then connect Adam Levine with the millions of American women who are just waiting to love his smoothed-out-Greg Dulli persona, and hate themselves for doing so?

Music biz out of sync [Variety]

The [Idol tour] report says that Kelly's response to the offer is "still up in the air," but Clarkson's rep tells Access Hollywood that the report is "not true." Furthermore, a Publicist for the "Idol" tour tells Access that this is the first she has heard of this, and that she has no idea where it is coming from. The "Idol" tour rumor comes on the heels of Kelly's announcement last week that her own summer tour has been canceled, with plans to embark on another tour in the future in a more "intimate concert environment."

It's a shame that we won't get to see Kelly sing with Chris Sligh—who, by the way, is blogging about the tour's rehearsals—but we're really hoping that she plays it smart with these "intimate" shows—smaller venues, multiple nights, and, for the love of Simon Cowell, lower ticket prices. Please?

ROLL CALL: Justin's Madonna Work & Kelly's 'Idol' Return? [Access Hollywood]
Earlier: Is Kelly Clarkson Going To Head Back To Her Roots This Summer?

A source in the industry tells Geno's World that Clarkson is going to be offered "special cameo" appearances on the upcoming American Idol tour that begins on July 6 and runs through September 22.

The execs are hoping that Kelly will take this opportunity to "save face" and be able to take advantage of the Idol built in fan base and allow her to promote her struggling "My December" CD. Pre-sales figures have not hit expectations. Whether Clarkson accepts the offer is still up in the air, but there are dozens of people working behind the scenes to put a good spin on Clarkson's recent PR troubles. Her battle over the song selection on her CD and the cancellation of her tour have been a marketing nightmare.

It's a plausible theory, made even moreso because Clarkson performed on Idol twice this season, and as long as she isn't roped into duetting with Haley Scarnato the downgrade shouldn't be too embarrassing. But we were really hoping that she'd try and work out her recent woes with a stripped-down tour of smaller venues around the States. After all, she has someone in her band who knows a thing or two about jamming econo.

EXCLUSIVE: Kelly Clarkson to appear on upcoming American Idol Tour? [Geno's World]

Designed as an introduction to a real live rock show experience - in the same kind of kid-friendly environment KIDZ BOP is known for providing - the KIDZ BOP WORLD TOUR features a full band, with vocal duties shared by adults and kids alike. Like the KIDZ BOP brand itself, the KIDZ BOP WORLD TOUR encourages kids to get up and sing and dance along. With local participants, dance contests, video screens and song voting, kids will be the biggest part of the show.

Playing in theaters and small arenas nationwide (full tour schedule to be announced), this is KIDZ BOP's first full-scale venture into the world of live family entertainment. "There have been few live events geared toward that elusive 6-11-year-old market," observed Chenfeld and Balsam. "This demo loves the KIDZ BOP CDs, and we are confident that they will embrace this exciting new show."

Thank goodness that the "6-11-year-old market" will finally get served—those lazy little rugrats were spending too much skipping rope and daydreaming, and not enough time buying merch. We just can't wait until the Smoking Gun unearths the tour rider, which is sure to stipulate a quarter-keg full of Ssips and "Two (2) alligator-shaped kazoos" per stop.

Prince is to perform his greatest hits for the last time at a massive London residency this summer...

Speaking at a press conference in London today (May 8), Prince said he and his band had rehearsed 150 songs for the dates, the only European shows he will perform this year...

Prince also said that after the shows he was going to take time off to travel and study The Bible. He also revealed he's been house-hunting in London, and added: "I really like Earl's Court , but I can't live there!"

Doesn't quite sound like a "last time ever" affair to us, and so far, other news outlets haven't said anything about it. Oh, NME! What craziness will you spout next? Before you know it, you'll be claiming that Kings Of Leon are a top-selling act over there, and that the Proclaimers' "500 Miles" is making a comeback!

UPDATE: False alarm.

Prince announces massive London residency [NME]