My Performance with The Hippie Band

I don't actually  know their real name, or even any of their individual names to be honest... but on thursday I got a call whilst in a practice room doing what I do best. This call was from a guy named Steven, friend of a friend of a room-mate, who needed a lower-instrument to perform with a group of people at a "gig" as they're called. I naively agreed, said i'd look at the music, we'd meet on saturday to rehearse, and perform sunday night. I was a little apprehensive about performing on Sunday, but I figured, it's music, and not bad music at that. So it couldn't hurt. At that point in time, I didn't know they were hippies...

As it turns out, the "music" they wanted me to look at were not notes on a page, but the actual mp3 files recorded by the artist. I was basically lost, but I had told them I would perform for them, so I was willing to give it a shot. Steven gave me a ride down to orem where the "band" was rehearsing in a storage unit, there where at least 3 other bands rehearsing in the same unit, who know storage was such a good place to play music. They helped me with the chord progressions, we ate pizza, it was actually rather fun.

On Sunday we met at the venue, (a lot of these words are new vocabulary for me), and had a rehearsal with the artist, a guy named Alexander, he was a rather funny guy, skinny, tall and a bit hunch-backed, he had a full beard and mustache, straw gardening hat, white sweater with a white suit jacket over the top of it, baby blue slim pants, and pink shoes. We rehearsed with him for a while, he was really impressed by my Contralto, and then we waited for the concert to start... 2 hours later.

First they had a sing-a-long, they sang songs like: "This little light of mine", "Take a stand" "Where'd all the flowers go?", and "Lean on Me", then we performed. It was actually really fun to perform on stage like that for a crowd that responded by screaming, dancing, and overall just having a good time. After I was done playing the songs I had a part in, I went home because I wanted to get to bed early. I"m starting a goal to track my daily sleeping habits and become more consistent.

Now, classifying them as hippies may seem a bit harsh, but literally, when a guy speaks like this: "hey, man, this is going to be awesome, man, i'm so stoked for this, man, wow, man, thanks for coming, man, that instrument thing you play is awesome, man!" No exaggeration necessary, ties a sprig of sage to their rear-view mirror in order to always be "close to mother earth", and holds an entire concert to support the "cause", and is intending to ride a bus a, powered by vegetable oil, pulling a mobile-home trailer with a garden implanted into the roof all over the country playing music for income, what else do you call it? I'm not saying that hippies are bad, I actually think it was rather fun to be around them for a couple of days, but hey, they used the title first, so don't harass me about it.

The "cause" I spoke of is that of a man who when into a black market auction held by the federal government before Bush and Cheney went out of office, they were selling Utah land to be used by the oil companies, the problem is that the land was near Nationally protected Wild Life Parks, and instead of going through the proper channels to put the land up for sell, Bush pushed it through last minute. The Man's goal was to disrupt the auction so it couldn't complete, he ended up bidding about 1.8 million dollars of money he didn't have. He was arrested for fraud, and the auction was postponed until Obama was in office, apparently Obama fixed the illegal legislation and the land was saved! But the Man is still being tried for fraud, his trial is tomorrow and Alexander is in town to raise awareness about his situation. It's all very interesting to learn about, I was previously unaware that this kind of a thing could happen.

The night was rather fun, I enjoyed playing the music, which actually had a good message to it, and Alexander is a rather good musician and performer. I may even be on the news sometime soon, and they are making a documentary about Alexander which may get published around May, I might be in some of the footage...