Chillin with the band

Last night was one of the coolest nights ever. Ok, so there is this band Authority Zero, most of you probably have not heard of them, but hey, maybe you have. I have been to a few of there concerts and even been on stage with them before (I got tossed onto the stage after someone decided it was my turn to crowd surf). I like them, good band.

Recently my brother was trying to get a job at this coffee shop in town, not a very popular place, but a very chill cool atmosphere. So he applied at all that jazz, but unfortunately Dennis (the man who owns the store) didn’t need any help, but they got to talking about the music that he was playing, this music happened to be Authority Zero. Dennis goes on to tell my brother that Jason DeVore (the lead singer of AZ) is his friend and comes up about once a month to play and hang out, and that he would be playing for a party of his in about a week (yesterday) and says he should stop by and to bring a couple people. So he gathers up me and our older sister who happened to be in town this weekend and we all went down to this coffee shop. There were a couple people outside just chillin, with a sign that says “Closed for Private Party” Dennis comes over and says hi, we introduce ourselves and go to meet people (including Jason DeVore) and sit down and just chill for awhile.

As we are sitting around Jason’s wife La comes up to us and introduces herself, and despite being a gorgeous girl married to a popular singer, she was remarkably cool. So, we all hang out, and Dennis talks to everyone for awhile and tells us all about him and his wife, who are into this thing called “Adventure Racing” and are about to go on a 10 day five hundred mile race. So we all talk to him about that, and drink and whatnot, and then Jason starts jamming on his guitar and singing and putting on this private party. Of course this isn’t serious, so between songs he would goof around with people and take shots and whatnot. He told me and my brother some stories about the lyrics in some of his songs and what inspired some of them, and told us about this new side band project he was working on and played some songs from that. So he goes on to play more. By this point La has taken a real liking to my sister and keeps coming over to me and my brother to give us high fives for some reason.

After awhile he takes a break and everyone just goes out to talk, and they tell us all about this live recording they are going to be doing near where my sister lives, and tell us that we should all go down and check it out, and that they would put us on the list so we wouldn’t have to pay the 5$ entrance fee :D

More drinks, more singing, and eventually everything deteriorates into everyone just singing, passing the mic around, telling jokes, and everyone just generally has a great time. La apparently wants to hang out with my sister more, because they happen to live within about 20 min of each other.

It was a great experience and so smurfin cool to see how laid back the singer from one of my favorite bands was. Not to mention he goes down there to hang out pretty often as it is where he can go just to get away from shows and whatnot. And everyone seemed to really like us.

Have any of you had any of these kind of ridiculously unbelievable experiences? Has anyone here even heard of Authority Zero?

I have never heard of Authority Zero.

I just had one of those experiences last week. I went on an Alaskan Cruise with a company called Traveling Troubadour - basically, it's cruises and tours entertained by popular folk artists. This particular cruise was entertained by Tom Paxton and the Chad Mitchell Trio. Tom Paxton is one of the most overlooked American songwriters of the last fifty years by mainstream media, but he has a wealth of material that inspires and entertains. The Chad Mitchell Trio had modest success in the 1960's (including a stint with John Denver as the lead singer), and they have had several reunions since, including right now.

So, we had two private concerts with Tom and the Trio (there were about 120 people in our group), and ate meals every day with them (not always at the same table, but occasionally). I was the youngest person in the group by a wide margin, and I also am an inspiring folk singer, so the group of fans, as well as the musicians themselves, got attached to me.

Every night after dinner, about forty of us would gather in the same room. Those who had instruments would bring them, including the backup instrumentalists for the Trio. Tom and the Trio would also join us. Then, until we got tired, we would play songs together. Traditional folk songs, songs from the 60's, songs by either Tom or the Trio, original songs - whatever fit our fancy at the time.

It was the most purely enjoyable week of my life. For the first time in my life, I found other people who care about the same music that I do. They may have been forty years older than me, but still. I got to know Joe Frazier of the Chad Mitchell Trio well, and also grew my prior relationship with Tom Paxton.

So yeah, I had one of those ridiculously unbelievable experiences.

One of my good friends grew up with Seether, I hung out with them one night. Shame I think their music sucks. Nice guys though. I've also worked for a lot of bands in the UK London area.