Two concerts last week led me down a rabbit hole where I eventually ended up at the old motto of “shop locally.”
Wifey and I went to the town celebration in Wall for the express purpose of seeing a Sioux City band named 35th and Taylor. I heard them last year at Rapid City’s Summer Nights concert series and really liked them. They are young kids (20s, which are kids to me) who are a step up from the local bar bands, of which I have my favorites too, but on the cusp of breaking out to the bigger time. They opened for Bon Jovi in Chicago last winter.
They are a hard rock band, but not heavy metal. They have a great lead female singer with the raspy voice I like, a bass player with an excellent voice too, and above-average guitar players and drummer. They played Summer Nights in Rapid City a couple days prior and were headed to Sturgis to play a few gigs at the Rally. This was a nice schedule-filler for them, and they’d played in Wall the previous year.
They rocked the rodeo grounds in Wall. Unfortunately, not many people were there to hear them. I don’t know if they get paid a flat rate or a percentage of the gate, or both, but either way, if people want them back, they need to support those kind of acts.
Sure, everybody (but me) seems to want to attend Garth Brooks concerts. But Garth didn’t get to be Garth by people not supporting him when he was a no-name.
The concert was 10 bucks ahead of time or 15 at the gate. Sure, it might not have been your stereotypical western South Dakota, rodeo grounds type of music. But what the heck else was there to do within a 30 mile radius of Wall that night?
More people need to attend those things so: A, that band will come back again; or B, the event is successful enough so they will continue to bring other bands every year.
Then, a few nights later a friend of mine was among a small crowd who attended the Casey Donahew Band in Sioux Falls. I’ve been to two CDB concerts in Rapid City and Sturgis. Both pretty well attended. Not sure why they didn’t draw better East River.
CDB is a big deal in the Red Dirt Texas sound. They tour up into Canada. They too are on the cusp, if not closer, to the big-time than 35th and Taylor.
If you want to help young bands, attend their concerts, buy a CD for 15 bucks. Even if it’s not quite your brand of music, one ticket and one CD will mean more to those acts than a pair of $80 tickets to hear some aging rock band on a reunion tour. And there’s no reason not to support both.
I love local bands. They have character and characters and are hidden jewels of talent. Our favorites include Crash Wagon, Tie Dye Volcano and Pumpin’ Ethyl. Hardly household names outside of their areas. But they put themselves out there for you; put yourself out there for them.
So that thought then led me to a similar argument for buying books and supporting little-known authors (you know there had to be a self-serving component somewhere here, right?).
Again, whether it’s me or any other no-name author or retiree writing his memoir of life on the Plains or his time serving in the military. Buy a dang book. Or spend 99 cents for a Kindle version. James Patterson isn’t going to feel like you are cheating on him and it will mean more for that young, or not-so-young, author. Worse case scenario, you are out a couple bucks and couple nights’ reading time. Best case scenario, you enjoy the book and made the author’s day. Then, take two minutes and leave a short review on line. It will encourage that writer to write more and get better at what he or she does.
And shop your local book stores! Sure, I buy books on Amazon and at Barnes & Noble every time I go to Sioux Falls. But I buy just as many books at the two used book stores in Rapid City and the book store in Wall.
If you want those places around, it’s not like you have to drop 100 bucks. Buy a $5 book and be on your way. It’ll make the owner’s day. And come back the next month.
I compare all that to when I owned a weekly newspaper. Every $20 ad I sold, I appreciated immensely. A $40 or $75 ad made my day. It also made the electricity payment for the month. When you don’t buy an ad or a subscription, you don’t have a local weekly paper anymore. Then the beauty salon and local bar have one less (very valuable) place to promote their business. Then they close too. When the newspaper is gone, the post office won’t be far behind, because odds are the newspaper is the biggest mailer in town and post office’s get judged by the quantity of mail they deliver. When the post office closes, the town won’t be far behind.
So support the little guys now. Then someday they may be the big guys whose next appearance you wait in line to see.
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