For the second vehicle, he settled on an eight passenger Nissan Quest. It offered gas mileage equal to the Sprinter, and it had a little more giddy up to it, since it was powered by a 3.3 liter V6 gas engine. It could handle the other members of the group along with their traveling gear. The plan was that the support musicians would go to the performance venue several hours early and get the lay of the land. Jake and Brandee would arrive a little later, in a more leisurely fashion. They would be bringing the equipment that hadn't fit in the Nissan.
Jake realized, though he never said it aloud to his wife, that there was a chance that one of these vehicles might end up sitting in front of the couple's Maxwell Street home, unused. They had a group. They had 2 vehicles to carry the group. So far, though, they didn't have anywhere to go.
That wasn't for lack of Brandee's trying, though. She was tireless on the phone, asking, negotiating, begging, cajoling, and flirting when necessary, in an effort to find a place to perform. Finally, just when her hope was beginning to flag, she hit pay dirt.
She discovered a performance venue in Ukiah, California, just 2 hours down Highway 101 from Fortuna. It was called The Mix. On the grounds of an abandoned ranch, it was a newly built property. Seating capacity was only about 175, but that was certainly okay with Brandee. She would have been happy if twenty people showed up willing to pay to hear her sing. This was a start.
The manager of The Mix was a man named Jason Kingsbury. He had an open spot on the calendar for October 8th. Brandee would be performing after a local rapper named Doctor Enn and before Nora Denice and Lizzie, a metal group from Santa Rosa. Jason told Brandee that she would be on at about 8:30 and she was welcome to a 35 minute set. Brandee was eagerly agreeing in her mind the whole time but she knew that it wouldn't do to say yes to just anything. She negotiated price where she could but as new as she was, there wasn't a lot of leverage to be had. After just a few more minutes, Brandee Evans and Jason Kingsbury had come to a verbal agreement over the phone. Jason arranged to fax the contract to Brandee for her signature. Brandee hung up the phone and did a happy dance in her kitchen. After a long and loud “FUUUUCK YEAHHHHH!”, Brandee called Jake with the news. Her career had found its starting gate.
That first gig was a memorable one. First, the Nissan overheated on the way to Ukiah. Diane was driving so Suzi and Bruce could cuddle in the middle seat. The temperature gauge drifted up toward the red and Diane spotted it as soon as it happened. She popped the hood and saw that the problem was minor. The seal on the radiator cap had a tiny crack in it. She let the van cool down and added some water. She made a mental note to tell Jake about this before they went on the road again.
The second thing that happened in Ukiah was completely unavoidable: it rained hard early in the evening and tapered off towards the end. Brandee hadn't even thought to ask whether the venue was outdoor or not. It was. Doctor Enn and Brandee both had their sets cut back by about ten minutes. Nora Denice and Lizzie, as the closing act, were given their heads as far as when to quit, so they went on, rocking into the misty night. By that time, Brandee (as their entire group was called) were well on their way home.
***
Jake drove up Highway 101 with his sleeping wife's head on his shoulder. She slept with an angelic smile on her face. It always amazed him to see her sleep. He used to ask her how the face of an angel could swear like a sailor.
“I sure as shit don't know," she would say, but her smile would take the sting of her words away.
He was content as he drove the lonely dark highway. He figured he could wait a couple of days to tell her that they had lost $250 on the gig.
***
That conversation took place a few days later. The cost of paying and feeding the musicians, fuel for the vehicles, insurance on the equipment, and performance attire for Brandee had come to $1250, not counting the new radiator cap for the Nissan. The insurance, of course, could be factored in over the course of the full year. The other items, though, were going to be recurring expenses. The $1000 that they were paid by Jason Kingsbury had sounded like a lot of money at the time, and they were thrilled to get it. Jake had known that they would have a hard time making any kind of a profit at first. He came upon a plan during the drive home, which he presented to Brandee.
“Honey, I have an idea to make some more money. The other 2 groups had CDs to sell at The Mix. Did you notice that?”
“Actually, I didn't. How much were they selling for?” she asked.
“They weren't expensive. Doctor Enn was selling his for $5 to $7 apiece. Nora Denice and Lizzie's were priced at about $9. Pretty good prices for CDs”
Brandee quickly saw what Jake had in mind.
“If we self-produce a CD, we could sell it at our performances. Is that what your mind is wrapped around?”
He smiled, “I’m thinking bigger than that. I'm thinking that we should have some gear made up. We can offer hats, tee shirts, that kind of thing. We could help the bottom line and get a little free publicity at the same time. We can get the name Brandee out in front of people.”
“Brandeegear. I like how that sounds.”
Jake said, “You see if you can book some studio time. Then start thinking about what you would like on shirts and hats. Key chains too, I think.”
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
“Put a cool cloth on the MasterCard”, he said. “I think it's about to heat up again.”
***
Brandee booked some time for the group at Redwood Coast Recording Studio just north of Eureka. Diane, Suzi, and Bruce were quickly on board with the project. Everyone felt this was a good next step in the birth of, as Bruce called it, “The Brandee Brand.”
Back in the day, when recording equipment was all analog, the equipment was large and heavy and hard to move and store. The digital age had changed all of that. Brandee was able to get 5 songs on a CD, have it engineered by a freelance engineer and then sent to a master engineer, all for about $500. It would be delivered and in about three months and included studio time. The Redwood Coast studio let them have time for $65 an hour. So, 95 days (and $1700) after the Ukiah roll out of “Brandee”, they had a CD ready to sell when they performed.
Their next public performance was in Crescent City at the Harbor View Grotto. Brandee performed first that rainy mid-January night. A rhythm and bluesy male singer named Hugo Josheball was the headliner.
The more intimate setting of the Harbor View caused Brandee to somewhat alter the set that the group played that night. She instinctively felt that the night called for some of her slower ballads and, what Jake called, “tear pump” songs. Her only concern was that she would too closely duplicate in style what Hugo Josheball was playing.
She needn't have worried. Her plaintive wail, in front of Bruce's keyboard artistry, brought the attendees of the small coastal community on board completely.. When Brandee sang “Tear Stained”, there were few dry eyes in the house. When she followed that with one of the few fast numbers of her set, “Honky Tonk Broad”, the crowd rose to its collective feet. Brandee was a hit in Crescent City.
They had brought 200 CDs with them that night. Since the Harbor View only seated 175, they figured that would be plenty. They were wrong. They sold all of the CDs at $5 apiece and took orders for 77 more.
It was almost 10:30 before the two-vehicle caravan headed back home. They had been delayed at the Harbor View so the members of Brandee could autograph the CD covers. Brandee herself had a line 8 deep at one point waiting for her neatly penned Brandee Evans. She wasn't the only one to draw a crowd though. The ladies of the harbor community of Crescent City couldn't get enough of Bruce Jackson. Women in their late teens and early middle age converged on the roughhewn keyboard artist. Suzi kept a watchful eye on the proceedings. It was fine, she thought, to be popular. Just not too popular.
Brandee and Jake couldn't stop smiling on the way back to Humboldt County. They had been paid $750 for the performance. The $1385 that they received f
or the CD sales brought their total take for the night to $2115. The trip to Crescent City wasn't quite as far as the trip to Ukiah had been, so Jake's rough estimate was that the group had profited a little over $900. He planned to suggest to Brandee that they celebrate their first profitable venture by giving each of the band members a $100 bonus. He was sure that she wouldn't mind.
Brandee smiled to herself as the Sprinter climbed slowly into the mountainous region just south of Crescent City. As they were enfolded by the darkness of the redwood forest, her mind was far from the bottom line on the ledger. It was far from visions of how much they could make when the gear that they had ordered was ready. Brandee's mind’s eye was filled with the words, “I'm going to be a star.”
Brandee played two more times before scheduling a tour that was to begin in Chico. They played in Weaverville at the Trinity Alps Performing Arts Center, and one more time at the Harbor View Grotto. The manager of the Harbor View asked if he could book them as a monthly attraction, but by that time, the blonde sensation had bigger things in mind. She and Jake had begun discussing an abbreviated concert tour, with an eye to getting noticed, finally and at last, by a label.
The Brandeegear had been rolled out in concert with the regional notoriety that the group was beginning to garner. The Crescent City Times-Standard had written a glowing review of Brandee's second performance in town. Eureka's paper, The Beacon-Gazette, had written a background piece on the group as well as a five-star review of the group's performance in Weaverville. Brandee was riding a high, borne of crowd response and her own natural belief in her talent. They could, she believed, finance a short tour with performance fees and gear sales. They could, she told herself, and they would.
***
As Jake guided the Sprinter off Highway 36, his eye on the mermaid logo of Starbucks, he remembered the path that had brought him to this point. He and Brandee had come a long way in a relatively short amount of time. He was helping her follow her dream. He reminded himself to call ahead to see if the rest of the group had arrived safely in Chico.
***
Jake had gotten really close to the other members of the group. He appreciated the easy camaraderie that the three had developed among themselves. Three can be an awkward number, but the members of the group got along well. Diane had an easy rapport with both Suzi and Bruce. She could tease Bruce about his somewhat unkempt appearance and interesting choice of stage attire without ever ruffling the sometimes jealous nature that Suzi displayed. Bruce gave as good he got from Diane while still keeping Suzi happy.
Suzi herself looked at Diane as a kind of older sister. She had been raised in a house of brothers and hadn't ever had a particularly close female friend. Suzi had always been most comfortable beating the brains out of the local boys in the pickup baseball games that sprang up in her neighborhood.
She was amazed that Diane could change the oil in the Nissan in the afternoon and dress in black spaghetti straps that evening for a “gentleman caller” as Diane primly put it, followed by a laugh. Brandee Evans never was all that close with the other members of the group. She was a perfectionist and could get a little cranky with the group during rehearsal. She learned fairly quickly that Diane wasn't going to take any crap from her though.
One memorable late evening, after a rehearsal that had gone on for over 4 hours, Brandee walked over to the drum kit, tapped the hi hat, and asked in a loud tone of voice for Diane to “Wake it up, some fucking time!”
Diane walked around the kit to talk to Brandee so she could hear her, a distance Diane apparently felt needed to be one inch from the lead singer's nose.
“Touch my piece again girlie, and I'll rain terror down on your head. You got that?”
Brandee raised her voice again, on occasion, to Diane, but always kept her hands clear of the drum kit.
Jake secretly liked it when the other musicians talked back to Brandee. He loved his lady unreservedly. He also knew that she could get bossy and autocratic with the people who played behind her on stage. He hoped that the group had gotten the kinks out before leaving on this tour. They were, so far, an obscure little operation from a place almost no one had ever heard about. Brandee's only introduction was a hastily submitted version of “Honky Tonk Broad” that she had put on YouTube, followed by a quick recitation by Jake about where this tour was taking them.
The tour's first stop was to be in Chico at the 300-seat Big Room. It was to continue at The Western Folklife Center in Elko, Nevada, followed by the short drive to Salt Lake City where they would appear at the USANA Amphitheater. After a day of rest, they would next appear at The University of Wyoming's Arena Auditorium in Laramie before turning around and returning west.
The return trip would include stops in Grand Junction, Colorado, Jackpot and Winnemucca, Nevada, and California’s Napa Valley. The final leg of the trip would be a run through some of the County Fairs along the way north. It would begin with what they hoped to be a triumphant return to Crescent City to play at The Del Norte County Fair, and the Lane County Fair in Eugene, Oregon before concluding at The Freedom Fair in Tacoma, Washington. It was an ambitious venture, and it was just now beginning.
***
Jake, caramel macchiato in hand, took his sunglasses out of their holder on the visor. The rain of California's North Coast now but a memory, he steered the Sprinter back on the long road east.
Love in the Afternoon
The musicians had arrived in Chico at about 11:45 AM. They were just finishing the Chinese takeout they had ordered for lunch when Jake and Brandee arrived at the venue. Suzi had been craving dimsum the whole way and Bruce waited at Hunan's until they opened their doors so she could satisfy the craving. Full and happy, the 3 musicians were ready to take on what Chico would offer.
The Big Room seated about 250 people. Nearly 200 were seated on the main floor and there was a small balcony that seated about 60. Brandee was used to that kind of layout. It was similar to The Trinity Alps setup in Weaverville. There was something different about The Big Room though. It was going to be different for Brandee herself. It had to do with her spatial relationship to her audience.
There was almost no stage to speak of. It had a riser that lifted the performer about 6 inches above the main floor. This meant that Brandee was going to be free to mingle amongst the crowd as she sang. She was looking forward to the new experience.
The other members of the group weren't quite so sure. They knew that Brandee was prone to make changes on the fly during her performances. Sometimes it was something as small as a key change. She would look back at the musicians and raise her eyebrows a little, and the musicians would know what she wanted them to do next. The communication that they had developed on stage was almost uncanny for the short time that the group had been together. Now, if Brandee was going to be wandering around among the paying customers, the others wondered from whence their cues would come. The easy euphoria they had felt when they had been enjoying lunch was replaced by a small worry.
Truth be told, the musicians all considered Brandee a bit of a loose cannon. It wasn't only the fits of temper that she displayed during rehearsals. Occasionally, after meticulously laying out the contents of the set that they were going to perform, Brandee would change big parts of the set on stage on the spur of the moment, leaving the musicians to try and catch up. It had happened during their second performance in Crescent City. The first time there, they had played mostly slow ballads. For their second performance, they had rehearsed some different material, but it had contained the same general rhythmic style. Brandee changed up on them midstream. She switched into fast moving, foot-stomping mode. Only the skill of her group prevented a performance hiccup.
“I was feeling the vibe of the room, so I went for it,” was all that she could say when questioned about it later.
The rest of the group hoped that, if she wandered around the room feeling the vibe, she would communicate it to the people that were paid to help her sound good.
; The group set up their equipment, checked the sound, and rehearsed for about 45 minutes. They had to damp down the sound to keep the acoustics of the room from making the sound too bright. That would enhance the richness of the product. Brandee was in good shape and wanted to keep it that way, so she went to their hotel, The Californian, ahead of the others. There she would engage in her usual pre-show ritual.
She liked to take a power nap before she sang. She had learned from her naps in the car - if she slept for over an hour, she was a little sluggish on stage. That's why she kept her naps to a strict 30 minutes, and always with a cool compress over her eyes. That combination seemed particularly refreshing for her.
Then she would drink two 20-ounce bottles of iced sparkling water, one after the other. She found this refreshing also, but she did this partially to give her skin the glow that she wanted it to have. She was blessed to be able to perform without much makeup, even under the harsh stage lights. She mentally thanked Debra for the genetics that made that happen, as well as the good folks at Purestream, who made her favorite brand of sparkling water.
FAME and GLORY Page 4