As promised, we are experimenting with a shorter check-in style email this week, but will return to our normal long-form Newsletter next week... with hopes of alternating these two formats moving forward. Let us know if you dig this approach.
Three Quick Things
BR Newsletter Archive: We now have a designated BR Newsletter page at www.bobbyrock.com that features a complete table of contents-style archive of all of our issues. If you haven’t already, just create a name/email/password account on the site—only takes a minute—and you can access any issue, any time. (Part of our “Membership has its privileges” mantra…). We’re only eight issues in so far, but I think we are already amassing a pretty good collection of “content” here. Scope it!
Preview Corner: In next week’s Newsletter #9, I will be featuring another excerpt from my upcoming book, Will Drum For Food. This excerpt describes a life-changing high school talent show performance that would give birth to something known as “the rat crawl,” and go on to indirectly fuel so many of my later pursuits in music. Here’s a short, mid-story preview of the long-form excerpt next week:
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Once our gear was set up, we had about two minutes to get “in position.” This entailed the three of us—me, guitarist Glenn Jacobs and bassist Maury Millican—jogging out of the backstage area and through the choir room, then around to the front entrance of the auditorium, where we would wait for our final cue just outside the double-doors. This was to be the ultimate “grand entrance."
The curtains were still closed from our hasty set-up. But as soon as the act before us finished up and our intro music kicked in, the curtains slowly began to open, revealing a wash of moody blue lighting, along with our drums and amps spread across the width of the stage. Clearly, it was time to rock. The audience erupted.
While everyone was transfixed on the stage, waiting for us to walk out and play, the rear doors opened and the three of us stepped in and began our slow, dramatic walk to the stage… from the back of the hall. This moment, I will never forget. I was standing front and center, flanked by Glenn and Maury, as the ominous sound of Black Sabbath’s “Supertzar” reverberated through the auditorium. That same arena-crushing Tony Iommi guitar sound that had anchored the Volume IV album which had inspired me to play drums, was now accompanying the English Chamber Choir on this track, giving our entrance this Ben Hur meets The Ten Commandments sort of epic grandiosity.
At first, only a few kids in the last couple rows saw us entering from the back. They jumped up from their seats and began yelling and screaming. And by the time we worked our way over to the last row of the middle aisle and began our calculated strut down the center of the auditorium, the rest of the audience had figured out we were making a back-of-the-hall entrance and was now on their feet and facing in our direction, absolutely losing their shit. The roar of the crowd washed over us like a tsunami. And so began one of the most exhilarating and orgasmic thirty-second stretches of time in my young life. It was as if all of those hours in the practice room—the effort, sacrifice, sweat, frustration, broken blisters, and burning muscles—were all validated in a single moment. This moment. And we hadn’t even played a note yet!
(Continues...)
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Dirt Report: We are now officially three months into our 1-1-21 launch of Dragon Dirt, my brand new custom blend superfood powder. Many thanks to all of our early supporters! It’s been great. We are growing slow and steady each month… which is just how I like it. Although folks are constantly suggesting things we can do to “grow faster,” I’m not interested. For now, I like the organic pace of growth we’re building on and the steady increase in return customers. And I really like that I can oversee every aspect of our process, be a (quality) control freak, and do what I gotta do to produce what I feel is the best superfood powder in the world… without the cumbersome protocols “the big guys” have to deal with. Find out more about the dirt here.
