It was also a pretty economically shaky tour. Before we left town we did another hundreds of dollars worth of work on the car. CV boots and tie rods were in bad shape. If we drove em til they failed we'd likely be stranded, or that shit would seize up the steering while moving 70 MPH.
We split those repair costs between us personally and the theatre company and got a promise from the new shop (who come highly recommended as honest people who don't tell you that only $500 worth of work is needed when they know full well that another $2000 is, like those other fuckers who screwed us over in the past). If they're wrong, we're scraping this heap and investing in something more reliable and a manual on how to fix cars ourselves. Maybe even something that runs on veggie oil.
Ignoring those car costs, here's how the tour went economically:
The best shows were in Florida, which is why we booked the tour in the first place. Unfortunately, we had a handful of prospective shows on our way down fall apart and one show on our way back (Atlanta) fail to gather any audience. That was a sketchy show, a non-profit with three people on staff to work a show they clearly didn't promote at all. There's something fishy about that.
Also, we started almost $100 negative with our totally insane trip to NYC for the Ides of March show (but that was also fun!). Better planning (psychic powers) woulda had us go there, then south to Florida along the coast and back up through Knoxville. But then we woulda missed Springsgiving, which was definitely worth driving home for.
Anyway, focusing on the positive: we visited two more great cities in Tennessee, met new people and helped fight the overzealous cops of Gainesville, got to hang out with Saara and Eric again, played with great hardcore bands in Sarasota and folk singers in Miami, saw lots of weird dangerous Florida nature, met great folks in Lake Worth, visited pals in St Augustine (though we couldn't get a show there) played in ocean waves, got to perform for our friends at the Patchwork house in Louisville and stayed up late talking politics there and at 64 King.
NEXT! We're currently booking a nice long July Tour with Peter J Woods (and taking his van, the USS Gerald Holiday). Going west with the show, playing mostly noise concerts, before we retire Ulysses' and move on to something new (but we'll keep it around for special occasions). We might also get a couple performances at The People's Summit or the US Social Forum in June.
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