All Stoked Out (Day 3)

I can’t believe Friday is tomorrow. It seems like only yesterday that Big G and I started planning this little party, and already its upon us.

We’ve come a long, long, long way from where we were just six months ago, and even further from where we were a year ago. It’s crazy to imagine what i’ll be saying next year this time, or even five years down the line.

We had our first major rehearsal last night. Big G was at ToC all day yesterday doing sound checks and playing with the system. I had to work yesterday afternoon, but as soon as I got off I headed home to feed my pets and then right back out the door to Downtown.

Da Golden Child, DotCom, Prime Status, and some of PKT’s crew showed up around 9-10pm and went through a dry rehearsal. Music full blast, four wireless mics on stage and several performances later, we were jumping up and down in excitement on how BIG this show is gonna be. There are NO weak links in this group, I can safely say that. Everyone is bringing their “A” game and we couldn’t be happier.

DJ Kutz even showed up to check the club out and see what we were doing with it. He liked the club and had a few good suggestions to take into account, but overall he was impressed. We got a bomb dropped in our lap yesterday afternoon by the owner of the club. Nothing terrible, but basically he told us we were responsible for the upstairs ToC Lounge (ToC bar consists of three clubs: the main bar, ToC Lounge, and ToC Underground which is where our show will be.) Now normally we would be happy about this, but we are already shorthanded for the show as it is, let alone have another DJ to take care of that room.

Well our boy DJ Kutz stepped up to the plate and offered to DJ it for us. This is MAJOR, because DJ Kutz, not only being the badass that he already is, usually goes for $1200 a night at most clubs, and he’s doing our show for free. Well, not exactly free, but close. His only stipulation was that we put two of his artists up on stage at the beginning to do a few songs, and that’s it. We heard a song by both of the artists (Bird and Surreal) and both of them are extremely talented, so it will only add that much power to the show that is already about to overload.

I showed the website to Ian (ToC’s owner), and he loved it. He said I had accomplished exactly what he wanted, which was simple and to the point. No flashy distracting graphics or unecessary animations, etc. He had a few suggestions for changes, but nothing that would take very long. He cut me a check for a majority of it, and said he’d pay me the rest upon completion. I’m just glad I got paid at all, honestly. I had $3 in my bank account and an empty tank of gas, so I got extremely lucky.

Today I’m back at work, but I have tomorrow off (obviously) and Monday for recovery so I’m looking forward to the time off. I had originally wanted to take the entire week off, but due to my boss being shipped off to the middle east next week I had to stay to help cover the help line.

Our first out of state artist is coming in today, Motion. The club is closed tonight but they are going to let us in to do rehearsals which starts around 7pm. I’m looking forward to meeting Motion and seeing him perform. Then tomorrow is a huge day. I have to pick up another artist at Hobby Airport and then go straight to the club to do our first major rehearsal with everybody there. Then about 9 hours later we go live with the very first ALL SMOKED OUT show.

I’ll try to throw up a post tomorrow afternoon if I get some down time. Until then!