Three Days of St. Augustine

Last time we wrote a note we were in St. Augustine. We are now in Clover, SC hanging out with family since we had a couple days off. We sometimes find it hard to have a safe, comfortable place to stay while on tour but luckily close friends, family and sometimes strangers come in to lend a hand and we are always eternally grateful for this. So we would like to take this moment to say thanks to the people who have helped us out thus far. You all mean the world to us! Now, to give you how our journey has gone and how it has brought us to Clover, SC.

We ended up staying in St. Augustine for a total of three days. If you recall we played Planet Sarbez the first night we were there. A good friend in a band called the Cosmic Groove put us up while we were there. July 6th we went south a bit to Daytona. Smooth ride with no complaints. We were hit up the day before by one of the members of EC's Pickle Liquid to see if they could open up for us at Tir Na Nog which they said was their home town haunt. Of course we said yes. We much prefer playing with other bands rather than by ourselves. We get to the venue and start talking to the staff. The bar tender wasn't aware of our show. This put us off a little but chalked it up to either him not checking the schedule or that it really just didn't concern him since he clocked out at a certain time. A couple hours later another dude came in and again he wasn't aware of us being booked. He said they were planning on having open jam like they do every Wednesday but it wasn't uncommon for the guy who ran their booking to book a band and not tell anyone. Regardless of the miscommunication we did play and EC's Pickle Liquid opened up for us.

The up side to playing their open jam night is that a lot of the local musicians came in anticipation. Even though they didn't get to play like they had planned they stuck around. Tir Na Nog has one of those rooms where the stage is kind of cut off from the rest of the bar so it's a hit or miss on who decides to pay attention. We managed to get some of crowds attention. All in all it turned out well. We packed up, thanked everyone, got our pay and went to crash in St. Augustine.

The next day we were trying to set up a last minute show some where. While we were waiting on responses from our contacts there we ventured around the old city in the U.S. There really isn't a lot to do if you don't have much money but we were able to walk around and visit some of the sites including a couple of their cemeteries. As the day started to dwindle we decided to busk. For those who aren't sure what busking is it is basically playing on the street for tips. We always try to look up the laws or rules concerning this since every city or state is different and some do not allow busking at all. In St. Augustine busking is allowed as long as your positioned at least 50 ft away from the major walk ways. We set up in park. It wasn't the best place but we managed to scrape together about $20. After playing a couple hours we decided it was time to go. We went back to our make shift base and prepared to leave for GA the following morning.

St. Augustine and the people we have met there has always been great to us. We look forward to returning for more good times and memories. More stories are to come so keep and eye out and thanks for taking a gander!

Swamp Rats