Halloween at Harpo’s in Columbia.
Oct 29, 2009 Randomness
Come by for some tricks & treats friends. The show starts round 9:30.
Homecoming was awesome, and I got to punch a guy in the face.
Oct 27, 2009 Randomness
Thanks to everybody who came out to Fieldhouse last weekend. It’s always fun seeing people from all different era’s hanging together after Mizzou got it’s ass handed to them by Texas. Watching that game reminded me of my time in college at Mizzou. Any of you who were there with me in the mid-late 90′s know that football was just an excuse to drink in a parking lot for two hours and then go downtown and continue drinking at half-time. These kids today, they actually have a team to get excited about….most of the time.
Anyway the night was fun because it was a. Homecoming and b. Fieldhouse. Those are two guarantee-ers of fun. So the show was pretty normally awesome until I got to punch a guy in the face. That’s right, shit officially “got real, yo” last Saturday night, here’s what happened:
So I’m playing “Crazy game of Poker” for the 13,465th time in my life at my show, because people love it, what can I tell you, I’m here for you all people, but I digress. There’s a nice crowd dancing, singing doing the usual thing when 1 guy out of the over 1000 people in the place decides he needs to get on mic. Fantastic. He gets on stage and tries to swing the mic around to his face. First of all, microphones are like little germ magnets, I buy new little covers every 3 or 4 months, AND I’M THE ONLY PERSON USING THE MIC!….. plus, I hate when people grab my shit, it’s infuriating. The first time, I tell him no, and give him a little nudge to send him off the stage, because I’m a nice guy.
Now it’s also important to realize that Fieldhouse has one of the best (if not the best) staff’s in the bar business, I’m friends with most of the bartenders/managers/waitress/doorguys, and normally when they’re not so busy, they would’ve taken care of this guy immediately, but it was Homecoming and everyone was being pulled in several directions.
Alright, so now the guy comes back for a second grab. He’s obviously quite intoxicated, which he should, be it’s about 11:00 on Homecoming night, but after I push him away he comes back for the 3rd grab and that’s it, now I’ve got to call him out.
Remember when I told you the song I was playing? I think that’s a large part of what makes this story enjoyable. I’m at the last, slower half of the song, and I’ve layed down a pretty sweet reggae flavored loop. I decide to loop my self singing “this guys the biggest douchebag in the bar tonight, the biggest douchebag”…..and I layer harmonies on top of it. The crowd starts singing along with the loop and I’m happy. It’s funny.
Douchebag, which is how I will refer to this kid from now on, however, does not find this loop enjoyable, or amusing. He decides to shake up his beer and spray me with it, like we just won the effin world series. Now the line has been crossed, and I say something to the effect of, now, you’ve got to go, I call out to my buddies at the bar to send a door guy over to kindly escort Douchebag out to the street.
What does he do? He says, “Where’s your door guy now” and punches my mic stand, which goes directly into my teeth. OUCH! It’s important for me to note here, that I’ve been making a living playing music in situations like this for almost 14 years, and I’ve never, ever, had a physical confrontation with anyone. That being said, it was time for me to make a little history. I think I surprised him when I swung my guitar around my back and landed a beautiful “jump punch” right below his left eye. See, I was completely sober, and I had about 200 lbs and momentum (because I was jumping off of the stage) on my side. He did not see that coming. This is what he looked like:
It’s also important to note that the light funky reggae loop continued while all of this happened. I love it. I might or might not have gotten a couple more shots in before Douchebag was kindly, safely, and cautiously 
escorted out of the bar by the aforementioned fantastic staff. I got back on stage and finished the song, because I’m an effing pro. I’m not a violent person at all, but I gotta say, that felt fantastic, I had the rage of 150 “nickelback” requests fueling that punch that’s been building up over the years, so for that I say thank you Douchebag, thank you. I also have to recommend watching the 50 Cent “Behind the Music” episode that just recently aired on VH1. It was awesome, and I think that Fitty would’ve been proud of me. Because in the words of one of the guys complimenting me at the end of the night, “Your music was tight yo, and you don’t take no shit from nobody.” Tru Dat Homie, tru dat.
escorted out of the bar by the aforementioned fantastic staff. I got back on stage and finished the song, because I’m an effing pro. I’m not a violent person at all, but I gotta say, that felt fantastic, I had the rage of 150 “nickelback” requests fueling that punch that’s been building up over the years, so for that I say thank you Douchebag, thank you. I also have to recommend watching the 50 Cent “Behind the Music” episode that just recently aired on VH1. It was awesome, and I think that Fitty would’ve been proud of me. Because in the words of one of the guys complimenting me at the end of the night, “Your music was tight yo, and you don’t take no shit from nobody.” Tru Dat Homie, tru dat. In closing, thanks to the brothers Haggerty, Lemke, Kraft, Brad Roeneicke, and The entire Fieldouse staff for having my back, and thanks to you for reading this story, hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Word to your moms.
The van is back baby!
Oct 24, 2009 Randomness
Just in time for the trip to Columbia, I got my sweet Honda back. Here’s the conclusion to that little adventure: (Turn the annotations on by selectin “turn on annotations” after clicking the triangle on the bottom right of the video)
A Saturday night off, a deer killed my car and I got a snuggie for my smallest pooch.
Oct 17, 2009 Randomness
So it’s cold here tonight, about 37 degrees to be exact, therefore my outdoor show at Bengals in Columbia was cancelled. I was kind of bummed, but also kind of excited to spend a Saturday night with my wife. Very nice. We’re boring so we went out to run a few errands and then were heading back to the house to catch up on some Tivo and turn in early, yes, I am such a rockstar.
Unfortunately on my way home from Overland Park I was driving about 63 miles per hour when a full grown, big ass deer decided to cross 150 highway without yielding to oncoming traffic. What a dick. Anybody who is familiar with 150 highway knows it’s a scary as hell 2 lane highway full of hills and blindspots. So I hit this bohemath and was forced into the oncoming lane…..over a hill. Perfect. My wife, the animal lover, is crying hysterically, I’m trying like hell to get the Odyssey back to my side of the lane before a Semi would have to hose me off of his grill the way I’m going to have to hose the deer off of mine. I’m such an idiot. I hit this thing, as I mentioned before doing roughly 63 mph, and I calmed my wife down by saying, I think the front of the van is fine, we just need to find a car wash. So I pulled into the gas station and slowed down, the engine made a weird noise, like playing cards in a bicycle tire from the olden days. So I got out to survey the damage and lookeee what I saw:
It’s going to need more than a hose. Shit. Looks like I’ll be calling my friendly Shelter Insurance agent first thing Monday morning. Luckily the van was drive-able, so I made it home and plan to be in bed by 10:00, and most importantly the snuggie that we got for our little dog Lucy fit perfectly and she loved it.
See, we found her 18 months ago at a gas station where she had been dumped, by some bag of douche. Now she’s living the dream people, snuggie and all. Sweet dreams, and c’mon deer season. Oh, and go Mizzou. Nighty night.
New website & a new FREE download!
Oct 13, 2009 General Updates, Randomness
First & Foremost, let me thank you for coming by to check out the new & improved rpimusic.com! Here’s a new version of a song that I wrote way back in the nineties with the band I was in in college called “Timmy Likes to Fish.” This song is called “Under the Tree.” I’m excited about this because this is the first song that I’ve completed from start to finish all by myself. I played all of the instruments, except for the drums, which I programmed, engineered, recorded, mixed and mastered the entire track in my home studio. The only thing I didn’t do was sing the female vocal part….obviously! That is Janna Hostetler, thanks so much to Janna, and my good friend, her boyfriend, Rick Unruh for taking the time to record her fine part.
Right Click here and “save target as” to download the mp3 of “Under the Tree.” for free, or listen to it here:
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Please take a few minutes to look around the new site. I can’t believe it’s been 2 whole years since I released “Falling & Flying.” Wow, time flies. There are mp3′s for download, videos to watch a new bio etc….
I switched my website to a “WordPress” format. That means that this website was built on one of the most popular blogging software on the planet, and here’s why I did it. Way back in the day, like two years ago, it seemed to me that the most important thing a website could be was “Flash-e”. Like the pun there? I wanted a website with moving parts and music just like everybody else, and I liked that site a lot, I was proud of it then and I’m proud of it now. But times change, and they are changing extremely fast, especially in the world of social networking & internet marketing. As an independent musician/producer I rely solely on the power of “word of mouth” and internet marketing. The blog format suits what I’m doing perfectly. This is a no bones format where it’s easy for me to upload blogs like this one, as well as video, and audio. It also allows me to make my posts easily and readily available to be shared on the web using twitter, facebook, digg….etc. It also makes my site completely easy to read and navigate on your Iphone, blackberry or whatever.
So here’s the deal. I’ll be updating this site frequently sometimes with random thoughts, sometimes with video blogs, sometimes with new songs to download. What i’ll ask of you is to pass it on. If you have friends that might dig what I’m doing or saying please tell them about me, that would be awesome. I’m looking forward to sharing this adventure with you on a more regular and steady basis.
