Rule Number One: Always Bring A Towel

When I tell people that I used to play music for a living, the response is usually something like, "that must have been fun" or "I wish I could have done that." And, certainly, there is a romance attached to the idea of the travelling musician. What is rarely brought up is where travelling musicians stay while travelling.

When I was on the road, band accommodations varied from relative luxury, especially if playing a hotel like the Banff Springs, to downright dirty and disgusting. Unfortunately, the latter is more prevalent than the former and was usually the result of the club providing a so-called "band house" instead of paying for hotel rooms. When we played a hotel tavern, rooms were provided in the hotel and unless the hotel was more then fifty years old, the rooms were generally livable. The newer the hotel, the more comfortable the accommodations.

Band houses, on the other hand, were something different. The club would rent a house or duplex, furnish it with the most basic items, and effectively isolate the band from the venue until gig time. Sometimes band houses were clean, most times they were sort of clean, and every so often they should have been condemned. Band houses by their very nature, are subject to various forms of abuse, given that each week there is a new group of musicians in the house. Some are more considerate than others and alcohol does a lot to help with the redecorating.

One of the worst was the band house provided by the Wild West nightclub in Edmonton, Alberta. It was a townhouse not far from the club, almost walking distance. The broken chair in the front yard, overgrown lawn, and badly needed paint job were the best things about the place. The front door locked, the back door had been kicked in at some point (probably because some idiot musician forgot the key inside) and was nailed shut with a two-by-four. There were bags of garbage piled up against the door, presumably because it was too much trouble to take the garbage out. The kitchen floor was so dirty that a path had been worn clean where people walked the most. The "couch" was broken hide-a-bed that was ridiculously uncomfortable to sit on. A small saving grace was that the television worked and had cable. The beds were suspicious and looked as if the sheets had not been changed in ages. I slept top of the sheets for the entire week. The bathroom ... I showered wearing sandals. Halfway through the week I was told by the owner that he paid for a cleaning service that was supposed to clean the house on Sundays, after the previous band had left and before the new band arrived. I delicately informed him that he was wasting his money, to which he seemed unconcerned.

The Westlander Hotel in Medicine Hat, Alberta had a curious arrangement. It was a large hotel that had all the entertainment you could want. Downstairs was a rock band, upstairs was a country band, in the daytime there were strippers, and a duo played in the lounge. Most hotels sequestered the entertainers as far away from paying customers as possible. The Westlander decided having the entertainers closer to the lobby and front desk would enable them to keep a better eye on the inevitable shenanigans that would result from fifteen musicians, assorted band crew members, and three strippers all staying in the same place at the same time.

One particularly evening (or should I say morning) was one of those golden times when both bands, the duo, and the strippers were having parties together. Most of the room doors were open, there was a cacophony of music pouring out from several "ghettoblasters," alcohol and pot abounded, and there was much cultural exchange between the musicians and the strippers.

I had wandered into the lobby with a fit of the munchies and headed for the chocolate bar machine when I noticed a young family checking in at the front desk. It was plain they had been travelling for hours, the whole family looked dogged tired. They set off through the lobby doors, down the party hallway, to their rooms on the other side of the hotel. Mom, Dad, and a couple of young kids looking nervous strolled by drunk and stoned musicians, past the loud music, through the cloud of pot smoke, and into the safety of the civilian portion of the hotel. The next time we played the Westlander, they had purchased a fourplex for the musicians (the strippers still stayed in the hotel) and the manager of the country bar lived in one of the suites as a chaperon. Oddly enough, it was a several years before the hotel decided keeping the musicians away from the customers was a good thing.

While on the road, I tried to live as comfortably as possible, accommodations notwithstanding. Sometimes it was more difficult than others. You gain a huge appreciation for the comforts of home when you are forced to stay in hotels and band houses. As well as learning how to live out of a suitcase, being on the road teaches you what to order from restaurant menus, what's generally safe and what's not. Here's an important safety tip: don't order restaurant gravy.

And, always bring your own towel.