Pluggin' Away

I'm late this week (which has been a theme the past few weeks, and will probably continue) and don't have new material to write to you with, so I have to cheat. I take you back to December 31st, 2007, less than three months after funksauce opened up online. My wife's brother, Mike Renick, who appropriately heads the Mike Renick Band, was to be playing a show in Cape Girardeau, MO on New Year's Eve. In my lack of advertising experience, I dreamed up what I thought to be a brilliant plan to dress the band in 1970's vintage clothing in exchange for a plug or two on stage. I had a limited stock by then and had to do my best with sizes, so the outfits were not the funkiest they could have been and were relatively baggy on the boys. The music was fantastic (I was in sensory heaven when they played their cover of Dave Matthew's All Along the Watchtower, my favorite by MRB), and I thought the clothes were pretty cool too, but the crowd worried me. Heckling? A PBR beer bottle over the head? The party-goers were a sea of tee-shirts and cowboy boots. I jest, slightly, but there was definitely not a person there who stood out in any vintage. I didn't hear any positive comments from the crowd, but the band seemed to enjoy the clothes. Mike did give me a couple of plugs on-stage, but in looking back he wasted his singing voice. It's ok though. It was about listening to music that I enjoyed on the cusp of a new and would-be exciting and adventurous 2008. And as I look back, the kick I got out of watching them in my clothes then, and the pictures I can look back on now, make it more meaningful than any amount of sales I could have gotten.

(From left to right: Mike--lead vocals, acoustic guitar; Blake--back-up vocals, electric guitar; Brian--drums; Kenny--bass guitar; Wes--saxaphone; and Nick, the sound guy, is in the picture to your right and in my favorite outfit .)