James Lee Stanley

This past weekend I took part in the first annual Acoustic Instrument Expo.  It was held at the Airtel in Van Nuys, next to the Van Nuys Airport.   All the major acoustic instrument makers were there, as well as several of the local acoustic instrument entrepreneurs.

I ran into all the local acoustic musicians, and also met some new friends.

I had been invited to perform and I, in turn, invited my pal, John Batdorf (www.johnbatdorfmusic.com )  to join me.  I thought that the people attending would truly enjoy the All Wood and Stones music that John and I created for our All Wood and Stones CD (www.allwoodandstones.com) made up of all of our favorite Rolling Stones songs rearranged for acoustic guitars and percussion.

I had performed before for one of the promoters but had never met the other and it was he who had invited me.

We were scheduled for four thirty in the afternoon and I then found out that they were having a raffle at 4 pm in the same room.    I foolishly thought that this was planning on their part, as John and I seemed to be the most seasoned and the most recorded of any of the performers or attendees.

I assumed that they had arranged that so that we would be performing for a full room, as they would simply go from the raffle to announcing us.

When will I ever learn?

Ball Caps as well as T Shirts  were given away and finally two fine guitars.   Now I assumed they would announce us and I was standing off to the side, guitar in hand, as they thanked everyone in the room and said, have a great time, we’ve got lots of good music and then they turned away.

This was to arrange for the photos with the two guitar winners, and they wanted to do it on the stage in front of the banner they had hung.  

I was by this time, all ready standing on the stage, ready  to go.   They asked me to step off while they took the photos.

Which I did.   I stood aside and watched as the room emptied out.  

Finally, when it was empty,  the promoter who had seen me perform before introduced us.—to the empty room.

Later, he apologized and said that he wished he’d announced us while the room was filled.

So the lesson for today is DON’T TAKE ANYTHING FOR GRANTED.

What I should have done was ask him when we were playing and what preceeded us and then suggested to him the best way to go about achieving what we both wanted to have happen.

We should have told them exactly what we expected to happen regarding our intro, our performance and the timing of those things.   We should have told them because we’ve done it ten thousand times and we know what works best.  But I took for granted that he knew what he was doing.   They were good guys, but this was their first Acoustic Instrument  Expo.  They didn’t have it all down yet.

I just assumed that he had scheduled us then.  I just assumed he would recognize that getting John and I to wow the crowd would serve the conference.   I just assumed that he wanted us to play for a crowd of people, as we had agreed to do it gratis.

We played to fourteen people.   But we sold seven CD’s.