#davidburton

Broken Bones is a thrilling vampire story based in a world where vampires are known and catered for. This is a tale of revenge, love, and finding new friends.

This book is suspenseful from the second page and there is action from start to finish, making it hard to put down.

What I liked most about the book is that the vampires are not like the ones we are used to. David Burton has a very interesting take on vampires. For example, vampires can’t die by stake, they slip into a coma if impaled by it. The only way to kill them is by chopping off their heads. I enjoyed every bit of this book.

I highly recommend this book to people who enjoy vampire stories and love to be kept in suspense. There is also a follow-up story: An Accidental Vampire, Simone's origin story That book will give more information about Simone and how she became a vampire.

This book only has a small amount of profanity and erotic scenes, so it can be read by readers who are 16 years and older. The writing style of Burton keeps you captivated throughout the whole book. I highly recommend you get yourself a copy of this bloodsucking thriller.

Go visit the website today.

David Burton

Tour Manager :: Head And The Heart

I am the freelance pallbearer. Expediter to the invalid. Road dad. Facilitator. Travel agent. Accountant. Security. Excitement coordinator.

SHOWTIME: So David, how would you describe your job?

DAVID: I am the freelance pallbearer. Expediter to the invalid. Road dad. Facilitator. Travel agent. Accountant. Security. Excitement coordinator.

SHOWTIME: Psychiatrist?

DAVID: Sometimes.  It depends on the artist.  

SHOWTIME: How long have you been with Head and the Heart?

DAVID: I have worked with them just a couple of years. I work for a lot of other people as well.

SHOWTIME: You are a road warrior…

DAVID: [LAUGHS] I am a seasoned road warrior, yes. I work with The Shins, Broken Social Scene, Andrew Bird, Primal Scream, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, John Spencer…  Jeez Louise. Craig Finn, The Hold Steady, Heartless Bastards. Franz Ferdinand, The Cribs, Cut Copy, Cat Power, Peaches, Best Coast. That’s, you know, off the top of my head…  

SHOWTIME: I bet you know all the secrets.

DAVID: I am not allowed to write a book until people are no longer with us. That’s what I was told yesterday by a publisher. “You have to wait a few people out.” Starting with myself, probably.

by living on a tour bus, you are living in something smaller than a coffin

SHOWTIME: So tell me, what is the best thing about being on the road, and the worst thing about being on the road?

DAVID: Well, the best thing is traveling and going to new places or some of the same places. And trying to see things. The food. I like to eat a lot, so… And I like to go see sporting events. I go to baseball games all over the country.

You get to see your friends sometimes, if you are not too busy. You get to see your family sometimes. My family lives in L.A. and I am there a lot for work, so it’s nice to get a free ticket to visit Mom and Dad

Some of the worst things? Well, by living on a tour bus, you are living in something smaller than a coffin. Not sleeping in your own bed. Not being able to really have a routine. I have a kid, so I miss him when I am on the road.

You put on the Freshman 15 ’cause you don’t eat right and you don’t sleep enough.  You just don’t have any sense of normality.

It’s a very turbulent lifestyle. And it’s not easy. It’s not easy on relationships. It’s not easy on your physicality. Especially if you like to go out a little bit.

You are not taking care of yourself as much as you would at home. At home it’s brown rice and green vegetables and the juicer, and a few beers as well. But out on the road, whatever is in front of you is what you eat.

SHOWTIME: What’s the best food you have had, and what is the worst food you have had?

DAVID: Oh, wow. Well, I ate at the Parkside last night, which is absolutely fantastic. We had the oyster sampler. And some great wine. You know, of course, you are in Texas, so you are eating tacos.

And the worst food was definitely at Houston Airport. I ordered barbecue chicken, and they put a piece of fried chicken on the plate and a little barbecue sauce. I said, “I don’t think that’s barbecue…”  

Flying is probably also something that is not too cool about this job, because it takes a lot out of you. The security thing, having to take your shoes off and all that jazz. When you are doing that 50 to 100 times a year, it’s taxing.

It’s great for the air miles and everything, but do you have the time to go anywhere with them? “Oh, I think I should just go to Miami for the weekend with my mom, you know?” But you don’t, because you are working.

SHOWTIME: I have heard the tour manager being described as the dad of the band. Can you speak to the hierarchy of the crew?

DAVID: Well, you generally have the tour manager.  Or at least with most of the artists I work for there is a tour manager. You are considered the boss, the father figure or, you know, the mother figure if you are female.

And then you have a production manager. The road managers take care of the big picture. The production manager is the one outside right now, covering everything.

And then you have your techs. If you are on an arena tour, your tech has a tech, or an assistant. And you have coordinators sometimes.

You have the merch person that you double up and make your assistant, so you can sleep a little bit sometimes.

You've got, one, two, three guitar techs, or a drum tech, or a keys tech, if you are lucky. So that’s one bus crew right there.

You also have a front of house guy and a monitor engineer. We try to get one of those guys to be the production manager, because it’s one less bunk, one less hotel room, one less flight, one less salary. You just make somebody work a lot harder than maybe they want to.

And obviously, if you are doing arenas and big, big sheds you have a lot more crew out there. When you talk to people that work for the Stones and bands like that, there are 20 buses. We are rolling with one or two. Maybe a truck driver as well, if you have that much stuff.

It’s certainly not something that you are taught in school, the kind of basic skills that we need to have.

SHOWTIME: What do you think are the most important skills to sustain you on the road?

DAVID: Patience. Energy. As a tour manager, you should be very math minded. Numerate. Able to think on your feet.  

It’s certainly not something that you are taught in school, the kind of basic skills that we need to have.

You also have to be very tolerant and accepting. You need to be able to work well with others.

It's a different vibe altogether than the straight life, or the civilian life as we like to say. You can get away with a lot of bad behavior sometimes, because there is no overseer. There is no HR department. If you work in a straight job and you are doing some things wrong, you are going to hear about it quickly. Whereas we are a little bit more forgiving of transgressions because it's such an intense lifestyle.

It's a blessing and a curse, because some people get more leeway than others. We have all been fired for some reason or another over the years. And one man’s pudding is another man’s poison, I suppose. You might be the greatest tour manager in the world, or the greatest roadie in the world, but if you don’t vibe with your band, it’s not going to work out.

SHOWTIME: I'm sure every band is different.

DAVID: Oh yeah, definitely.  Being fired by some artists is a badge of honor. Because of the fact that you could even do the job, you know?  

I am a bit older than a lot of the bands that I work with so there is a little bit of respect involved, because I have done it before.  

I work with a certain kind of artist where you know everybody. We are hiring for several different artists at one time because you want the best people to be together. It’s such an ephemeral job that you have to look out for each other.

SHOWTIME: Is it harder to work for bands if you don’t like their music?

DAVID: I don’t work for bands if I don’t like their music. I don’t do it. I like to work for bands that I have never really listened to before, because you either become a fan, or you don’t. As opposed to going to work for somebody that you absolutely love, but you find out that they are not a nice person. And then it's a very temporary position. And you find yourself going home and removing that section of the CD shelf and taking it to the used record store, without going into further detail…

SHOWTIME: Very diplomatic.

DAVID: Oh, catch me after a few drinks and things change.

SHOWTIME: How so? Give me a wacky story.

DAVID: I knew this question was coming, and I am not prepared for it.

It’s such a volatile world in which we live, that any day could be New Year’s Eve. I had a big night last night, so I am a little bit tender…  An evening of Loretta Lynn, and then some dad rock after that, and we were all a bunch of middle-aged men drinking like teenagers. The poor person that was driving me around, witnessing the carnage…