#emilykopp

I should be napping at this very moment. Why? Well, I'll tell you why. The fellas and I left our hometown of Orlando, FL at 1:00AM Wednesday, March 12th, for Austin, TX. With no shows booked in between to break up the trip (poor routing on my end), we sucked it up, put on our road warrior attire, and went forth! Twenty-two long, intense, blurry, gas-station filled hours later, we arrived in Austin, TX at our friends place (thank you, Ryan!). 

We passed out, and woke up bright and early the next morning for our first ever (and only) day at SXSW 2014. We were prepared for an intense, amazing day full of music, discovery, and schmoozing. Oh yea, lots of schmoozing. You know, meeting people, making friends, and schmoozing. Getting our music biz grind on. We drove into the city and, for lack of a better word, it was a "shit-show". But, when I use that term, I mean it in the most EPIC, AMAZING way possible. Tour vans right and left, Sprinters, Tour buses, bands loading in and out, music all around. Um, basically, heaven. Hectic, crazy, intense, organized chaos. We checked in, and then headed to a live session I had booked with the Louisiana based, "Blade Studios". Amazing dudes, and as it turns out, they travel on Dave Matthews' tour bus. So cool! Needless to say, we were pretty geeky about the whole thing. Pictures, tweets, the whole nine. Our Blade Studios buddies (yeah, they are now official buddies), had told us about the dentist across the street who put on something called MXMW (Mouth By Mouth West). Crazy. Yep. We thought the same thing. I walked into the office, introduced myself - and the kind ladies at the front invited us to their official Mouth By Mouth West show case that night. More on that later. 

After the video session, we headed back into the organized chaos to load in for our set at a venue called Amped, off of 6th street. We played our set at 4PM, loaded out, and walked a few blocks to go watch out friend Connor Zwetsch perform. The game plan at this point was to watch, eat, pack up, and leave.  Why? Oh, only because silly ole' me routed a show the next day in Bay St. Louis, MS (ahem, 9 (NINE) hours away). I should really be napping. 

Flash forward to us scrapping our plans, and walking into this dentist office, which, at this point, is a full fledged venue. Drum kit, amps, beautiful PA system, bar, official MXMW t-shirts, proper seating, and a balcony. For those who may not know, I love the dentist, and I'm a nerd for a good set of teeth, so this all felt almost too perfect. Good music, good teeth, good food, kind people, a packed house. I'm in. 

We went with the flow - and I'm so happy we did. We were able to squeeze in a 30-minute set, where we played to a FULL room of wonderful, energetic, supportive listeners. Hell yeah, MXMW. We stayed for awhile longer, and decided to scrap our entire plan at this point, to go see our friends Hazy Ray perform their last SXSW showcase of the day. At 11PM. (Reminder to all. We need to be in Bay St. Louis, MS at 5PM the next day). But, we rolled with it. (I should be napping right now). 

Post-Hazy Ray set (2AM at this point), we walked on what felt like the longest, coldest, most exhausting walk ever, back to our tour mobile. My cozy little Scion xA. No bed. No shower. Just me, three boys, a little car, and a lot of love for what we do. I'm sharing this story because, he we are, at our friends house in New Orleans. We arrived at 11:00AM this morning, after driving through the night. I never blog. I always try and push myself to post on this thing more. Come on Emily, CONTENT, CONTENT. The people need content. It all gets so intense sometimes, and the last thing anybody wants to do, is BLOG. But, here I am, blogging. I should be napping. 

I do what I do, we do what we do, because we see the vision slowly coming into fruition. We drive for 22 hours to play for 30-40 minutes. It seems insane, right? But, those 40 minutes are holy. Yes, holy. We can call it anything. Spiritual, magical, precious. I'll call it holy. Untouchable. Incomparable. And, sometimes, if you're lucky enough, lucky enough like we were last night, you get to experience 30 minutes of magic. Mutual energy, gratitude, and love between the people sharing the stage, and the people watching you on that stage. There are no words for it, and anyone who has ever been passionate about anything will understand this. I decided to blog for once, and share this with those who may not understand, need a bit of inspiration, thank those that do, and send my love and gratitude out to those who we had the privilege of playing for yesterday.

So yeah.... driving over 36 hours in four days to perform music for a total of 3, maybe 4 hours - a bit crazy. Touring is an interesting beast. When it works, it's magic. BUT, then again, what do I know....I should be napping.