Ok, we start driving Friday, Sept 18. I'll pick up the minivan Thur morning.

So, here's our minivan route (gulp):

SEPT 19 (sat), PHOENIX AZ - The Lost Leaf (10pm)
SEPT 20 (sun), MESILLA (Las Cruces) NM - El Patio (8p)
SEPT 22 (tue), HOUSTON TX - Bohemeo's (8p)
SEPT 23 (wed), TULSA OK - Living Arts (8p)
SEPT 25 (fri), CINCINNATI OH - Midpoint Festival, Mr. Pitiful's (11p)
SEPT 27 (sun), COLUMBUS OH - Victorian's Midnight Cafe (8p)
SEPT 28 (mon), JOHNSON CITY TN - Cahootenany's JC (10p)
SEPT 30 (wed), ATHENS GA - Rye Bar (9p)
OCT 2 (fri), NEW YORK CITY, Otto's Shrunken Head (8p)
OCT 3 (sat), POTSDAM NY, S.U.N.Y. Campus, Hurley's (8p)
OCT 4 (sun), BOSTON MA, LilyPad (6p)
OCT 5 (mon), ITHACA NY, The Shop (7p)
OCT 6 (tue), OBERLIN OH, Oberlin University, Cat In The Cream (8p)
OCT 9 (fri), TUCSON AZ, Plush Room Lobby (6p-9p)
OCT 10 (sat), BAKERSFIELD CA, The Silver Fox (10p)
then back to Oakland, CA

How many miles is that? I don't want to know, really. I just checked the mileage between gigs to make sure we could make the next gig. My trio's down for it.

Each venue has a little booking tale. Here's one. The Potsdam NY gig's a little out of the way, but their SUNY college radio station played my new CD (technot); a radio guy there who also books the campus music club, Hurley's, liked my cd and contacted me about gigging there, all without knowing I'd just started booking our first east coast tour. I didn't know Ryan went to college there until I told Ryan about the gig. Kind of a cool x-ray of interconnectedness, daddy-o.

Oh, by the way, I just put our new t-shirts on my website ( johnwilliamgordon.com ). Take a look. They're kinda weird but I like 'em and had a good time designing them.

While I booked my butt off for our upcoming tour, I noticed one huge regional difference: the southwest has far fewer venues than the east.

Besides Google, I searched for gigs with the new Indie Venue Bible (6 regions in 6 PDF files). The puniness of the southwest region's PDF file jumped out at me.

Why does the western U.S. have far fewer live music venues than the east?

Online, I found the populations of states included in each of the Indie Venue Bible's 6 regions (northwest, southwest, northcentral, southcentral, northeast, southeast) and calculated each region's population.

Then I calculated each region's area in square miles by adding the areas of each region's states.

Some sick stats:

The southwest* and northeast** regions have comparable populations:
51 million versus 56 million.

But the northeast has almost double the venues: about 5200 versus about 2800 (Indie Venue Bible).

- southwest: one venue per 587 square miles.
- northeast: one venue per 35 square miles.

Conclusion (no duh): the higher the population density, the more thriving the live music scene. L.A. and San Francisco don't make up for gargantuan areas of empty space in the outrageously huge southwest.

Grotesque stat:

Even though the southwest has far fewer venues than the northeast, the southwest has more booking agents!

- Southwest: about 370 booking agents for about 2800 venues (8 venues per booker, but one booker per 12,220 square miles, about 111 miles x 111 miles).

- Northeast: 350 booking agents for 5200 venues (15 venues per booker, but one booker per 520 square miles, about 23 miles x 23 miles).

Actually, the picture out west is much worse.

Compare by area in square miles.

The southwest's area is about the same as the northeast's and northcentral's*** combined:

- southwest's area: 605,709 sq miles
- northeast's + northcentral's area: 581,372 sq miles (83,206 sq miles + 398,166 sq miles).

Now compare the number of venues in those comparable areas:
- northeast + northcentral = 9300 venues!
- southwest = 2800 venues in the SAME AREA.

The northeast+northcentral have about 3.3 times the number of venues in roughly the same area as the southwest!

Based on driving time and cost, touring in the east might be 3 times "easier" than touring in the west, not counting bad weather. And booking also might be much easier because there are fewer booking agents contending for each venue.

The numbers are rough, of course, and the Indie Venue Bible leaves out many venues and booking agents, but the owners of the IVB keep updating it; and each region suffers from this problem, kind of canceling out this worry of missing venues when comparing regions. So I think the IVB provides a good picture of venue realities in the U.S.

For touring bands, especially new ones, the southwest sucks with...
...roughly a third of the venues as the northeast/northcentral;
...further-flung clusters of venues (and metro areas);
...more booking agents contending for each venue, especially in southern CA.

*southwest= AZ, CA, HI, NV, NM, UT, based on "Indie Venue Bible" listing of venues by region.

**northeast= CT, DE, ME, MA, NH, NJ, NY, PA, RI, VT, based on "Indie Venue Bible" listing of venues by region.

***northcentral= IL, IN, IA, KY, MI, OH, WI, based on "Indie Venue Bible" listing of venues by region.

Hurrah!

My my new CD "TECHNOT" is now available directly from my website www.johnWilliamGordon.com (with Paypal).

CDBaby.com (search for "john william gordon") will start selling Technot in about 7 business days. Then iTunes and other online services will sell tracks and the CD in 10-45 days (search for "John William Gordon" on those services).

Whew...

I just finished updating my website, www.JohnWilliamGordon.com.

I was going to make a new fancy Flash home page but it's too much work right now. I have to practice my geeeetar and send CDs to radio stations and book gigs. I started to make a new Flash home page and it looks cool so far, but it takes way too much work/time right now. How did I ever manage to have the time to learn Flash and make my first website? Oh yeah, it took me a month.