List of People to Harass

I’ve been moaning to my mom about wanting a career and health insurance for the past couple years, so when I told her about this road trip, supportive as she is, she was skeptical about me “putting everything on hold for a year.” To my mom I want to say this…Momma, woman, I’ve become super responsible and it’s only been two months! Just think of all the job skills I’m going to have in a year!...It’s important to be enthusiastic with my parents because for some reason, enthusiasm denotes seriousness and believability.

With any small enterprise, wearing of different hats is the key to success. I’m the writer of the group but I’ve also become the road manager, the booking agent, and the general PR girl. For goodness sake I’ve now got an impromptu spreadsheet entitled People To Harass with columns for Name, Info, and When I’ve Contacted Them so as to be persistent but not a pain in the ass. And it seems like it takes at least three times before anyone responds.

For example: We’re heading to Taos on Monday to study Native American music. I confess that I’m a little weary about going because I keep hearing that specific pueblo is really difficult for outsiders to gain access and trust. The one man everyone keeps telling us to study with, because of his more modern Native American musical style, is Robert Mirabal; a general awesome guy who’s won 12 Grammys and has acted in a film about Georgia O’Keefe. This has been my route to get in touch with him: contacting the owner of Sun House Records (Tony Issacs), then the head of KDRU radio (Bryant Liggett), then the radio DJ at KDNK (Luke Nestor), then Robert’s manager, who then gave me his sister’s phone number. Not sure why I have his sister’s number, but I’m on my second attempt to get a hold of her, so only one more to go. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

For the boys: Dan’s the drummer, chef, and videographer while Conner is the bassist, mechanic, and jewelry maker. Many hats, many hats…
Photo via Uni of Colorado