A few weeks ago, I played with a new group of people in Dothan, Alabama. I was able to land this gig through a friend who recommended me, so huge shout out to my girl T-Mason. On this gig, I performed alongside Clayton Christopher and the Appalachian High Band. We traveled to Dothan, Alabama to perform at one of the most established honky-tonk entertainment venues in the country known as Cowboys. The trip consisted of three nightly performances and one day to travel back home. That being said, we were all in for a long weekend. For times' sake, I am only going to share two stories that stuck out the most.
Story 1: One of the nights was Magic Mike themed. If you’re unfamiliar with Magic Mike, let me fill you in. It’s a male dance show that consists of stripping and dancing. In case you are wondering, I was not one of the dancers! They would not accept me even if I tried! However, I did chat with one of the performers offstage who only spoke Spanish so I am sure he was somewhat grateful that I could make small talk with him. Since most of the people were already rowdy from the dancers, we had to make sure our first few songs were a huge hit, if not we were going to lose the crowd. As the night went on, we got flashed a few times, so there’s that. I will say this though, I was impressed by the audience's dancing skills! As a performer, it is a great feeling seeing people dance to the music you're playing to. It is like a validation that you're doing something right on stage. Remember, Cowboys is a honky-tonk venue, so we performed several songs the people could line dance to, one being “Copperhead Road”. It was cool to see a huge group of people dance to it because the lights were also flashing with the hit and stomps of the song.
Story 2: On our last night performing at Cowboys, I experienced a unique encounter with this one girl. Keep in mind, the venue smelled like straight cigarettes. Everyone in there smoked for some reason and I am not sure why. You could smell it from the moment you opened your car doors in the parking lot. I am pretty sure I was buzzed at least once because of the strong smell. Anyways back to the story. During one of our breaks, this woman approaches me and asks for my name. We exchange names and immediately after, she smokes a huge puff of her cigarette into my face (huge turn off for me) and asks me “Are you in a relationship?” By that statement, I knew what she was trying to do, so I said “yes ma'am, I am”. I thought my response was going to serve me justice by getting her off my back, but sadly I was wrong. She was very persistent and kept telling me she was going to show me a good time and yada, yada, yada. She added that I was so handsome and wanted to be within my presence - which is a huge lie because I ain't that good looking. To top it off though, she told me she admired how well I was BANGING my drums and she could only imagine how well I am at banging in the bedroom. No matter what she said, I wasn’t caving into her efforts which led to her being pissed off at me because I would not flirt back. This story is funnier in-person because I do my best to "act it out" so if you are ever curious on hearing the "live version" of this women and her of efforts in trying to seduce me, please feel free to ask me about it. To compliment the situation and the bunch of women smoking their cigarettes, Clayton decided to play one of his originals "She Smoked Cigarettes". Now when I think about women and cigarettes, my mind gravitates to the chick from Dothan, Alabama who tried seducing me while casually blowing a cigarette in my face - as if that was going to help.
Despite all of that madness, I would consider the Cowboys trip a success. I would do it again, but you would have to let me recover from all those exotic dancers and cigarettes. On the real, I was thrilled to have performed with a new group of people while also playing at a nationally recognized venue. If you’re a musician and you’re debating on playing with a new group of people, I highly recommend you to do so. You build new connections and you also challenge yourself on learning new material which will take you a long way. You never know what doors it will open! Again, thanks for much for reading and remember, stay away from those Dothan women with cigarettes! They may try to seduce you 😂
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