Life as a Rock and Roll Mom: Part I

Hmmm. My life. Here are the basics:

I am blissfully married and we have 2 kids together, plus 2 step-kids, so that makes 4. 4 active, wacky, too-smart-for-their-own-good kids. I am home during the day, which means that my day life is all about homework and after-school activities and cartoons and all that typical Mom stuff. We live in Toledo, Ohio, which is mostly your typical Middle-America city.

Basically, that is not interesting. I love my kids, and I find them fascinating, but I know that everyone feels that way about their own kids.

I am also the keyboard player for a band called The Polka Floyd Show -- a Pink Floyd tribute band done Polka-style. I know it sounds crazy, I know it sounds weird, I know it sounds like two things that should never, ever go together. But they do.

My husband, Ken, is also in the band -- it's his baby, really. He's the singer and guitar player and the tall guy in the cowboy hat, if you've ever seen us play.

We play gigs every weekend, and we travel all over the Great Lakes Region. This is a whole lot of fun, but it can be exhausting.

Ken is also the Sales Director for Reverend Guitars -- an up-and-coming guitar company out of Detroit. His job involves a lot of artist relations and a little bit of travel to trade shows. I like to tag along.

This past week has been a little more hectic than usual. On Tuesday, we played at the PLAV post in Hamtramck, MI for Fat Tuesday -- or what they call in the Polish community Paczki Day. There was a great crowd there of all manner of people who took the day off to celebrate. The lights stopped working shortly after we started our set. So we played in the dark. Then, the mics stopped working. That is a bigger problem. We wrestled with the sound situation until the end of our set, and then went to join the party.

Friday, we all piled into the van and drove to Columbus, Ohio, to play at The Scarlet and Grey Cafe. This was somewhat the opposite problem. The room was great, the sound was fantastic, but there were only about 30 people there. Now, they were 30 quality people, but there just weren't that many of them. We played a great show, got back in the van, and drove home. we were in bed by 6:00am. At 10:30 the next morning, my daughter decided that she was bored, and it was time for us to get up. Ugh.

Saturday night, we played at Mickey Finn's in Toledo with The Zimmerman Twins -- Ken's other band, and all around great guys. This should have been an easy-peasy show. We know the room, we know the other band really, really well, and we were playing to a large crowd who we know. We should have been able to play this in our sleep -- and we were going to try. It was not to be. We were all sick (with colds and allergies), grouchy (from lack of sleep), and other various kinds of crummy. The Twins were great, but they always were. We, were not. I guess everyone has an off night every now and again. Someone wrote in a blog yeasterday that she saw us for the first time Saturday, and we were great. I guess it's all a matter of perspective.

Needless to say, I am a little bleary-eyed this Monday. Sometimes the other suburban moms look at me like I'm nuts with my sleepy eyes and my hand marked with a "B", but it's worth it.