There’s so much going on in the world. 

There always is. 

I’ve been meaning to post an Earwig update for a while. I’ve been running full tilt with several different projects at once; they seem to be taking all of my available time. First and foremost I’m thankful for the long-overdue awakening/reckoning with respect to social and gender issues and massive systemic injustices against POC, Native people, LGBTQ communities, and more. The current protests and the BLM movement are the most important things happening right now. One way that I respond is by making more music and art. Even though I have not been able to directly participate in the protests, that’s where my heart is. For those of us that can’t be there in-person, I feel that bail funds and other avenues of activism are prime. I’m also respecting the change, reflecting on my own life, attitudes and the systemic racism/oppression that I may unwittingly support. I’m also just chilling the freq’ on my social media posts to let other voices be heard. I lost my job due to the shut-down, but I count myself lucky for my good health. My family and I are doing our best to stay safe, sane, and respectful during the pandemic. That definitely means wearing a mask, number one. What else am I up to? Well among other things…

- I’m building a tiny house in my yard for my 94-year-old mother-in-law to come and live with us, because she’s concerned about Covid. It’s a huge project and I’d be happy to post pictures/details if anybody’s interested.
- Earwig started work on our next album prior to the quarantine. We have not been able to get together as a band since a recording session in January. We’re currently working out ways to do remote recording and finish our album for release this year. Stay tuned.
- Holey Moley! As you may know I took a secret trip to Los Angeles in February and filmed a competitive mini golf competition TV show. It was super fun and I really appreciate everyone that is excited for my upcoming appearance on national television. They have not yet shown my episode, but should soon. I’ve been blogging about it a little and also have some upcoming pieces featured on Pencilstorm.com
- NEW SONG: “In a world that’s beautiful and sad...”, when the quarantine started I wrote a song. It’s called “Forbidden Planet”. I hope Earwig will be able to record full band version for our album. For now I’m going to post the demo on Bandcamp. I don’t really need the money so I’m posting it for free/pay-what-you-want. Here’s the link...

https://lizardmcgee.bandcamp.com/track/forbidden-planet

- If you download it from Bampcamp this Friday ~ 7/3/20 (they are waiving their profit sharing fees again), please grab my song for $0 and spread some cash to a bail fund or other artists on that platform that are in need of your support.

- Thank you, Lizard 🤘🏼

Zen Cats

(You can meet all of my cats in the video below)

The cat. Felis catus. A domestic species of small carnivorous mammal. I love cats. Maybe I love cats too much.

My family lives deep in the woods and people will sometimes abandon dogs and cats on our remote road just to get rid of them. We often find these discarded pets. A lot of times it's a mama cat and a litter of new kittens, so we find several at once. We can't just leave them to die in the woods so we take them home. We pay to have them all spayed and neutered then we try to find them homes. It can be hard to place all of them. We end up being the forever home for a lot of the strays. It's an expensive hobby and can be a wonderful pain in the ass. They say that you choose your own poison. Well, I guess my poison is cats.

How many cats live with me? Good question. 

Guess how many cats I have. Go ahead… just guess. No. It’s more. Nope. It’s more than that. Seventeen. I currently have seventeen cats. 

It's so many cats that sometimes I even forgot how many I have. When someone asks me to name all of my cats, I'm never able to remember them all. I feel like a failed member of Cats Anonymous... "My name is Lizard McGee and I have seventeen cats". I try not to even say that out loud because it’s like a spoken curse. Don’t misunderstand me, I love my cats. Even the ones whose names I can’t remember. They're all special in their own way and are a lot of fun too. Though they are sometimes horrible they are often comforting. Cats can be Zen as well. They help me focus. My cats are great company and they usually end up helping me when I'm working on a new song. Or even when I practice my putting.

The producers on Holey Moley found out that I had seventeen cats and wanted to know more about them (of course!) so I sent them this video. I think that they liked it a little too much. When I showed up on set, I thought that they were going to turn me into the Crazy Cat Guy instead of a Rockstar! The truth is that I’m happy being both. Everything works out in the end. On Holey Moley I'm pitted against another golfer and cat lover named Giovani. The funny thing is that when Giovani and I met we became friends and bonded over our shared love of our cats without knowing that we were going to play against each-other. We were surprised when the producers revealed to us that we would be competing golfers. Our interactions that you see on the show are very genuine, in-the-moment and real. Giovani is super awesome and a great person who genuinely loves his cats!

This is a video I made about my cats and my love for golf.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVU0npJ1_8c

By the way, my cats have their own Instagram account, if you want to follow them just search for @trashcatsofappalachia

Instagram: Trash Cats of Appalachia  @trashcatsofappalachia

I'll be a featured player on ABC's Holey Moley extreme mini golf show on Thursday 5/28

Mind Control for Golf Balls

I'm still reeling from the experience of being on Holey Moley, an extreme mini-golf competition. You can watch me as a featured player on Episode 2, which airs on ABC on Thursday 5/28. Flying to L.A., meeting all of the other cool contestants and hanging out on-set was a wild ride. I would do it again in a heart-beat. Filming was intense and playing on the show is much harder than it looks. I got knocked around pretty good and had a couple of slamming wipe-outs. I came home with some cool bruises. You'll have to watch the show to see how it all plays out.

This was the 2nd video I submitted for Holey Moley

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GktFv9-cKUw

I'm one of the few players that just came to the show out of the blue. I had never heard of Wipeout or Holey Moley when I first applied. Looking back now, it's incredible that I made the cut out of the thousands of other applicants. The show is very popular and loads of people want to be on it. There are big casting calls in LA and I found out that the producers actually source a lot of the contestants from short lists of pseudo-celebrity instagram influencers, reality TV personalities, pro and semi-pro golfers. When I got the initial response to my first submission video, I knew that they liked me. After all, they probably didn't get many submissions from Rock Star golfers with 17 cats! Once I made it through the initial round of phone-interviews and a couple of call-backs, the Holey Moley producers asked if I could send another video with me making specific putts. They said that they wanted to see me play on a real golf course. At this point, I knew I had a shot at being on the show so I wanted to push the Rock Star angle. That gave me the idea to have my putter in a guitar case instead of my guitar. James and I snuck onto a couple of local golf courses (with our friend Rio) and made this video. The first few shots are at the Athens Country Club. The footage in the rain was filmed at the O.U. course. I filmed the mini-golf shots myself at the abandoned putt-putt by the Ridges in Athens. I remember filming the footage at the golf courses and we were blocking golfers who were trying to play through so they were waving their clubs and yelling at us from the fairway. We were un-perturbed!

It was at this point that I started to bring some Zen into my putting practice. If I was going to go through with this I wanted to be able to perform at the top of my game. I decided to title this video Mind Control for Golf Balls because I was seriously digging into my mental game to lock in my ability to sink putts under pressure. I cut the footage from me putting on Athens area golf courses together and used an Earwig song (Sleepyhead from the album Gibson Under Mountain) to make sure it rocked. Check it out through the link above. 

One of my favorite things is the last shot in the video. I love the sound of the golf ball hitting a tree in the end! I'm wearing a Purple Rain t-shirt too.

Holey Moley premieres 5/21 9pm|8pm central on ABC 

(I'll be on episode 2, 5/28!)

Holey Moley submission video #1

Last summer my buddy Rich from NYC told me that he had been watching a crazy show on TV and he thought I’d be great on it.

That show was Holey Moley. The show is built around an extreme minor-golf competition. It’s wild. I’d never seen the show (I don’t have TV), but I went online and signed up anyway based on Rich’s recommendation alone. I got a call back a few days later and after a series of interviews and further submission videos I was in serious talks with the producers about being featured on the second season of the show.

To make a long story short… I made it! I’m going to be on TV. Holey Moley  (Season II, The Sequel) premieres 5/21 9pm, 8pm central on ABC

I pitched myself to the show as a Rock Star and I think that set me apart from the other entrants. I had no idea at the time but have since learned that with online submissions and open casting-calls in LA, the producers had thousands of people to choose from. It’s amazing that I made it through so many other people that wanted to be on the show. You might not guess it but I golf. I’ve never played on a professional course but I have a true Scottish-style, home-made golf course at my house and I also co-founded a radical, underground renegade golf tournament called The Silver Baby Cup. I’ve read the Zen Putting books and yes, I can putt. But it still blows my mind that I made it on the show. I flew to LA for 10 days in February and it was a blast. I met so many cool people and had a wonderful time being on Holey Moley. 

I'm still pretty blown away by the whole experience. It was intense and I had a great time competing. If you watch the show… it’s a LOT harder than it looks! When I made the online submission for the show, they ask you to upload a video telling more about yourself and showing you making a variety of different putts. I shot the video with my phone while I putted on my home golf course. I also have a putt-putt hole in an old boat in my yard. 

Here’s my original submission video for Holey Moley:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_jgEy6lofE&t=13s

Forbidden Planet

I live a secluded life. Even under normal circumstances, I don’t see actual humans other than my immediate family that often. I don’t mind it so much, to be honest. I’m used to it. Recently the gloom of impending doom has been extra strong. I took a trip to California and got back to Ohio just under the wire before the pandemic and the travel restrictions set in. That first week back was a strange transition. I had just come home from a wild and fun experience. But Ohio and home were different now. I lost my straight job (selling and delivering draft beer for a cool micro-brewery) and was faced with many quarantine related family and health dilemmas right away. I’m sure that anyone reading this went through similar trials. I know it’s tough. These are the times that define us.

I write songs. That’s what I do. Earwig has been on a break for a few months and we were scheduled to get back to work on 2 upcoming album projects upon my return from the West Coast. Currently that’s all up in the air. But I did sit down at the piano and write this song that first week back. Being home without work and uncertain of what the future held, I spent some free time watching old VHS tapes that I have collected. The first movie I watched was Forbidden Planet. The current situation mingled with the image on the VHS cover is what sparked me to write this song. I felt powerless in the onslaught of the daily news cycle and it all came out in this song. I did try to include some positive lyrics. Something I’ve tried to do more as I grow older and keep writing songs. I hope that comes through.

After writing and recording the demo, I immediately tried to find a way to record this song with Earwig and get it released. Ideally, I’d like to see it on some sort of compilation or fund-raiser to aid artists who have lost their income stream because of the COVID19 outbreak. Alas, that has not happened yet. We’re working on methods for Earwig to continue recording our new album and have it released this year. This song will likely end up somewhere in the mix. 

https://soundcloud.com/lizardmcgee/forbidden-planet_end-edit

FORBIDDEN PLANET

am I trying too hard

just to make something happen for us

maybe it's a forbidden planet

and we just don’t know it yet

tell me something beautiful and fast

give me something so I can relax

and sink into the emptiness of fear

if these demons come for us

I will carry you home

what if it’s a forbidden planet

and we just don’t know it yet

tell me what I should have been

if all my fantasies are wrong

I will always be the one 

who will carry you home

I will always love you more

in a world that’s beautiful and fast 

here comes the thunderhead

singing we are not alone

I will always be the one

who will carry you home

maybe this is a forbidden planet

and we just don’t know it yet

JAPANESE TO ENGLISH Part 3

THE HONDROULIS BROTHERS vs. WENDY AND LISA

 Purple Rain has always been an inspiration for me. It’s stuck in my head and fused with my musical DNA. In the novel ‘My Own Secret Service’, my character visits the dream realm of the UnReal while searching for the Enigma Guitar and eventually gets stuck there. As Lizard fights with the Dyslexia Society, the mysterious cabal that wants to rule the Multiverse, he learns that he needs a little help from his friends back in the waking world.   

 When looking for musical inspiration for this piece, of course I found it in Purple Rain. The talented duo of Wendy & Lisa serve as a foil to Prince in much the same way that The Hondroulis Brothers team up with Lizard in the novel. The music and dialog interlude that comes before the song ‘All My Sins Are Blotted Out’ was inspired by the “Is the water warm enough?” dialog between Wendy & Lisa from Purple Rain’s ‘Computer Blue’. Give this song another listen and you’ll be able to hear the connection.

ALL MY AINS ARE BLOTTED OUT: https://earwig.bandcamp.com/track/all-my-sins-are-blotted-out

This dialog is in Japanese. George and Costa are both speaking their parts and I do my parts. Mine is the very deep voice. George and Costa are on the far left and right. James coached us on the Japanese. Here’s the English translation.

Lizard: Hondroulis Brothers!

Hondroulis Brothers: Yes, Lizard.

Lizard: Is this the frequency?

Hondroulis Brothers: Yes, Lizard.

Lizard: Shall we begin?

Hondroulis Brothers: Yes, Lizard.

 George and Costa, also known as The Hondroulis Brothers, are the ones who answer his call and come to Lizard's aid. Earlier in the story, Lizard and the Hondroulis Brothers had met when they were the rhythm section for a band called Our Flesh Party, a Columbus band that Earwig had played some shows with.

 The Hondroulis Brothers had also discovered the existence of a mirror-image city of Columbus known as Capital City where demons and other multidimensional actors worked behind the scenes to control the Multiverse.The three become friends and allies as they struggle to eventually come together as Earwig and defeat Dyslexia Society demons to make rock and roll history! While Lizard is trapped in the UnReal, The Hondroulis Brothers discover a channel to reach him and join forces. I decided to add one of their cross-dimensional conversations to the album. 

There you have it. If you’ve ever wondered what all of the weird Japanese dialog on Earwig’s ‘Pause For The Jets’ was all about…now you know!

JAPANESE TO ENGLISH Part 2

MEDUSA HEAD and THE SILVER DOOR

 While writing the songs that would become Earwig's album Pause For The Jets, I experienced intense dreams where I became a special agent tasked with locating magical artifacts that would help save the Multiverse. The most important artifact was an instrument known as the Enigma Guitar.  As my dreams continued and I got closer to the Enigma Guitar I started having brief flashes of lucid dreaming. I decided to develop this skill and see if I could use lucid dreaming to help find what I was looking for. 

 My dreams continued night-to-night and my lucid dreaming skills progressed. I began to notice the appearance of doorways in my dreams that were either made of gleaming silver or doors that were set inside of a shiny silver border. Each time I came to these doorways, if I reached out to touch the doorknob or the door…I would immediately be transported into a state of lucid dreaming where I could control the dream and it’s outcomes. I was also often transported to another location, another reality that was closer to the Enigma Guitar.

 At first it didn’t last for long. But I began to search out these “silver doors” and use them as a portal to fully realized dream control. I decided to write a song about it. I knew that I wanted the song to be called “Medusa Head”. If you want to know why, you’ll have to read the book! 

 Back in the waking world, I wrote several versions of Medusa Head before I got one that I liked for the album. I had James help me with the Japanese translation for the lyrics and she is the one who does the short vocal on the album track as well. 

 The term “many worlds” relates to the Quantum mechanics waveform theory that suggests that all possible outcomes and realities, past, present and future, are equally real and each represent and actual world (or universe). To me, the existence of the Silver Doors in my dreams implied that this theory is one of the underpinning truths of our reality.

There are the Japanese lyrics that you hear in MEDUSA HEAD…

Waeware wa, oku no sekai ni sonzai shi

gosuto naibu gosuto

gin no doa

Translated in to English, it says roughly…

We exist in many worlds

a ghost inside a ghost

the silver door

MEDUS HEAD: https://earwig.bandcamp.com/track/medusa-head

JAPANESE TO ENGLISH Part 1

JAPANESE TO ENGLISH IN THE UNREAL
PAUSE FOR THE JETS

I have always loved Prince. I also have very strange and detailed dreams. Both of those facts came together to create the weird Japanese dialog pieces that you hear on Earwig’s album ‘Pause For The Jets’. 

 The album is based around a short novel that I am writing (but will likely never finish) that details a series of dreams that I had where I was searching for The Enigma Guitar. This special guitar is a magical musical artifact that, in the right hands, can be used to save the Multiverse. The very first guitar riff was written on this guitar and somehow it had fallen under the control of the bad guys and I was tasked (in my dream) with locating the Enigma Guitar and saving the universe.

 The characters in my dreams often spoke Japanese (don’t ask me why, I’m not a psychiatrist), but I could somehow understand them. I was also able to communicate from inside the dream world with my cohorts in Team Earwig who were in the every day world. 

 My biggest nemesis on my quest to find the Enigma Guitar was Silverheels. Silverheels is a white-witch demon in a pointy hat and rocket boots who cruises the UnReal (that’s the name of the alternate universe in my dreams) astride a large white lizard/dragon. Silverheels does not speak, her dragon does all of her talking. I first met her before a battle that was about to take place in the UnReal and she seemed all too familiar. I felt like I knew her from somewhere. When I confronted her, her eyes glowed and she reared up on her dragon who bellowed the following speech in Japanese.

“Dearly beloved, welcome to the UnReal!

This is the dream of Mona Lisa, the other side of soul.

Electric word Enigma.

Are you tracking me? Do you know who I am?

You know me well.

You have known me for a long time, Lizard.

This is my last visit.

The time has come to rock the ending. Yr on your own!

And if that which you desire is unobtainable, you must revert to many worlds…”

Well, that’s a close approximation of what she said in my dream. I kept a dream journal and wrote everything down and that’s my best recollection. For the album, it’s mixed in with inspiration from the “eulogy” organ sermon that precedes Prince’s song “Let’s Go Crazy”. If you listen to Earwig’s recording of ‘Silverheels' with this in mind, you will find that our organ and the speech mimic the organ and “eulogy” in Prince’s song almost exactly. Give it a listen and play spot the similarity!

SILVERHEELS: https://earwig.bandcamp.com/track/silverheels

Ohio Is Everywhere (U.K. Tour Diary Part 2)

The next several days in England were more fun than a clown on fire. My family saw the sights and caught a farewell show by one of our favorite bands (The Maccabees) at the Apollo in Manchester. We visited all sorts of English manors and castles, saw cool graffiti and art, historic sites, Medieval churches, ancient burial grounds, and Gothic architecture. We found and devoured more awesome vegan food than we’ve ever had in America. 

The huge lion at Longleat House in Bath, England.

James prays in at a small country church in Southern, England. 

Lizard at 15th century church All Saints Church, Leeds. 

Lizard and Michelle at Chatsworth House, Peak District.

 In London, Bristol, Bath, Manchester, and Leeds the Ohio connections just kept coming! At a street market in Camden a vendor tried to sell me a 21 Pilots shirt (Columbus, Ohio, yes! T-shirt, no thanks). At a vegan cafe in King’s Cross the girl who sold us cupcakes was blithely singing along to “Cannonball” by the Breeders (one of my favorite Dayton bands!). 

  We made a pilgrimage to all of our favorite music related English sites and recreated famous photos by some of our favorites. Here we are at Salford Lads club in Manchester where my favorite Smiths photo was taken.

 All through the trip we kept hearing Ohio greats like Nine Inch Nails, Foo Fighters (Grohl gets a pass because he was born in Warren, Ohio), and The Black Keys. The fantastic Kisa’s in Perth was pumping RJD2’s latest as we ordered our dessert. It seemed like everywhere we went, the world was rocking along with Ohio’s finest. Ohio was everywhere and it felt good.

Lizard poses at the Ziggy shrine at Heddon street in London. 

 That Friday’s gig was at The Green Room in Perth, Scotland, a club known for breaking new acts. We were booked in the big room upstairs in the opening slot. There was a tour with 2 American bands and 1 Belgian band booked for this date when I was trying to secure the gig. The tour manager (a great guy from Glasgow) gave the go ahead for the club booker to add us to the bill, because we were from America and he thought that would make an interesting night of music. We showed up early, grabbed a copy of The Courier, Perth’s big city newspaper, and were excited to find a feature write-up for our performance and our CD review with a photo. 

Perth write-up in The Courier

 Scottish people are very nice and seemed genuinely excited to have us there. A local entertainment and lifestyle website was also doing a piece on our performance. Their affable reporter and photographer met us at the club and bought us a round while conducting the interview. Afterwards they were self-proclaimed fans for life. 

Lizard and James rocking out in Scotland.

 Our opening set was about as close to perfect as we’ve ever performed. We played new songs and old songs with a cover by The Human League thrown in for good measure. The sound was superb and the crowd seemed to hang on every song. I think the fact that we were a stripped down, acoustic duo worked in our favor, piquing the crowd’s interest and holding it for our 9 song set. The crowd topped out at around 75 people and after the show we’d made several new fans who wanted CDs. They were oddly intrigued by our foreign accents. I guess we seemed exotic to their ears. When the other bands’ tour manager got an Earwig shirt, he stripped down on the spot and put it on immediately to show his support. 

 Happy with our set we settled into a comfy booth for the rest of the acts. The other American bands were fun! They were both from L.A. and the headliner (from Belgium) put on an impressive rock show. London had been great but this was by far the best gig of our micro-tour and my personal favorite.

The Green Room, Perth, Scotland.

The next night we were still hoping that our show in Leeds would come through, even though I had not heard back with solid confirmation. The band that was helping us with the gig had been hard to get ahold of and after an initial period of excitement and certainty, seemed like they were leaving us out in the cold.


  I checked with the club and sure enough, we were not on the bill. It looked like a Saturday night with no show for us. So we drove south through Edinburgh back to Leeds, cranked the stereo and sang along to “Your Band Flaked Out On Me” by our hometown heroes The Kyle Sowashes.

“Your band flaked out on me, right when I needed you the most”. 

  All in all, losing the third gig of the tour was not a disappointment. It gave us a free day to explore the English countryside and not stress about having to be anywhere on time. Even though this micro-tour clocked out at just 2 shows, it felt like a real victory. Our song “Silverheels” had been premiered on a U.K. station during our tour, we’d had a few write-ups on U.K. music websites, one glowing show preview in a large Scottish newspaper, we’d made new fans and ultimately fulfilled our rock and roll destiny to “Always leave them wanting more.”

New Earwig fans. 

  We came, we conquered, and we had fun. This micro-tour goes down in the Earwig books as a success. Recently Tony, the tour manager from Glasgow, has contacted me on Facebook to say that he will be on tour this summer with an American band. He wants to meet up with me and talk about bringing the full band back to the U.K. for a proper Earwig tour when the next album comes out. His current tour will be making a stop for a show in, where else, Cincinnati, Ohio.

 For me, it seems that no matter how far away I go…Ohio is everywhere.

Ohio Is Everywhere (U.K. Tour diary Part 1)

 Earwig in London!

 I’ve booked several U.S. tours for my band before. It typically involves a lot of phone calls, emails, promotions and a serious time investment. The bulk of the work is usually done months in advance. This was not the case with my recent live dates in England. I decided to fly by the seat of my pants and book the shows online at the last minute. Interestingly, it worked out just fine and was one of my favorite tours. 

When my family decided to take a trip to the U.K., I thought, “What the hell, I’ll set up some shows and do a mini-tour!” James would be there as well and we could travel light, playing the shows as an acoustic duo. Due to some red tape, I did not get my passport until 3 weeks before the trip. I had held off booking any actual dates until I had my documents in hand.

That left less than three weeks to book international club dates and work out full details and promotions. No sweat! Or at least that’s what I told myself. With only ten days on my family’s trip itinerary, I settled on a small tour schedule and went to work.

This is what I started with:

U.K. TOUR Dates: 

London - Saturday, June 24th

Sheffield- Tuesday, June 27th

Perth- Friday, June 30

Leeds - Saturday, July 1st

I knew a band from Sheffield and a few others from London that I had connected with on Twitter. I sent out a flurry of tweets and private messages and waited for the replies. I followed-up with the few responses via email and began to whittle the options down. I was very lucky. Within 24 hours I had booked a gig at The Dublin Castle, a legendary club in the Camden area of London. This was the club where Amy Winehouse used to work behind the bar and all other sorts of cool bands had come up. We had landed this gig on the strength of our songs, which the booker had listened to online. I was elated! I posted my results to Twitter, feeling very proud. One show down and 3 to go!

I woke up the next morning to an email from the booker canceling my performance; he had added us without speaking to the other bands on the bill and they balked at sharing with a performer from out-of-town. My heart sank.

 I redoubled my efforts and spent the next week making friends online and reaching out to bands on Facebook and Twitter. I’ve helped tons of touring bands hook-up and get gigs in Ohio. I was certain that an English band would do the same for me. It’s not that they didn’t try, but the band I knew in Sheffield was out of town.

 Then, I got another bite from a smaller club in Soho, London. The promoter also ran sound at St. Moritz Club and he decided to give us a shot. This was cool! St. Moritz is a small club but has a great reputation. Rumor has it that U2 played one of their first un-documented London gigs there, so did Lou Reed, Peter Gabriel, The Kinks, OMD, and Joe Strummer.

The street entrance for St. Moritz club.

 A few days later, I connected with a musician from Perth, Scotland. He liked the music, but said that his band never really played out live. He recommended a local club called The Green Room.

 It took me a few days to get a response from the booker there; he was waiting to hear back from the promoter for bands that were already booked there that Friday night. When he heard we were from Ohio, the tour manager for the American and Belgian bands agreed to let us on the bill! Score, that’s TWO SHOWS!

I also had a tentative show in Leeds through a band I met online. From our emails that gig seemed solid. I decided to forget about booking a show in Sheffield. For my first trip over-seas, three shows was pretty good in my book. By the time we left for the U.K. I had booked a micro-tour online, with minimal effort or investment, and got about half of the gigs I was hoping for.

After an 8 hour flight to London, our first 24 hours in England would be non-stop. We landed at Heathrow at 6am, rented a car and drove south to see the white cliffs of Dover. The Pretenders were playing on the radio in the cafe where we had breakfast. The first song I heard in England was sung by an Ohio native! Thanks, Chrissie Hynde.

 That afternoon, we drove back to London and explored Soho, eventually locating the small club. St. Moritz is a basement venue known for their fantastic live music. 

 Once inside, the booker told us that this place was a favorite of Lemmy from Motorhead who used to hang out there and pour everyone pints from behind the bar. It’s an all underground venue with two rooms, one room has a bar, the other a stage reminiscent of Bernie’s Bagels in Columbus.

 When we arrived the first band was sound-checking and when they were done I chatted with the singer/bass player. Turns out she had just been in Ohio where she has family in Dayton! Another Ohio connection. The guitarist was also from Ohio, but, interestingly, the two had only ever crossed paths in England.

 This tour had been booked so quickly that there wasn’t much done in the way of promotion, though I had a recent U.K. review and a promotional write-up for this gig on an English website. So we were not expecting a lot of people to show up for our set but by 9:00 pm there was a small crowd growing in the bar. It was getting late and there were 3 full bands after us, so, once we got set up, we took a 5 minute break and then started right into our set. I was feeling frazzled. The previous 24 hours of travel had me out sorts. We played well, our set was 35 minutes, the monitors were loud, and James did a great job singing. However, the stage was dark and that made it very hard to see my guitar and what I was actually playing.

Lizard and James on stage at St. Moritz.

  Our crowd consisted of roughly 25 people, of which about half were in the other bands. We had one person come specifically to see us play! For a show almost 4,000 miles from home, we thought that was reasonably impressive.

After our set, I mingled and talked with everyone. They were all pleasantly surprised by our sound and liked the songs. Two people wanted CDs. When someone heard I was from Ohio they had to ask was I for “Bengals or Browns?” I told him that I was team Bigfoot. I laughed…I don’t think he actually knew what it meant, just that it had something to do with Ohio. 

Riding the underground at Piccadilly Circus

  With our first London gig officially in the books, we went out to celebrate the success of our very first U.K. gig! In Soho it’s a wild party all night long with people spilling out into the streets, dancing, singing and drinking into the wee morning hours. We had a pint at a pub across the street from famous Brew Dog pub (which was too full to get a seat in) and capped our night with a walk to Piccadilly Circus. London was alive deep into the night and teeming with locals and tourists. After soaking in the atmosphere, we caught a late train on the underground. We were ready to head back to our beds for our first sleep in London. 

Taking the tube home and outside the Brew Dog pub in Soho.

 Interesting side-note: Brew Dog is one of the most popular U.K. breweries. When they recently expanded to America where did they choose to open their U.S. headquarters and first pub and brewery? In Ohio. 

(continued in Part 2)

Every Day Math

 Math and science are important. When I was in school I thought that I sucked at math. It intimidated me. Then I discovered quantum mechanics and realized how  math ties everything together. Painting is math. Playing guitar is math. Dreaming is math. It's literally the lynch pin and the foundation for all of reality. Everything that happens, happens because of math. 

Here's a song I wrote about math. 
It's called Every Day Math.

https://m.soundcloud.com/lizardmcgee/everyday-math-mix-1

EVERY DAY MATH

I'm waking up to a brand new day

With formulas to calculate

Everything that happens

It all happens because of math

It's like a game that we can play

Where you look, math every day

You don't need a plane to fly it

There's no excuse, let's try it!

It's in the Mona Lisa

It's in the Big Bang 

It's in the tower at Pisa

It's in the guitar twang

It's in the program running

How we learn,  math is where the fun is

It's Every Day Math