David Ford – 2nd ROAD BLOG from his 2013 North American Tour

The UK based artist, David Ford, is currently on his 2013 tour through North America. While he’s on this tour, he’ll be blogging for the site. You can check out his second entry about the Boston part of his journey, after the break.

My trip to Boston was dominated by new lessons on the art of parking.

Among my friends back home, it is a truth well known that my greatest talent in this world is that of parking a car. I accept with great relish the challenge of parking in a space barely an inch longer than the vehicle at my command. The perfect park is a study in spatial awareness like an out of body experience, a serene and beautiful synergy of man and machine and universe in perfect alignment.

All that fancy zen bullshit goes out the window in Boston. It’s an ugly dogfight out there and if you don’t step up big, defeat is certain and crushing.

On a tour like ours, the notion of a penny saved is a penny earned, however lacking in wild rock and roll romance, is a smart code by which to live. I have never wanted to be that guy who keeps a keen watch on the financial implications of a life in music, but I am square enough to know that touring in a foreign land is not inexpensive and I can only continue to do so if I maintain a realistic understanding of who I am and what level of luxury I should demand for myself. So when parking costs $55 a night and the hotel room costs $49, that’s my cue to get behind that wheel and scrap it out on the mean streets.

I would circle the block, seeking the holy grail; a parking space on the street, near the hotel. I would see other drivers scanning the field of battle with predatory eyes over the top of steering wheels, crawling the block, waiting for a parked car to twitch or a brake light to signal an ugly frenzy to be the first to square up in front of the space, reverse lights on, the ironclad claim of ownership.

But nothing ever comes free, nor lasts forever. So between applicable hours, this becomes a 2 hourly ritual and one that necessitates getting up at the kind of hour I don’t usually like to see from the front end of my day. So is it worth it? I mean we could have just put the car into one of Boston’s many conveniently located parking garages offering a stationary hour in exchange for $30.

The show at Club Passim in Cambridge went really well, everybody played a good show and Jarrod parked quite brilliantly while I was setting up the stage. The audience was sizeable and appreciative and you can’t ask for much more than that. However, it is an unfortunate truth that in the cold, ugly final analysis of a tour, the real-world viability of a show is dictated not by the quality of the performance or the enjoyment of the audience but by a simple question of profit and loss. Now I’m so completely devoid of a clue when it comes to finance and I don’t care if I get paid for doing my job or not. But I really want to keep doing it. And I want keep doing it here. So if that means fighting the good fight on the stage and then continuing that fight with an audacious land grab on the wild frontier of Boston street parking, then I will answer that calling.

Then some day I will return to strengthen my empire.
A mighty empire, like so many others, built on frugal parking policy.

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Did you enjoy this blog? Do you plan on going to see him on this tour? Let us know in the comments below!