AKA The Seven Degrees of 7/4

I'm reaching back in my Rolodex-card memory (most of the cards are smudged though!) and thinking about previous July 4th gigs.

America's birthday's always been good to me and my musical crew - financially and otherwise. And it's weird how many friends I've made and gigs I've picked up through this one holiday.

For example: my friend Jack introduced me to Bob and Sue, who'd used a different band every year for their huge July 4 party...that is, before us (well, by "us" I mean me and several incarnations of my band. Wait, wait...in NO WAY am I taking full credit for doing this party every year - I've been blessed to play this gig with some crazy good cats. However, I'm kind of the string holding the years together).

Anyway, one of the guests at Bob and Sue's party was Steve, who throws his own summer bash every year. He now books us for that every year, playing alongside his band - and we have a BLAST. At Steve's party we met several folks who've hooked us up for the Long Beach Auto Show, Long Beach Concerts on the Park and Rancho Los Cerritos community. At the Long Beach Auto Show we met a person who hired us to play their Christmas function, and at THAT function we met someone wanting to book us for HER holiday function the following year!

(ASIDE: this hasn't even TOUCHED upon meeting the wonderful Steve and Jennifer at Bob's party, who've become very good friends - no, make that "part of the Jones family.")

I KNOW I'm forgetting something - and one of these days I'll do the definitive gig tree, which shows where EVERYTHING came from (would Taco Surf be the Tree of Life?). In the meantime, it's interesting and fun to see how much really comes from celebrating the Fourth of July with Party Jones.