I was up in Minnesota last week. The first night it rained for a while, froze and then snowed on top of that. By 9am the next day when it was time to get out and get going, the driveway was a pure sheet of ice…the roads weren’t. They were completely safe.
Minnesota is prepared to this type of thing. They know if they didn’t follow a certain procedure of salting, scraping and plowing (even on the nice days), there would be countless days each winter that people couldn’t go to work or school or wherever.
Nashville, not so much. At this very moment in time, there is freezing rain happening, everything will freeze later, and then it will snow. And ain’t no one goin anywhere for a while.
Nashville chooses not to prepare for this type thing. It doesn’t happen super often, maybe once every handful of years. And the city shuts down “unexpectedly” for a few days.
Minnesota prepares well and life goes on as usual. Nashville doesn’t prepare well and everything gets messed up.
It’s all about preparing, planning and choices.
Your road manager booked nasty hotels last tour…how much extra time are you going to spend hiring the right road manager for the next tour? If you are ok with the consequences of a bad road manager, don’t take any extra time. Devote time preparing for things that you’re concerned with the outcomes of.
When your drummer can’t stay with the click, is it important he get better or you find a new drummer? If you don’t mind your music being loose or sloppy, don’t bother with this type of preparation.
Do you save money in a company/band account for when things go wrong? (Notice I said “when” not “if”) If you’re ok being stranded in Idaho for a couple extra days while the bass player tries to convince his mom to pay for the van getting fixed, don’t save extra money.
You’ve been dying to work with that certain producer. So you finally work really hard and get in a room with him. But did you remember to write a great song?
If all your gear gets stolen, will that paralyze your organization, or did you buy gear insurance beforehand?
You can’t prepare for everything, and it’s ok to be ok (for a while) with some mild consequences for not being prepared.
But having the vision, the ability to forecast the ice storm before it comes, preparing the streets, owning snow plows, turns the ferocious ice storm into barely a blip on everyones radar.
Meanwhile in Nashville, we are all stranded at home.
Send food.
