I DREAM OF MAINE

Very few dreams are special enough to age with you.

My dream of playing professional hockey officially died in the 12th grade, when I wasn’t good enough to play on what was — at the time — a truly great high school hockey team. Before that, I wanted to be an astronaut. In reality, I think I just wanted an invite to Space Camp. (If you know, you know.)

My dream of being in a commercial band died in 2004, when I stopped trying to “make it” and instead became a barroom singer I’d like to claim that the industry rejected my early bands, but it was more like annoyed indifference to our efforts. This Dalton experience feels like we’re playing with house money. In some ways, I think that is one major reason why we operate the way we do.

And, as the song says, I’m luckier by half when it comes to family and friends. Being able to raise a family with Kate, while building Dalton, is definitely a dream come true.

But one dream that I’ve had that has not changed as I have grown, is the dream of moving to a lake in Maine.

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I grew up doubly lucky, thanks to summer trips to Point Sebago and weekends with our good friends Ken and Di on Little Sebago. Waterskiing is actually my most favorite sport to participate in. I used to be pretty good. I haven’t done it in years -- gonna need a bigger boat, as they say, until I get in shape -- but it was so important to me that I wrote my college essay about it. The calm that I felt waiting in glassy water for the boat to "hit it!" and the resulting chaotic cocktail of skimming the water, zen-like, while your muscles fight and ache to keep you there are indelibly burned in my psyche. I used to spend most of my summer work money on waterskiing equipment.

I’ve long dreamed of owning a place on Little Sebago. It just feels like my heart and brain operate differently in Vacationland. Maine might be the only place where daily stress seems unable to find me.

It was also in Maine, around campfires, that I first learned to play songs for people. It was just like the song: all pine smoke, broken strings and voices gone chorus-hoarse.

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We hardly think about “making it” in this band. The industry remains indifferent or disbelieving as to the things that you folks reading these articles have built for us. I don’t expect anything other than a stage and opportunity to win over a crowd. As we make an effort to break into new cities, our goal is to recreate what we did in Boston and New York and Chicago: that perfect moment when songs and beers and conversations turn into communities.

Being in a band is interesting. I think most people would be shocked at how many people ask how much money you make (or if it’s enough) after they find out you are in a band. I guess the career choice begs the question, but — as Kate often points out —it’s not like someone introduces themselves as a banker or lawyer and then people question them about their salary.

Our challenge in the next few years is to figure out how to make everyone a living wage so that this can be the primary focus for them. Quick napkin math on the cost of generating a living wage for eight or nine people is illustrative of just how far we’d have to go to make this real.

Most record deals are just bad loans, where bands get an advance and then the record companies recoup any expenses that they charge back against future royalties. Aside from the very few bands that unequivocally make it, most working bands are like replacement baseball players: you get a two-to-three year run to make an impact.

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I honestly didn’t know if they would let us play the Pavilion again this year. We only sold about 2700 tickets last year and that is right on the edge of what makes a show possible there (usually, venues want to be a little more than half-filled). The only reason we got invited back is that you folks spend more at the bar than any other act -- and it’s not even close -- so a half-filled Dalton venue is still a major win at the concessions stand for the venue.

When Kate and I think about whether or not we can continue pushing Dalton each year, we come back to our non-negotiables. We want our kids in a school where they can be successful and safe. We want to be able to pay our bills. (Though, a financial planner would probably have concerns about our retirement plans — namely, hopping in the RV with the dogs for beach bar gigs up-and-down the East Coast.) We’re cool with the work if we’re doing it together.

The kids are getting closer to college and you naturally start to think longer about how to pay for it and where we will be after the kids move out. It was wild dropping Tommy off at Notre Dame for two weeks. It's all happening. (Print the t-shirts already, Brendan.)

This is a long way of describing what Kate and I talk about when we dream about what Dalton can be. Simply put, we just want want to be a working band. I want to be able to pack up the RV and head to any town in America and play a gig for people who want to listen. I want to be part of that ecosystem of working bands who may not be on the radio, but who are in the cars and headphones of working people navigating families, love, loss, and dreams.

And either way, when its all said and done, we hope to end up in a little cottage on a lake in Maine, where our kids will want to go on weekends with their college friends for guitars and songs around a campfire. (And, I promise to be in shape enough that I can teach everyone how to waterski.)

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Tomorrow night, the journey continues at a place in Portland called One Longfellow Square. It’s our first gig in Maine since the beforetimes and it may not be a huge crowd. But, we will be living our specific dream: Driving the RV to one of my favorite cities, setting up the gear, and playing some tunes for the people we are lucky to have in front of us.

I’ve always like that meme about, “if I won the lottery, I wouldn’t say anything, but there would be signs.” I think its hilarious in a sort of ex-English teacher/current dad sort of way.

Dalton is unlikely to make us financially rich. But — when this is done — if you see pictures of a small dock on a cold-water lake somewhere in the woods of Maine, feel free to take that as your sign.