January 10, 2023 • 45 mins
One of the perks of road life is access to free stuff you couldn’t easily get on your own. Listen in to the episode as Matt and I share how the road bright us free tickets, discount shopping and a pretty amazing birthday for Matt.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:33):
Hey, everybody, welcome back to a new episode of Her
with Amina Brown. And at the time that you are
listening to this episode, we're already going to be in
a new year. So I hope you all are feeling
all of the new year vibes, whether you are taking
the opportunity to do all of the things or whether
(00:55):
you are taking the opportunity to go slowly. Y'all know,
I'm always a big fan of a slow movement, a
slow entrance into the new year. And we're back with
some road stories. So Matt Tear, Hey baby, Happy New Year. Okay,
So today we want to tell y'all a couple of
cool stories about some free stuff that we got a
(01:18):
chance to experience because we were on the road, and
a pretty amazing birthday that I've had a couple of them. Yeah, yeah,
that Matt had on the road. So first of all, Babe,
we were talking about this. We were just talking in
general about the road and some of the perks that
can come along with the road, and you told a
(01:38):
story that I didn't even remember. So you said, we
were in Florida. We're in Orlando, Florida doing an event.
I think it was a youth event, and because I
think it was a youth of it, because I'm pretty
sure they had a deal where they were taking people
from the event to Universal Studios, Okay, and they asked us,
(02:04):
would you like free passes for the day to go
to Universal Studios. This was either before or after, or
maybe before and after, who can remember, but it was
we we hit the stage, did our thing, and I'm
pretty sure after that we got to leave and go
(02:24):
to Universal Studios. Now see, I don't remember being with you,
so a part of me is thinking that they gave
us this option in a window of time that was
between sound check and when we actually had to perform.
And I don't remember what exactly we were doing at
(02:45):
this event, but I kind of feel like they were like, Hey,
maybe you know, y'all have some free time, y'all could
go over there. And I'm pretty sure I said no
to that because I felt that I needed to like
get my life together. I don't know what we were doing.
That's very possible because if we do a flashback to
(03:06):
our honeymoon. Our honeymoon, we went to Universal Studios because
we were driving all the way to Florida. I want
to give a shout out to my in laws. Matt's
parents were giving us entrance to their time share people.
So this just so y'all know where we were budget
wise at this time. When we got married, we had
(03:27):
we had to pay fifty dollars in order to be
able to use Matt's parents time share, So they were
basically giving us the gift of having a wonderful place
to stay for our honeymoon. And all we had to
pay was fifty seven days, seven nights, okay. And we
are driving driving down to Orlando, which is not a
short drive. It's not too long, but it's not a
(03:49):
short drive. We're driving down to Orlando, y'all, and just
start opening up the cards from the wedding, and that's
how we knew we had enough money to go to
Universal Studios, Darren, and so on the honeymoon, I found
out that you had never written a roller coaster, true,
So we decided we'd go on a roller coaster. If
(04:12):
I remember correctly, it's called the rock and roll roller
coaster or a rock and roller or something like that,
where you got to choose your own music, which I
thought was great. One thing I don't even know if
I knew this about you at the time. But my
wife loves an option. Boy, boy, I love to customize.
If Amina can pick an option, she loves that. If
(04:34):
Amina can't pick an option, she wants to know why
Why can't I got an option to say? If I
want to have an option. I also want to let
the record reflect y'all that I have never been a
person who even enjoyed the thought of a roller coaster.
I've had many opportunities where I was at various as
sundry parks all over the place, went with other kids,
(04:57):
and was just like, that doesn't seem like it's for me.
But I'm gonna tell you, when you first get married
and you realize that your person really loves something, you
want to try really hard to do this. So this
was me was so it was our honeymoon, very first
roller coaster for you. I picked Beastie Boys. Did fight
(05:19):
for the right to party? Where did you pick? I
picked Kanye West? Stronger. I know it's hard to say no,
we will bypass that little moment you hurt. Uh So, anyways,
we get on that roller coaster, find out that Amina
really hates One of my most embarrassing moments happened on
(05:41):
that roller coaster. Y'all has vowed to never ride a
roller coaster again. First and last roller coaster that day,
literally the rest of our honeymoon. I was like, Babe,
ride as many rides as you want to ride. I
will be waiting at the bottom reading my kindle until
you come back, which is a picture into our relationship,
(06:02):
both working and marriage. Anyways, flash forward to this event.
It very well may have been that you didn't go
with me. I just know that I left the state.
I was thinking, how cool is this? I was just
on my turntables, uh rocking beats in front of all
these people, and now here I am, uh in line
(06:26):
to get on a roller coaster. This is an awesome day.
And I do remember that. Um it was something they
had with the Transformers. I don't know if one of
the Transformer movies had just come out or something along
that line. So they had a dude and a massive
Transformer costume like turned into the truck and then next
(06:49):
thing you know, he's up and like walking around and talking,
and I was like, how cool is that? And then
I happened to walk around the corner and saw the
dude with the head off of the costume. And as well.
I think I got a picture of that somewhere or
a video. So anyways, so yeah, that was your day.
So you got to do that, y'all. That's we were
(07:11):
We were talking through like some of our most you know,
fun free stuff, and when Matt brought this up, and
I was like, I'm pretty sure we didn't go because
I would have remembered going back to Universal Studios with you.
So I'm just laughing at whoever was like, yeah, come on,
and Matt got on the van and rode over there. Y'all. Wow,
(07:32):
I'd love to see it. I'm I'm glad you enjoyed it, bab,
because it's hard for free things to come across the
table and neither one of us get to enjoy it.
So I'm glad you got to do that. That's one
of the things about road life like that is much
different when you're working in your own city just going
to events. Road life was you would be in a
(07:54):
green room and somebody would walk up to you and
be like, hey, do you want to insert inc whether
it's you know, there was a certain event to have
these this really cool company that made these watches. Remember,
you're like, do you want one of these watches and
you're like, sure, I want watches watches. I remember us
being at an event. It was a health event and
(08:16):
I had just been looking into this new thing called
a fitbit. Yes, and they're like, hey, would you like
a fitbit? And we were like, of course we would like,
and they just gave you one. And I remember that
day wearing it, thinking I got a billion steps and
I looked down there was like two steps or something. Yea,
(08:38):
I've never seen two people marching in the hotel that
night trying to be like, why doesn't it Why I
thought I got so many steps like marching trying to
make up for the steps y'all. Wow, I forgot about that.
What a time that that was a great free thing.
I want to also shout out that event because I
was there to do one poem. They had commissioned me
to do a poem according to like the theme of
(09:00):
something they were doing at the event. And right after
I did my poem, Michael J. Fox was the keynote speaker.
And shout out to my gen X people listening to
this podcast. Because I didn't speak to Michael J. Fox.
He didn't speak to me, but boy did Matt and
I just like stare and stare and stare at him.
(09:21):
It was like, oh my gosh, our little kids soelves like,
I know, I know that Michael J. Fox has done
more with his life then beyond family ties and star
in Back to the Future. However, um, that's what was
most important at the moment, just seeing him in person
and being like, oh my gosh, I am standing behind
I could reach out and touch his head, but I didn't. Wow.
(09:43):
I also really wanted to add to my resume at
that point that I opened from Michael J. Fox. You
know what I'm saying. It was like a Michael J.
Fox concert. Basically, I was the opening act. Has shared
stages with Michael J. Fox, is the actual fact, because
we did kind of share the stage. Now. One time,
I do remember thinking that we were like something in
(10:05):
the green room, uh, with some sunglasses or something, and
we're like, oh cool. So we went up to the
table and picked out these sunglasses and they were like, yeah,
the price will be and we were like, well it
was very expensive. I remember being very expensive, and I
remember it was like one of those It was one
of those companies where it's like every purchase you make,
(10:27):
you know, is like sort of a donation in some
way to some you know, sort of you know, underserved
or or under privileged community. And so at that point
you thought you were going to get it's not You're
gonna get free sunglasses. Now you're not. But now you
feel bad to be like, oh no, I don't want
those people to be able to have eye exams, you know.
(10:50):
So we were kind of like stuck and had to
buy those cool cool Yeah, let's put this on the Yanks. Okay,
one my favorite free things. And I still miss this
one because we have not There are some cities we've
returned to eat one of us or both of us
have returned to post our like church, you know, traveling
(11:15):
that we used to do, and so we've got a
chance to go back and experience some of those cities.
But Portland is a city that neither of us have
been back to because we have not been booked there.
Now that neither of us are really doing things in
sort of church market or Christian event type world, I'm
gonna tell y'all something right now. The free passes that
(11:36):
we received to the Adida's employee store, I mean this
is I mean, I dare I say, is it life changing?
I really want to say it's definitely wardrobe changing, because
we both received some shoes. I mean the shoes you
can get up in there. Some of them you can't
(11:57):
find anywhere anymore. So people, okay, we need to talk
to you all about this. First of all, Adidas's headquartered
in Portland's as well as Nike, though, and we are
both big Adidas fans. I do since we're talking about
road stories, I do want to bring up that I
was wearing shell toes at an event around the time
(12:18):
that we would go back and forth to Portland's, and
a lady walked up and she was like, oh, look
at you wearing those shoes. My twelve year old daughter
loves those kind of shoes. And I'm pretty sure that
I barked back at her. These are hip hop shoes.
These are called shell toes because run dmc wore them
in the eighties. That's why I'm wearing them. I'm pretty
(12:39):
sure I did that. That was probably a sign that
my time in Christian Market needed to be over, because
I was like, I'm not wearing these because your little girl,
your little teenage girl, thinks they're cute. These aren't shoes
you found in the limited two in the mall. Okay,
I'm wearing these. It was because period, like, what do
(13:03):
you mean you can see it's still making me mad. Okay. Anyways,
so we didn't know this until we got to Portland's. Well, no,
that's not true, because I think I put up a
little like post or something on Facebook or Twitter back
then and told people who were going to Portland's for
the first time, we've never been, and asked them like,
(13:24):
what should we eat? What should we do? And so
of course people posted up their different restaurants and stuff,
and any of you that are listening that live in
Portland know that Portland obviously is very well known for
food trucks and stuff. So people were telling us different
places to go, and then they were like, y'all have
to go y'all they knew they knew us. So they
were like, y'all have to go to the Adida's you know,
(13:44):
employee store, and you'll have to actually go to the
Adida's headquarters because there is a big shelter. They're like big,
like larger than life, larger than you shelter where you
could like take pictures. Okay, but here's the thing you
need to pass to get into the employee store. If
(14:04):
you are not what an employee, So an employee has
to put your name. And this is how it was
back then, y'all. So don't don't quote me now because
I don't know what the security measures are now. But
back then, an employee had to like put your name
on a list, and if they put your name on
the list, it meant whatever that day was, any time
(14:25):
that day that the store was open, you could go
in there. So I think the first time we went
to Portland's, we were trying to like funaglin. We were
trying to see if, like somebody could hook us up,
and we never to get the hook up. But let
me tell y'all something shout out to being married to
an extrovert. Okay, because we went to an Adida's outlet
(14:49):
store like shortly before we were about to get on
our flight. I think our flight was like later in
the almost like in the evening, and the event or
whatever we've done was done in the morning, so we
had checked out of our hotel. We had all this
time to kill. So Matt's like, let's just we couldn't
find a pass let's just go to the outlet store.
(15:10):
So we went to the outlet store and Matt found
a couple of cool things there. And I don't know
where I went. I don't know if I went to
the bathroom, whatever, but I know you started talking to
the employee. Do you remember doing this? I do, and
I remember that I just so happened to have on,
you know, some probably a pair of shell toes and
(15:32):
a full Adidas track suit, which is just regular daily
were from me. Any I've looked back at, just because
Halloween just passed not long ago, all the pictures of
me from any Halloween party I DJ have always been
me in an Adidas track suit with some sort of
mask on. So one year I'm a Jabberwaukee, a Jabberwaukee
(15:56):
B boy boy some mask I don't even know what
it is, b boy. So I my goal is by
the time I'm an old man to have nothing but
track suits my closet. And I've got a nice little
collection going on, and specifically mostly of Adidas, and so
I was in all the and so I was like,
(16:17):
you know what, let me just you know, they were
talking about my track suit and oh yeah, I wear nothing,
but oh yeah, I pretty much wear nothing but Adidas
a lot of times, you know. And uh, they were like, well,
you know about the employee store. And I'm in my
mind like I do know about the employee store. What
you know about the in ploy store? And yeah, just
once they led to anohing, They're like, man, you're you
got it. We gotta put you on the list. So
they called. I remember they picked up the phone and
(16:39):
that I would said hey, uh, Matthew Owen plus one.
I was like, yo, wow, I'm pretty sure I went
to the bathroom because I'm pretty sure I came back
from the bathroom thinking like, okay, he bought his purchases.
I guess we'll find somewhere to eat or whatever. And
you were like, we just got into the Adidas in place.
We have to go over there life right now, Like
(17:01):
we had like two or three hours probably before we
had to go to the airport. Y'all. Okay, now, when
you get to the employee store, the items in the
employee store. Don't quote us what is doing now because
we don't know. But back then the employee store, the
items were off of everything, everything, y'all everything. So did
(17:26):
we go into the employee store and go absolutely wild
in the store. Why yes we did. I don't know.
I don't know if y'all watched Supermarket Sweep growing up?
Was that us in the employee store? Because it's almost like,
you know, you're not stealing, because you know that, like
everything you're getting you're gonna pay for it, But you
(17:48):
feel like this is a rare I have. My obligation
is not an opportunity that's given to everyone. I am here.
This is my obligation. I'm doing this for the culture.
I'm gonna tell y'all right now that I came home
(18:08):
with some red suede shell toes that costs like and
remember we had to buy uh An Adida's gym bag
that day just to be able to fit. It was
a good sized gym bag, just to be able to
fit the stuff that we bought from the Adidas store.
(18:29):
And had to carry the gym bag onto the plane
because I was like, surely I'm not gonna check this
bag with all this new Adida stuff in here, with
the tags on it, Surely I'm not gonna do that.
I'm about to carry this bag on so I can
see it and know where it is at all times. Wow. Wow, y'all.
What a time. Let me tell you something else I
(18:49):
do remember about this flight. On this flight, I got
food poisoning. Oh my gosh, that was the same flight. Flight.
Will spare you the details, but there's a few places
in life you don't want to find out you have
food poisoning. And that is way up in the sky
(19:12):
and the airplane. If I remember correctly, I was sitting
in the middle seat. I think you were sitting in
the middle. Person next to me fell asleep night flight.
Oh it was. It wasn't like a red Eye. Why
do we do so having to carefully climb over the
lap of the person multiple times? Yes, why are you
(19:33):
about to lose yourself? Gotta let it go. You only
get one shot. I think I took a couple of
shots you did. And then the hard part about having
food poisoning on a flight is there are regulations as
to win you are allowed to be up going to
the bathroom, so that period of time where the plane
(19:57):
is about to ascend, you're not supposed to be walking
around during that time. But if you have food poisoning,
you can't tell your stomach that. We have definitely been
on a flight where it wasn't one of us, but
we have definitely been on a flight where someone was
in the bathroom and the plane couldn't land because somebody
was having some I'm guessing tell me troubles. I mean
(20:19):
they had to make the announcement. Sorry, folks, we're gonna
have to circle the runway, circled the landing before. One time,
I know it was me. There's at least one flight
we were on that. I remember the flight attendant like
knocking on the door to the bathroom like, ma'am, you
have got to come out of here. So on this
particular flight, this is where we came up with the
(20:40):
rule to not eat fish from the airport. That happened
on that right there. When in the airport, do not
order the fish. See I'm glad you brought this up, babe,
(21:02):
because we've talked previously on these road Stories episodes about
how a writer, how an artist writer ends up sounding
like it does. So when people book you, and especially
when you're getting books for things in church world, people
really despise the idea of a writer. But in regular
(21:25):
you got booked for some event, they're looking to see
your tech writer, which is all of your sound equipment
and different like all of the connections you need audio
video wise, and then the rest of your writer could
be a food writer because you have dietary restrictions. It
could be a writer regarding what you need as far
(21:45):
as your backstage expectations. All these things, all these things
are very standard in the entertainment industry. But when you
are an entertainer or an artist now going into a
church setting, your writer is despised because it's basically like,
you are not focused on why do you say you
(22:07):
need heat and air if it's cold? Why do you
need a heated space to be in? You're only about
to get up and speak or do poetry? Why should
Why would your vocal cores need any form of warmth?
Who cares about you get pnement? Who cares? You know?
We're here with the Lord. You're gonna leave here and
(22:28):
it's not our problem. So this, this flight moment was
a moment of an internal writer. Right There's some things
that we put on the writer that the people who
would book us would know. These are the expectations, but
there were also things that we had internally, and that
moment right there, I'm gonna tell y'all, you know, even
(22:49):
though it sounds so wild, like sometimes you will go
to a very nice airport that might have a very
well known sushi restaurant inside of it. But we have
said in our internal rider, we don't do that. Pok,
We're not doing We're not doing fish, whether it's cooked, fried, raw,
We're just not in the airport. No, not forgot about that.
(23:13):
Baby about that. Okay, come to Portland. If you're gonna
eat fish, just eat it while you're in Portland's is
what we're trying to tell you. Fantastic restaurants, great, do
not do not do that in the airport anywhere. I
(23:37):
don't care. I don't care. Now it's a life lesson
My other favorite this This is not a free thing,
but I guess kind of ended up being a free thing.
But I don't think it was necessarily a perk because
of the gig that we were at. But y'all, I
love to celebrate my husband, and I love birthdays in general.
(24:02):
Like people that I love, I love a birthday. So
Matt is my favorite person in the entire universe. So
when his birthday comes up, I'm like everything stops. So
one particular year, it was the same year that Alabama
Shakes released their album Sound and Color, which if you
have not listened to the album, I want you to
(24:23):
stop right now and go save it on whatever place
you listen to your music. The whole album. That album
for me for a long time was my after the gig.
You get on the plane, you've already done whatever. You're
holding space for what you had to do and trying
to keep in mind. So when this transition, when that
(24:44):
thing happens, when when but the unwind the you get
on the plane, put your headphones on and go mm
hmm that that bloom when those chords come in at
the front of the album, bloom. Oh. I just feel like, oh,
just just let it go. Whatever happened, whatever didn't happen,
(25:08):
whatever you got right, whatever you got wrong, whatever applause
you received, whatever applause you did not receive, just let
it all go. Sink into this chair and just let
the pilot get you wherever you are, and do not
order the fish, and do not order the fish. That's please.
That's a big that's a big portion of it. So
(25:30):
my husband, y'all, he loved this album so much that
I was trying to figure out how we could go
see Alabama Shakes when they went on tour after the
album released. So this is another trouble of being on
the road as much as we were then because you
were just taking gigs. You know, for a while, we
(25:50):
were just taking gigs as we could get them, because
you know, you don't know, you don't there's always a
period of the year that's going to be slow or
that's gonna slow way down, but you don't always know
when it's coming. Especially in the type of work that
we did. There were some summers we had that that
was our really slow time. There was some years that
came that January and February we're just slow as can be.
(26:11):
You know it's gonna come, but you don't know when.
So for many years that meant we didn't feel we
could be really discriminating with the gigs that we took.
We really had to be like, oh, shoot, you know
that one fell on his mom's birthday or fell on
my mom's birthday. So that meant, you know, you're not
at your nine to five job where you can get
(26:32):
off at five and say, oh, let me just swing
by my mom's birthday dinner. You're in Kentucky or wherever
we were, so we would have to like work around
some of those types of like celebrations of people that
we love, you know. So when I'm looking, you know,
trying to see, like, Okay, when are they going to
come to Atlanta? The day they were coming to Atlanta
(26:54):
was someday that we were already booked out of town.
So I was like, dang, we're not gonna be in Atlanta.
The just happened to look to see where were they
going to be on Matt's birthday, and they were going
to be in Columbus, Ohio. And I was like, okay,
how can I figure this out? So then I'm looking
at all the dates we have around and y'all, a
gig happened to come in for a festival, is a
(27:18):
Christian festival in Mount Vernon, Ohio, And it was maybe
like three days before Matt's birthday, and I was like, okay,
number one, I definitely want us to take this gig
because that would get me like, instead of us having
to figure out how to drive or fly or whatever
to Columbus, if we're already in Ohio, this is great.
(27:43):
So we took the gig, and I think the gig
was Matt deejaying part of like the opening of the festival,
and then we had a period of time that we
were going to be on stage together. And this was
very similar to what a lot of Christian kind of
New Sick festivals were, like it's full of Christian band
and you know, some deejang, some hip hop acts and
(28:08):
so we also got booked, you know, in the performance
we were doing that was spoken word in deejaying. Right, Okay,
So first of all, y'all the ways that I am
having to tell, I'm not telling lies to my husband,
but I'm needing to tell some half truths regarding what
we're doing. So I'm telling him, Hey, I know we
(28:31):
have this gig in Mount Vernon. I think we should
stay over, you know, stay over for a couple of
nights and like, you know, experience Columbus. And he's kind
of looking at me like, okay, um, I don't know
what there is to experience in Columbus. But this is
the plus to having a very laid back husband, because
(28:53):
if if this were him planning this for me, then
I would have been like, but why would we stop
in Columbus, Because like, is there really something to see? There, Like,
I don't really think that was like a city that
you like see things Like I would have asked that
my wife loves a surprise, but the process of surprising
my wife she does not love. It's complicated. I just look,
(29:14):
that's unfortunate that I love surprises, but I kind of
want the surprise to like make sense, and typically if
you're surprising someone, you are having to do things that
don't make sense. I'm gonna try to practice it bad
because you did a really good job when I said that.
When I said this to you, then you were just like, huh, okay, yeah, sure,
I mean if you think that's a good yeah, Like,
I bet I got some stuff I could work on
(29:34):
or whatever, but we could work on it while we're there. Sure. Yeah,
I've never been to Columbus. Like he might have thought
that was a terrible idea, but you just went along
with it. Okay, So let us begin with the gig. Okay,
So y'all, I want to be Matt's manager so bad.
That's a terrible idea and I will most likely never
(29:57):
do it because I am too emotional about him to
really be his manager. But when he has a gig
that it's not the two of us, and it's just
him doing a performance for twenty minutes to an hour.
I am his ruthless manager. So we get to this
(30:18):
festival and I want you all to know Matt is
still dj and on actual turntables, right Like, I know
everybody isn't, and I'm I have opportunities to throw shade
and I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna do
it right here. But Matt is still djaying on turntables. Okay.
Like the room we're recording right now, we're literally staring
(30:41):
at his turntables. Okay. Side note, I bought these turntables
I think around two thousand. I bought one of them
in two thousand and one of them in two thousand
and one. I'm now at a place where I'll be
working at a venue and somebody's like, oh cool, look
at those vintage turntables. They'd be like, when did you
get him? And I'll tell him like god, I'm They're like, oh,
(31:03):
I was born in two thousand and three. Yikes, please
hush your mouth, please. Anyways, back to your story, please, y'all. Yikes. Okay,
So they had Matt set up to be the first
act on he was gonna DJ. I think he were
supposed to DJ like the first hour or so. I
think something happened before. I do think so, because I
(31:25):
think what you're about to say is that the sound
guys were like, it's our break, and they left me
out there and from this festival crowd with no sound
support whatsoever. Yeah, So I think something was happening before me.
And I think I felt in what would have been
their lunch hour because they were I can't remember those
(31:48):
union or because you know, sometimes you go into a
city and there have been gigs that we found out,
oh uh, they've booked me to be here with Amina
for this thing. You wanted me to do these things. However,
as union and so in order to have you DJing
is going to cost this event this exorbitant amount of
money for someone to be able to stay with you. Yeah,
(32:10):
because there's big like if it's a union, if the
sound crew is union, there's a lot of restrictions as
to how many hours they can work continuously versus the
amount of breaks that they need to have. So say,
because this has happened to us, I remember in like
some downtown um like Chicago venues and stuff, like that
(32:32):
where they'll be like union has the union has told
us we have right, we have these breaks. We work
this long. So for your average conference, during what would
be their breaks is the time that you might have
like you might have planned to have a DJ up
spinning while people are walking into the room, but according
(32:54):
to union regulations, they cannot be. They're running sound at
that time. They're supposed to be on break unless you're
willing to pay what for a lot of these organizations
were exorbitant amounts of money. Now, in this event setting,
we were not dealing with a union crew, but we
were dealing with an overworked sound crew that had not
(33:18):
had breakfast. This lunch was like the first meal they
were going to be eating that day. And sound sound
texts at events are interesting personalities. Um, they're usually not
happy to be there. They're not usually not happy to
see you know, they haven't been told they haven't even
been told about you. Yeah, typically they're very unimpressed. It's
(33:43):
so you can't take it personal. I've always tried my
best to go out of my way to learn their names,
to talk, you know, to to to show them respect. Man,
thank you so much, Thank you for making sound because
it is a team effort. You know, Proby does something
bout them else and I'm sure that they have stories
of people who have walked in the different personalities that
(34:07):
come in as an artist that are you know, we
there's some personalities out there, and so you know, we've
just always made it our goal to make sure, you know,
we see someone, we say hello, talk to them, what's
your name, do our best to you know, show them
some kindness and just some human warmth. You give some
extra you give some extra please and some extra thank you.
(34:29):
Like Matt and I both are Southern born and raised,
and I don't care where we travel to. We're gonna
give the people that Southern hospitality. And when you're talking
to somebody that's running sound, it could go a lot
better for you being kind and respectful and gracious to them. However,
(34:50):
this situation didn't matter how gracious we were, those people
were like Matt. Matt gets there, gets all set up.
And the interesting part about when Matt's djaying that people
don't always think about when they're setting his sound up.
It's like he needs to be able to hear himself,
like what he's spending. So like you, they didn't have
(35:11):
a monitor, and I think you also didn't have control
over how loud it could be. They had left it
at like a level. And so people are walking up
to Matt and people talk to DJ is crazy. I
don't know if y'all do that, but they talked to
DJ is real crazy. So they're walking up to Matt like, man,
its sounds good, but like we can't hear it. Can
you cut it up? We can't hear it, like way
(35:34):
back across the yea. Yeah. So Matt's like turning what
would normally be his controls of the volume, but he
can't do that because of the way the sound is.
So I try to become his manager, and I'm like
where are the sound people? Like how could they set
him up and just walk away? They like it's an
(35:56):
audience out here, like what are we doing? And and um,
this is another fascinating thing because this was kind of
being run by college students, So once again we have
such a young team. So sometimes you'd like see a
student and you'd be like, hey, where did the sound
(36:17):
people go? Because you know he needs to be able
to like turn like many more volume. He needs his monitors,
and they'd be like oh, I'll go find out. They
would go and be gone for like twenty minutes, so
you're like, okay, wherever they are. It didn't take that long.
So I finally was like, I'm going to be his
manager for twenty minutes. I go to wherever they're like,
I think they might be eating, so I go there
(36:39):
and basically the sound crew was like, respectfully or disrespectfully,
we're not leaving here until we all eat food. So
whatever is happening, well know none about it until we
finished eating this food. And on the one hand, you're like, yo,
I'm now that I know about events, Like, I'm assuming
(36:59):
these are people that we're here setting up things at
five in the morning and probably like now it's too
and this day, first time eating and probably not not
really receiving much gratitude for what they've been doing all day.
So I'm like, I can feel it now, but just
as a wife adjer, as a wife adjir, I was
(37:20):
not feeling it. So then I had to run back
over to Matt and tell him is what it is.
Maybe these people are not coming back. I think they
finally made it back in your last like ten minutes.
Maybe maybe, but you know, it's it's that thing you
get out there and you're like, all right, we're about
to figure it out. We're about to find out what
it And then when we're gonna find out what type
(37:40):
of crowd this is that part whether they're gonna rock
with you or are you about to be background music,
which I'm finding Either way, just let me know if
if you want a party, oh I'm the guy for you.
But if you just want this to be background, you know,
I gained nothing from, you know, forcing a party that
didn't want to be a party. So, you know, you
find out what the crowd's going to be, you find
out who you're working with, you, you know, and you
(38:02):
get out there and you figure out and you just
try to do what you can. But either way, you
don't order the fish. Do not order the fish in
the airport, y'all. And do not talk crazy to anybody
running sound, even if the sound is not going well,
still don't talk crazy to them, is what we just
want to tell you. Okay, So mind you y'all were
like three days ahead of Matt's birthday and while Matt's
(38:24):
DJ and by the time I called my blood pressure
down from realizing there's nothing I can do to get
this sound situation fixed. I have already purchased the tickets
for this Alabama Shakes concert, and I can't remember if
I was talking to somebody. I think I think I
was telling someone this that handled some of our booking
(38:47):
stuff at the time, and I had told them like, yeah,
we're gonna stay on after that gig. We're gonna stay
in Ohio because I'm surprising Matt with these tickets. And
they were like, oh, I actually know somebody that's working
with Alabama Shakes right now. So there was a young
lady who used to work for the company that was
booking us at the time, and she was now working
with Alabama Shakes, and they were like, I don't know
(39:09):
if she can do anything, but it might be worth
hitting her up just to see if there is a
way that maybe y'all could upgrade your tickets to get
like v I P tickets something. So I'm all this time,
I'm keeping all of this from Matt. I'm like writing
back and forth because I'm like, I don't know this
is going to happen. I write to her, and of
(39:29):
course she was always wonderful, so she was like, oh,
my gosh, it would be so wonderful to see you all.
And she was like, I don't know for sure, and
she was like, I probably won't know until like that day,
Like is that is that okay? And I was like
everything's okay, like like anything you can do, We're happy
to have it. So Matt and I left the did
(39:49):
the festival, stayed there that night, drove into Columbus the
next day. I think we had like a work day
or two in the hotel. Were just for kind of
like you know, back when you're doing Old Life, you
also have a lot of like follow up stuff that
you might have to do after a gig. You might
have reimbursements you've got to send back, You've got some
other like sometimes we would like film things for social
(40:11):
media or whatever, so you might spend the day doing that,
and then you have another gig that's coming up, so
you might have some contracts to sign and you know,
so I think we like got a hotel, worked in
the hotel for a day or two, and then when
it got to be Matt's birthday, we went to a
food hall. We ate Jenny's ice cream for the first time.
(40:33):
While we were there, had some really great food, and
I'm like totally writing back and forth to this young
lady about these possibilities. And I had an Elk Burger.
I've never had Elk did ever except for that day,
and I was like, that sounds excited. The food was amazing.
(40:53):
I can't remember if I had fun. I think I
might have had fun for the first time. While we
were there, I was the calling a fold but bless
our hearts. So I think I think I finally told
you at some point that day on your birthday, that
we were that this was all the ruse, that we
(41:14):
really did not just need to come to Columbus to
hang out, but that we were actually gonna go see
Alabama Shakes, which I remember you were very excited. But
I don't think we found out until like a couple
of hours before that we were actually going to get
to meet them, because they had like a meet and
greet before the show. So y'all, this is one of
(41:35):
Matt's birthdays that I was like, man, does God like
you more than me? Because this is like a really
cool moment. So y'all imagine that we were going to
the backstage. You know, all of this is like pre
COVID time. So you just go backstage and people were
taking pictures with Brittany Howard, the lead singer of Alabama Shakes,
and her and the rest of the band taking pictures
(41:56):
of everybody, And I don't think. I think at first
we were kind of like we needed to be the
last people. I think because we were like the late ad.
Seems like we were there kind of by ourselves, off
to the side of yeah, so we were kind of
like watching everybody go. And then and then the young
lady who had you know, kind of got us the
(42:18):
hook up into this room. She was like, Okay, it
looks like there's gonna be enough time. Come on, come on.
So she takes us over closer to the band and
she turns to Brittany Howard and says, hey, you know,
these are my friends. You know. She's like, this is Amina,
this is Matt, and it's Matt's birthday today, Like, is
it okay if like they take some pictures with y'all. Y'all.
(42:39):
First of all, Brittany Howard is backstage smoking a cigarette
in a way that made me want to smoke a cigarette,
Like I literally have never smoked a cigarette, y'all, but
just watching Brittany, Howard smoke made me want to be like, man,
maybe I should light up to man. I see why
they wanted to outlaw these commercials because oh my god,
(43:00):
so y'all. Brittany looks at Matt, tosses her head back
to the band, and she says, hey, guys, it's Matt's birthday, y'all,
and all of Alabama shakes turned to him and said,
happy birthday. Matt took a picture. Wow, that everything. That
(43:22):
was the best. That was one of the best ad
on trips we ever took it rained? You remember it rained.
We still got pictures somewhere of us in these rain jackets. Yes,
our little ponchos standing out listening to the most amazing concert.
Oh so it was so worth it. It was glorious.
(43:44):
Like Brittany came out and just took up all her
space in the most amazing way. Her vocal just she's
so young, and she was really young then, and to
hear this vocal that just sounds like gravel and whiskey
and cigarettes, like it just sounds like sixty eight years
of life in her voice. Like, Oh, that was a
(44:07):
really great that was a great free freeb The concert
wasn't free, but to get into that v I P.
And for you to get pictures with them on your birthday,
that was pretty cool, babe. Thanks babe. I love talking
about road stories with you. This is lots of fun
and there's more to come, So tune back in next week.
(44:29):
Week after that, who knows, we're gonna pop back up
in here with more road stories to tell y'all. Don't
eat the fish. Yeah, don't eat the fish at the airport,
See y'all later. Her with Amina Brown is produced by
(44:54):
Matt Owen for sober Fite Productions as a part of
the Seneca Women Podcast Network and partner ship with I
Heart Radio. Thanks for listening and don't forget to subscribe, rate,
and review the podcast. M
Hey, everybody, welcome back to a new episode of Her
with Amina Brown. And at the time that you are
listening to this episode, we're already going to be in
a new year. So I hope you all are feeling
all of the new year vibes, whether you are taking
the opportunity to do all of the things or whether
(00:55):
you are taking the opportunity to go slowly. Y'all know,
I'm always a big fan of a slow movement, a
slow entrance into the new year. And we're back with
some road stories. So Matt Tear, Hey baby, Happy New Year. Okay,
So today we want to tell y'all a couple of
cool stories about some free stuff that we got a
(01:18):
chance to experience because we were on the road, and
a pretty amazing birthday that I've had a couple of them. Yeah, yeah,
that Matt had on the road. So first of all, Babe,
we were talking about this. We were just talking in
general about the road and some of the perks that
can come along with the road, and you told a
(01:38):
story that I didn't even remember. So you said, we
were in Florida. We're in Orlando, Florida doing an event.
I think it was a youth event, and because I
think it was a youth of it, because I'm pretty
sure they had a deal where they were taking people
from the event to Universal Studios, Okay, and they asked us,
(02:04):
would you like free passes for the day to go
to Universal Studios. This was either before or after, or
maybe before and after, who can remember, but it was
we we hit the stage, did our thing, and I'm
pretty sure after that we got to leave and go
(02:24):
to Universal Studios. Now see, I don't remember being with you,
so a part of me is thinking that they gave
us this option in a window of time that was
between sound check and when we actually had to perform.
And I don't remember what exactly we were doing at
(02:45):
this event, but I kind of feel like they were like, Hey,
maybe you know, y'all have some free time, y'all could
go over there. And I'm pretty sure I said no
to that because I felt that I needed to like
get my life together. I don't know what we were doing.
That's very possible because if we do a flashback to
(03:06):
our honeymoon. Our honeymoon, we went to Universal Studios because
we were driving all the way to Florida. I want
to give a shout out to my in laws. Matt's
parents were giving us entrance to their time share people.
So this just so y'all know where we were budget
wise at this time. When we got married, we had
(03:27):
we had to pay fifty dollars in order to be
able to use Matt's parents time share, So they were
basically giving us the gift of having a wonderful place
to stay for our honeymoon. And all we had to
pay was fifty seven days, seven nights, okay. And we
are driving driving down to Orlando, which is not a
short drive. It's not too long, but it's not a
(03:49):
short drive. We're driving down to Orlando, y'all, and just
start opening up the cards from the wedding, and that's
how we knew we had enough money to go to
Universal Studios, Darren, and so on the honeymoon, I found
out that you had never written a roller coaster, true,
So we decided we'd go on a roller coaster. If
(04:12):
I remember correctly, it's called the rock and roll roller
coaster or a rock and roller or something like that,
where you got to choose your own music, which I
thought was great. One thing I don't even know if
I knew this about you at the time. But my
wife loves an option. Boy, boy, I love to customize.
If Amina can pick an option, she loves that. If
(04:34):
Amina can't pick an option, she wants to know why
Why can't I got an option to say? If I
want to have an option. I also want to let
the record reflect y'all that I have never been a
person who even enjoyed the thought of a roller coaster.
I've had many opportunities where I was at various as
sundry parks all over the place, went with other kids,
(04:57):
and was just like, that doesn't seem like it's for me.
But I'm gonna tell you, when you first get married
and you realize that your person really loves something, you
want to try really hard to do this. So this
was me was so it was our honeymoon, very first
roller coaster for you. I picked Beastie Boys. Did fight
(05:19):
for the right to party? Where did you pick? I
picked Kanye West? Stronger. I know it's hard to say no,
we will bypass that little moment you hurt. Uh So, anyways,
we get on that roller coaster, find out that Amina
really hates One of my most embarrassing moments happened on
(05:41):
that roller coaster. Y'all has vowed to never ride a
roller coaster again. First and last roller coaster that day,
literally the rest of our honeymoon. I was like, Babe,
ride as many rides as you want to ride. I
will be waiting at the bottom reading my kindle until
you come back, which is a picture into our relationship,
(06:02):
both working and marriage. Anyways, flash forward to this event.
It very well may have been that you didn't go
with me. I just know that I left the state.
I was thinking, how cool is this? I was just
on my turntables, uh rocking beats in front of all
these people, and now here I am, uh in line
(06:26):
to get on a roller coaster. This is an awesome day.
And I do remember that. Um it was something they
had with the Transformers. I don't know if one of
the Transformer movies had just come out or something along
that line. So they had a dude and a massive
Transformer costume like turned into the truck and then next
(06:49):
thing you know, he's up and like walking around and talking,
and I was like, how cool is that? And then
I happened to walk around the corner and saw the
dude with the head off of the costume. And as well.
I think I got a picture of that somewhere or
a video. So anyways, so yeah, that was your day.
So you got to do that, y'all. That's we were
(07:11):
We were talking through like some of our most you know,
fun free stuff, and when Matt brought this up, and
I was like, I'm pretty sure we didn't go because
I would have remembered going back to Universal Studios with you.
So I'm just laughing at whoever was like, yeah, come on,
and Matt got on the van and rode over there. Y'all. Wow,
(07:32):
I'd love to see it. I'm I'm glad you enjoyed it, bab,
because it's hard for free things to come across the
table and neither one of us get to enjoy it.
So I'm glad you got to do that. That's one
of the things about road life like that is much
different when you're working in your own city just going
to events. Road life was you would be in a
(07:54):
green room and somebody would walk up to you and
be like, hey, do you want to insert inc whether
it's you know, there was a certain event to have
these this really cool company that made these watches. Remember,
you're like, do you want one of these watches and
you're like, sure, I want watches watches. I remember us
being at an event. It was a health event and
(08:16):
I had just been looking into this new thing called
a fitbit. Yes, and they're like, hey, would you like
a fitbit? And we were like, of course we would like,
and they just gave you one. And I remember that
day wearing it, thinking I got a billion steps and
I looked down there was like two steps or something. Yea,
(08:38):
I've never seen two people marching in the hotel that
night trying to be like, why doesn't it Why I
thought I got so many steps like marching trying to
make up for the steps y'all. Wow, I forgot about that.
What a time that that was a great free thing.
I want to also shout out that event because I
was there to do one poem. They had commissioned me
to do a poem according to like the theme of
(09:00):
something they were doing at the event. And right after
I did my poem, Michael J. Fox was the keynote speaker.
And shout out to my gen X people listening to
this podcast. Because I didn't speak to Michael J. Fox.
He didn't speak to me, but boy did Matt and
I just like stare and stare and stare at him.
(09:21):
It was like, oh my gosh, our little kids soelves like,
I know, I know that Michael J. Fox has done
more with his life then beyond family ties and star
in Back to the Future. However, um, that's what was
most important at the moment, just seeing him in person
and being like, oh my gosh, I am standing behind
I could reach out and touch his head, but I didn't. Wow.
(09:43):
I also really wanted to add to my resume at
that point that I opened from Michael J. Fox. You
know what I'm saying. It was like a Michael J.
Fox concert. Basically, I was the opening act. Has shared
stages with Michael J. Fox, is the actual fact, because
we did kind of share the stage. Now. One time,
I do remember thinking that we were like something in
(10:05):
the green room, uh, with some sunglasses or something, and
we're like, oh cool. So we went up to the
table and picked out these sunglasses and they were like, yeah,
the price will be and we were like, well it
was very expensive. I remember being very expensive, and I
remember it was like one of those It was one
of those companies where it's like every purchase you make,
(10:27):
you know, is like sort of a donation in some
way to some you know, sort of you know, underserved
or or under privileged community. And so at that point
you thought you were going to get it's not You're
gonna get free sunglasses. Now you're not. But now you
feel bad to be like, oh no, I don't want
those people to be able to have eye exams, you know.
(10:50):
So we were kind of like stuck and had to
buy those cool cool Yeah, let's put this on the Yanks. Okay,
one my favorite free things. And I still miss this
one because we have not There are some cities we've
returned to eat one of us or both of us
have returned to post our like church, you know, traveling
(11:15):
that we used to do, and so we've got a
chance to go back and experience some of those cities.
But Portland is a city that neither of us have
been back to because we have not been booked there.
Now that neither of us are really doing things in
sort of church market or Christian event type world, I'm
gonna tell y'all something right now. The free passes that
(11:36):
we received to the Adida's employee store, I mean this
is I mean, I dare I say, is it life changing?
I really want to say it's definitely wardrobe changing, because
we both received some shoes. I mean the shoes you
can get up in there. Some of them you can't
(11:57):
find anywhere anymore. So people, okay, we need to talk
to you all about this. First of all, Adidas's headquartered
in Portland's as well as Nike, though, and we are
both big Adidas fans. I do since we're talking about
road stories, I do want to bring up that I
was wearing shell toes at an event around the time
(12:18):
that we would go back and forth to Portland's, and
a lady walked up and she was like, oh, look
at you wearing those shoes. My twelve year old daughter
loves those kind of shoes. And I'm pretty sure that
I barked back at her. These are hip hop shoes.
These are called shell toes because run dmc wore them
in the eighties. That's why I'm wearing them. I'm pretty
(12:39):
sure I did that. That was probably a sign that
my time in Christian Market needed to be over, because
I was like, I'm not wearing these because your little girl,
your little teenage girl, thinks they're cute. These aren't shoes
you found in the limited two in the mall. Okay,
I'm wearing these. It was because period, like, what do
(13:03):
you mean you can see it's still making me mad. Okay. Anyways,
so we didn't know this until we got to Portland's. Well, no,
that's not true, because I think I put up a
little like post or something on Facebook or Twitter back
then and told people who were going to Portland's for
the first time, we've never been, and asked them like,
(13:24):
what should we eat? What should we do? And so
of course people posted up their different restaurants and stuff,
and any of you that are listening that live in
Portland know that Portland obviously is very well known for
food trucks and stuff. So people were telling us different
places to go, and then they were like, y'all have
to go y'all they knew they knew us. So they
were like, y'all have to go to the Adida's you know,
(13:44):
employee store, and you'll have to actually go to the
Adida's headquarters because there is a big shelter. They're like big,
like larger than life, larger than you shelter where you
could like take pictures. Okay, but here's the thing you
need to pass to get into the employee store. If
(14:04):
you are not what an employee, So an employee has
to put your name. And this is how it was
back then, y'all. So don't don't quote me now because
I don't know what the security measures are now. But
back then, an employee had to like put your name
on a list, and if they put your name on
the list, it meant whatever that day was, any time
(14:25):
that day that the store was open, you could go
in there. So I think the first time we went
to Portland's, we were trying to like funaglin. We were
trying to see if, like somebody could hook us up,
and we never to get the hook up. But let
me tell y'all something shout out to being married to
an extrovert. Okay, because we went to an Adida's outlet
(14:49):
store like shortly before we were about to get on
our flight. I think our flight was like later in
the almost like in the evening, and the event or
whatever we've done was done in the morning, so we
had checked out of our hotel. We had all this
time to kill. So Matt's like, let's just we couldn't
find a pass let's just go to the outlet store.
(15:10):
So we went to the outlet store and Matt found
a couple of cool things there. And I don't know
where I went. I don't know if I went to
the bathroom, whatever, but I know you started talking to
the employee. Do you remember doing this? I do, and
I remember that I just so happened to have on,
you know, some probably a pair of shell toes and
(15:32):
a full Adidas track suit, which is just regular daily
were from me. Any I've looked back at, just because
Halloween just passed not long ago, all the pictures of
me from any Halloween party I DJ have always been
me in an Adidas track suit with some sort of
mask on. So one year I'm a Jabberwaukee, a Jabberwaukee
(15:56):
B boy boy some mask I don't even know what
it is, b boy. So I my goal is by
the time I'm an old man to have nothing but
track suits my closet. And I've got a nice little
collection going on, and specifically mostly of Adidas, and so
I was in all the and so I was like,
(16:17):
you know what, let me just you know, they were
talking about my track suit and oh yeah, I wear nothing,
but oh yeah, I pretty much wear nothing but Adidas
a lot of times, you know. And uh, they were like, well,
you know about the employee store. And I'm in my
mind like I do know about the employee store. What
you know about the in ploy store? And yeah, just
once they led to anohing, They're like, man, you're you
got it. We gotta put you on the list. So
they called. I remember they picked up the phone and
(16:39):
that I would said hey, uh, Matthew Owen plus one.
I was like, yo, wow, I'm pretty sure I went
to the bathroom because I'm pretty sure I came back
from the bathroom thinking like, okay, he bought his purchases.
I guess we'll find somewhere to eat or whatever. And
you were like, we just got into the Adidas in place.
We have to go over there life right now, Like
(17:01):
we had like two or three hours probably before we
had to go to the airport. Y'all. Okay, now, when
you get to the employee store, the items in the
employee store. Don't quote us what is doing now because
we don't know. But back then the employee store, the
items were off of everything, everything, y'all everything. So did
(17:26):
we go into the employee store and go absolutely wild
in the store. Why yes we did. I don't know.
I don't know if y'all watched Supermarket Sweep growing up?
Was that us in the employee store? Because it's almost like,
you know, you're not stealing, because you know that, like
everything you're getting you're gonna pay for it, But you
(17:48):
feel like this is a rare I have. My obligation
is not an opportunity that's given to everyone. I am here.
This is my obligation. I'm doing this for the culture.
I'm gonna tell y'all right now that I came home
(18:08):
with some red suede shell toes that costs like and
remember we had to buy uh An Adida's gym bag
that day just to be able to fit. It was
a good sized gym bag, just to be able to
fit the stuff that we bought from the Adidas store.
(18:29):
And had to carry the gym bag onto the plane
because I was like, surely I'm not gonna check this
bag with all this new Adida stuff in here, with
the tags on it, Surely I'm not gonna do that.
I'm about to carry this bag on so I can
see it and know where it is at all times. Wow. Wow, y'all.
What a time. Let me tell you something else I
(18:49):
do remember about this flight. On this flight, I got
food poisoning. Oh my gosh, that was the same flight. Flight.
Will spare you the details, but there's a few places
in life you don't want to find out you have
food poisoning. And that is way up in the sky
(19:12):
and the airplane. If I remember correctly, I was sitting
in the middle seat. I think you were sitting in
the middle. Person next to me fell asleep night flight.
Oh it was. It wasn't like a red Eye. Why
do we do so having to carefully climb over the
lap of the person multiple times? Yes, why are you
(19:33):
about to lose yourself? Gotta let it go. You only
get one shot. I think I took a couple of
shots you did. And then the hard part about having
food poisoning on a flight is there are regulations as
to win you are allowed to be up going to
the bathroom, so that period of time where the plane
(19:57):
is about to ascend, you're not supposed to be walking
around during that time. But if you have food poisoning,
you can't tell your stomach that. We have definitely been
on a flight where it wasn't one of us, but
we have definitely been on a flight where someone was
in the bathroom and the plane couldn't land because somebody
was having some I'm guessing tell me troubles. I mean
(20:19):
they had to make the announcement. Sorry, folks, we're gonna
have to circle the runway, circled the landing before. One time,
I know it was me. There's at least one flight
we were on that. I remember the flight attendant like
knocking on the door to the bathroom like, ma'am, you
have got to come out of here. So on this
particular flight, this is where we came up with the
(20:40):
rule to not eat fish from the airport. That happened
on that right there. When in the airport, do not
order the fish. See I'm glad you brought this up, babe,
(21:02):
because we've talked previously on these road Stories episodes about
how a writer, how an artist writer ends up sounding
like it does. So when people book you, and especially
when you're getting books for things in church world, people
really despise the idea of a writer. But in regular
(21:25):
you got booked for some event, they're looking to see
your tech writer, which is all of your sound equipment
and different like all of the connections you need audio
video wise, and then the rest of your writer could
be a food writer because you have dietary restrictions. It
could be a writer regarding what you need as far
(21:45):
as your backstage expectations. All these things, all these things
are very standard in the entertainment industry. But when you
are an entertainer or an artist now going into a
church setting, your writer is despised because it's basically like,
you are not focused on why do you say you
(22:07):
need heat and air if it's cold? Why do you
need a heated space to be in? You're only about
to get up and speak or do poetry? Why should
Why would your vocal cores need any form of warmth?
Who cares about you get pnement? Who cares? You know?
We're here with the Lord. You're gonna leave here and
(22:28):
it's not our problem. So this, this flight moment was
a moment of an internal writer. Right There's some things
that we put on the writer that the people who
would book us would know. These are the expectations, but
there were also things that we had internally, and that
moment right there, I'm gonna tell y'all, you know, even
(22:49):
though it sounds so wild, like sometimes you will go
to a very nice airport that might have a very
well known sushi restaurant inside of it. But we have
said in our internal rider, we don't do that. Pok,
We're not doing We're not doing fish, whether it's cooked, fried, raw,
We're just not in the airport. No, not forgot about that.
(23:13):
Baby about that. Okay, come to Portland. If you're gonna
eat fish, just eat it while you're in Portland's is
what we're trying to tell you. Fantastic restaurants, great, do
not do not do that in the airport anywhere. I
(23:37):
don't care. I don't care. Now it's a life lesson
My other favorite this This is not a free thing,
but I guess kind of ended up being a free thing.
But I don't think it was necessarily a perk because
of the gig that we were at. But y'all, I
love to celebrate my husband, and I love birthdays in general.
(24:02):
Like people that I love, I love a birthday. So
Matt is my favorite person in the entire universe. So
when his birthday comes up, I'm like everything stops. So
one particular year, it was the same year that Alabama
Shakes released their album Sound and Color, which if you
have not listened to the album, I want you to
(24:23):
stop right now and go save it on whatever place
you listen to your music. The whole album. That album
for me for a long time was my after the gig.
You get on the plane, you've already done whatever. You're
holding space for what you had to do and trying
to keep in mind. So when this transition, when that
(24:44):
thing happens, when when but the unwind the you get
on the plane, put your headphones on and go mm
hmm that that bloom when those chords come in at
the front of the album, bloom. Oh. I just feel like, oh,
just just let it go. Whatever happened, whatever didn't happen,
(25:08):
whatever you got right, whatever you got wrong, whatever applause
you received, whatever applause you did not receive, just let
it all go. Sink into this chair and just let
the pilot get you wherever you are, and do not
order the fish, and do not order the fish. That's please.
That's a big that's a big portion of it. So
(25:30):
my husband, y'all, he loved this album so much that
I was trying to figure out how we could go
see Alabama Shakes when they went on tour after the
album released. So this is another trouble of being on
the road as much as we were then because you
were just taking gigs. You know, for a while, we
(25:50):
were just taking gigs as we could get them, because
you know, you don't know, you don't there's always a
period of the year that's going to be slow or
that's gonna slow way down, but you don't always know
when it's coming. Especially in the type of work that
we did. There were some summers we had that that
was our really slow time. There was some years that
came that January and February we're just slow as can be.
(26:11):
You know it's gonna come, but you don't know when.
So for many years that meant we didn't feel we
could be really discriminating with the gigs that we took.
We really had to be like, oh, shoot, you know
that one fell on his mom's birthday or fell on
my mom's birthday. So that meant, you know, you're not
at your nine to five job where you can get
(26:32):
off at five and say, oh, let me just swing
by my mom's birthday dinner. You're in Kentucky or wherever
we were, so we would have to like work around
some of those types of like celebrations of people that
we love, you know. So when I'm looking, you know,
trying to see, like, Okay, when are they going to
come to Atlanta? The day they were coming to Atlanta
(26:54):
was someday that we were already booked out of town.
So I was like, dang, we're not gonna be in Atlanta.
The just happened to look to see where were they
going to be on Matt's birthday, and they were going
to be in Columbus, Ohio. And I was like, okay,
how can I figure this out? So then I'm looking
at all the dates we have around and y'all, a
gig happened to come in for a festival, is a
(27:18):
Christian festival in Mount Vernon, Ohio, And it was maybe
like three days before Matt's birthday, and I was like, okay,
number one, I definitely want us to take this gig
because that would get me like, instead of us having
to figure out how to drive or fly or whatever
to Columbus, if we're already in Ohio, this is great.
(27:43):
So we took the gig, and I think the gig
was Matt deejaying part of like the opening of the festival,
and then we had a period of time that we
were going to be on stage together. And this was
very similar to what a lot of Christian kind of
New Sick festivals were, like it's full of Christian band
and you know, some deejang, some hip hop acts and
(28:08):
so we also got booked, you know, in the performance
we were doing that was spoken word in deejaying. Right, Okay,
So first of all, y'all the ways that I am
having to tell, I'm not telling lies to my husband,
but I'm needing to tell some half truths regarding what
we're doing. So I'm telling him, Hey, I know we
(28:31):
have this gig in Mount Vernon. I think we should
stay over, you know, stay over for a couple of
nights and like, you know, experience Columbus. And he's kind
of looking at me like, okay, um, I don't know
what there is to experience in Columbus. But this is
the plus to having a very laid back husband, because
(28:53):
if if this were him planning this for me, then
I would have been like, but why would we stop
in Columbus, Because like, is there really something to see? There, Like,
I don't really think that was like a city that
you like see things Like I would have asked that
my wife loves a surprise, but the process of surprising
my wife she does not love. It's complicated. I just look,
(29:14):
that's unfortunate that I love surprises, but I kind of
want the surprise to like make sense, and typically if
you're surprising someone, you are having to do things that
don't make sense. I'm gonna try to practice it bad
because you did a really good job when I said that.
When I said this to you, then you were just like, huh, okay, yeah, sure,
I mean if you think that's a good yeah, Like,
I bet I got some stuff I could work on
(29:34):
or whatever, but we could work on it while we're there. Sure. Yeah,
I've never been to Columbus. Like he might have thought
that was a terrible idea, but you just went along
with it. Okay, So let us begin with the gig. Okay,
So y'all, I want to be Matt's manager so bad.
That's a terrible idea and I will most likely never
(29:57):
do it because I am too emotional about him to
really be his manager. But when he has a gig
that it's not the two of us, and it's just
him doing a performance for twenty minutes to an hour.
I am his ruthless manager. So we get to this
(30:18):
festival and I want you all to know Matt is
still dj and on actual turntables, right Like, I know
everybody isn't, and I'm I have opportunities to throw shade
and I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna do
it right here. But Matt is still djaying on turntables. Okay.
Like the room we're recording right now, we're literally staring
(30:41):
at his turntables. Okay. Side note, I bought these turntables
I think around two thousand. I bought one of them
in two thousand and one of them in two thousand
and one. I'm now at a place where I'll be
working at a venue and somebody's like, oh cool, look
at those vintage turntables. They'd be like, when did you
get him? And I'll tell him like god, I'm They're like, oh,
(31:03):
I was born in two thousand and three. Yikes, please
hush your mouth, please. Anyways, back to your story, please, y'all. Yikes. Okay,
So they had Matt set up to be the first
act on he was gonna DJ. I think he were
supposed to DJ like the first hour or so. I
think something happened before. I do think so, because I
(31:25):
think what you're about to say is that the sound
guys were like, it's our break, and they left me
out there and from this festival crowd with no sound
support whatsoever. Yeah, So I think something was happening before me.
And I think I felt in what would have been
their lunch hour because they were I can't remember those
(31:48):
union or because you know, sometimes you go into a
city and there have been gigs that we found out,
oh uh, they've booked me to be here with Amina
for this thing. You wanted me to do these things. However,
as union and so in order to have you DJing
is going to cost this event this exorbitant amount of
money for someone to be able to stay with you. Yeah,
(32:10):
because there's big like if it's a union, if the
sound crew is union, there's a lot of restrictions as
to how many hours they can work continuously versus the
amount of breaks that they need to have. So say,
because this has happened to us, I remember in like
some downtown um like Chicago venues and stuff, like that
(32:32):
where they'll be like union has the union has told
us we have right, we have these breaks. We work
this long. So for your average conference, during what would
be their breaks is the time that you might have
like you might have planned to have a DJ up
spinning while people are walking into the room, but according
(32:54):
to union regulations, they cannot be. They're running sound at
that time. They're supposed to be on break unless you're
willing to pay what for a lot of these organizations
were exorbitant amounts of money. Now, in this event setting,
we were not dealing with a union crew, but we
were dealing with an overworked sound crew that had not
(33:18):
had breakfast. This lunch was like the first meal they
were going to be eating that day. And sound sound
texts at events are interesting personalities. Um, they're usually not
happy to be there. They're not usually not happy to
see you know, they haven't been told they haven't even
been told about you. Yeah, typically they're very unimpressed. It's
(33:43):
so you can't take it personal. I've always tried my
best to go out of my way to learn their names,
to talk, you know, to to to show them respect. Man,
thank you so much, Thank you for making sound because
it is a team effort. You know, Proby does something
bout them else and I'm sure that they have stories
of people who have walked in the different personalities that
(34:07):
come in as an artist that are you know, we
there's some personalities out there, and so you know, we've
just always made it our goal to make sure, you know,
we see someone, we say hello, talk to them, what's
your name, do our best to you know, show them
some kindness and just some human warmth. You give some
extra you give some extra please and some extra thank you.
(34:29):
Like Matt and I both are Southern born and raised,
and I don't care where we travel to. We're gonna
give the people that Southern hospitality. And when you're talking
to somebody that's running sound, it could go a lot
better for you being kind and respectful and gracious to them. However,
(34:50):
this situation didn't matter how gracious we were, those people
were like Matt. Matt gets there, gets all set up.
And the interesting part about when Matt's djaying that people
don't always think about when they're setting his sound up.
It's like he needs to be able to hear himself,
like what he's spending. So like you, they didn't have
(35:11):
a monitor, and I think you also didn't have control
over how loud it could be. They had left it
at like a level. And so people are walking up
to Matt and people talk to DJ is crazy. I
don't know if y'all do that, but they talked to
DJ is real crazy. So they're walking up to Matt like, man,
its sounds good, but like we can't hear it. Can
you cut it up? We can't hear it, like way
(35:34):
back across the yea. Yeah. So Matt's like turning what
would normally be his controls of the volume, but he
can't do that because of the way the sound is.
So I try to become his manager, and I'm like
where are the sound people? Like how could they set
him up and just walk away? They like it's an
(35:56):
audience out here, like what are we doing? And and um,
this is another fascinating thing because this was kind of
being run by college students, So once again we have
such a young team. So sometimes you'd like see a
student and you'd be like, hey, where did the sound
(36:17):
people go? Because you know he needs to be able
to like turn like many more volume. He needs his monitors,
and they'd be like oh, I'll go find out. They
would go and be gone for like twenty minutes, so
you're like, okay, wherever they are. It didn't take that long.
So I finally was like, I'm going to be his
manager for twenty minutes. I go to wherever they're like,
I think they might be eating, so I go there
(36:39):
and basically the sound crew was like, respectfully or disrespectfully,
we're not leaving here until we all eat food. So
whatever is happening, well know none about it until we
finished eating this food. And on the one hand, you're like, yo,
I'm now that I know about events, Like, I'm assuming
(36:59):
these are people that we're here setting up things at
five in the morning and probably like now it's too
and this day, first time eating and probably not not
really receiving much gratitude for what they've been doing all day.
So I'm like, I can feel it now, but just
as a wife adjer, as a wife adjir, I was
(37:20):
not feeling it. So then I had to run back
over to Matt and tell him is what it is.
Maybe these people are not coming back. I think they
finally made it back in your last like ten minutes.
Maybe maybe, but you know, it's it's that thing you
get out there and you're like, all right, we're about
to figure it out. We're about to find out what
it And then when we're gonna find out what type
(37:40):
of crowd this is that part whether they're gonna rock
with you or are you about to be background music,
which I'm finding Either way, just let me know if
if you want a party, oh I'm the guy for you.
But if you just want this to be background, you know,
I gained nothing from, you know, forcing a party that
didn't want to be a party. So, you know, you
find out what the crowd's going to be, you find
out who you're working with, you, you know, and you
(38:02):
get out there and you figure out and you just
try to do what you can. But either way, you
don't order the fish. Do not order the fish in
the airport, y'all. And do not talk crazy to anybody
running sound, even if the sound is not going well,
still don't talk crazy to them, is what we just
want to tell you. Okay, So mind you y'all were
like three days ahead of Matt's birthday and while Matt's
(38:24):
DJ and by the time I called my blood pressure
down from realizing there's nothing I can do to get
this sound situation fixed. I have already purchased the tickets
for this Alabama Shakes concert, and I can't remember if
I was talking to somebody. I think I think I
was telling someone this that handled some of our booking
(38:47):
stuff at the time, and I had told them like, yeah,
we're gonna stay on after that gig. We're gonna stay
in Ohio because I'm surprising Matt with these tickets. And
they were like, oh, I actually know somebody that's working
with Alabama Shakes right now. So there was a young
lady who used to work for the company that was
booking us at the time, and she was now working
with Alabama Shakes, and they were like, I don't know
(39:09):
if she can do anything, but it might be worth
hitting her up just to see if there is a
way that maybe y'all could upgrade your tickets to get
like v I P tickets something. So I'm all this time,
I'm keeping all of this from Matt. I'm like writing
back and forth because I'm like, I don't know this
is going to happen. I write to her, and of
(39:29):
course she was always wonderful, so she was like, oh,
my gosh, it would be so wonderful to see you all.
And she was like, I don't know for sure, and
she was like, I probably won't know until like that day,
Like is that is that okay? And I was like
everything's okay, like like anything you can do, We're happy
to have it. So Matt and I left the did
(39:49):
the festival, stayed there that night, drove into Columbus the
next day. I think we had like a work day
or two in the hotel. Were just for kind of
like you know, back when you're doing Old Life, you
also have a lot of like follow up stuff that
you might have to do after a gig. You might
have reimbursements you've got to send back, You've got some
other like sometimes we would like film things for social
(40:11):
media or whatever, so you might spend the day doing that,
and then you have another gig that's coming up, so
you might have some contracts to sign and you know,
so I think we like got a hotel, worked in
the hotel for a day or two, and then when
it got to be Matt's birthday, we went to a
food hall. We ate Jenny's ice cream for the first time.
(40:33):
While we were there, had some really great food, and
I'm like totally writing back and forth to this young
lady about these possibilities. And I had an Elk Burger.
I've never had Elk did ever except for that day,
and I was like, that sounds excited. The food was amazing.
(40:53):
I can't remember if I had fun. I think I
might have had fun for the first time. While we
were there, I was the calling a fold but bless
our hearts. So I think I think I finally told
you at some point that day on your birthday, that
we were that this was all the ruse, that we
(41:14):
really did not just need to come to Columbus to
hang out, but that we were actually gonna go see
Alabama Shakes, which I remember you were very excited. But
I don't think we found out until like a couple
of hours before that we were actually going to get
to meet them, because they had like a meet and
greet before the show. So y'all, this is one of
(41:35):
Matt's birthdays that I was like, man, does God like
you more than me? Because this is like a really
cool moment. So y'all imagine that we were going to
the backstage. You know, all of this is like pre
COVID time. So you just go backstage and people were
taking pictures with Brittany Howard, the lead singer of Alabama Shakes,
and her and the rest of the band taking pictures
(41:56):
of everybody, And I don't think. I think at first
we were kind of like we needed to be the
last people. I think because we were like the late ad.
Seems like we were there kind of by ourselves, off
to the side of yeah, so we were kind of
like watching everybody go. And then and then the young
lady who had you know, kind of got us the
(42:18):
hook up into this room. She was like, Okay, it
looks like there's gonna be enough time. Come on, come on.
So she takes us over closer to the band and
she turns to Brittany Howard and says, hey, you know,
these are my friends. You know. She's like, this is Amina,
this is Matt, and it's Matt's birthday today, Like, is
it okay if like they take some pictures with y'all. Y'all.
(42:39):
First of all, Brittany Howard is backstage smoking a cigarette
in a way that made me want to smoke a cigarette,
Like I literally have never smoked a cigarette, y'all, but
just watching Brittany, Howard smoke made me want to be like, man,
maybe I should light up to man. I see why
they wanted to outlaw these commercials because oh my god,
(43:00):
so y'all. Brittany looks at Matt, tosses her head back
to the band, and she says, hey, guys, it's Matt's birthday, y'all,
and all of Alabama shakes turned to him and said,
happy birthday. Matt took a picture. Wow, that everything. That
(43:22):
was the best. That was one of the best ad
on trips we ever took it rained? You remember it rained.
We still got pictures somewhere of us in these rain jackets. Yes,
our little ponchos standing out listening to the most amazing concert.
Oh so it was so worth it. It was glorious.
(43:44):
Like Brittany came out and just took up all her
space in the most amazing way. Her vocal just she's
so young, and she was really young then, and to
hear this vocal that just sounds like gravel and whiskey
and cigarettes, like it just sounds like sixty eight years
of life in her voice. Like, Oh, that was a
(44:07):
really great that was a great free freeb The concert
wasn't free, but to get into that v I P.
And for you to get pictures with them on your birthday,
that was pretty cool, babe. Thanks babe. I love talking
about road stories with you. This is lots of fun
and there's more to come, So tune back in next week.
(44:29):
Week after that, who knows, we're gonna pop back up
in here with more road stories to tell y'all. Don't
eat the fish. Yeah, don't eat the fish at the airport,
See y'all later. Her with Amina Brown is produced by
(44:54):
Matt Owen for sober Fite Productions as a part of
the Seneca Women Podcast Network and partner ship with I
Heart Radio. Thanks for listening and don't forget to subscribe, rate,
and review the podcast. M
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