Dear Santa

It might not fit in your sack, but this is the day I want you to bring me...

I wake up on a Sunday morning and check my email. The Blacksburg Music Extravaganza (BME) web site has emailed me a list of the bands playing in town this week. I see several bands I am interested in and log in to the BME web site to find a carpool. I see that several people are looking for a designated driver for the blues show at the Cellar Thursday night and volunteer to drive - four people can fit in the car if they are friendly and have recently showered. I sign up as a passenger for the punk show on Friday - two local bands are slated to open for a nationally known act that is touring college towns. I've heard that Tom Waits is on tour and coming to Kentucky, and I put a notice up on the BME looking for carpoolers.

I walk downtown to get some coffee and hang out. I admire the fliers on the town kiosks and bulletin boards. The music venues all want the most eye-catching fliers possible and the local artists are having a ball trying to top each other's work. I pull out my laptop at the coffee shop and use the wireless network to hop on to the BME forum. I respond to some posts from other local bass players and check out the want ads. I see a post for a band looking for some additional members and email a friend I think might be a good fit. I pop open Photoshop and work on a flyer of my own. When I'm happy with it, I post copies to getrockedout.com and the BME web site. I copy it onto a jump drive and take it over to Kinko's to get copied so I can put it up on the kiosks.

I stop by the new music venue in the old bank building on the corner of Roanoke and Main. Sundays' program is open-mic-all-day. It's a sunny day and a bunch of acoustic players are already out on the back patio jamming and riffing away. There's a different genre of music scheduled on pretty much every night at this place, and the most popular local bands get regular monthly Friday night gigs. There are all-ages shows many times a month. They have a big stage with a great sound-and-light system. They serve coffee, sandwiches and milkshakes and local musicians stop in for food and talk during the day - everyone knows that to make it as a music venue in Blacksburg, it helps to sell drinks. If you sell mixed drinks in Virginia, you have to make at least 45% of your money from food sales. I grab a sandwich and a 'shake and gossip about the upcoming shows and all the block parties that are being planned for the summer.

I head back down to College Avenue and hang up some more fliers on the bulletin boards and kiosks that the town and downtown merchants have provided. There's a band playing on Henderson Lawn, so I take my milkshake and find a spot on the grass to watch. The band is really good and I call several folks on my cell-phone saying "You should come down here! It's beautiful out and the music's playing!" More people show up and we take off our shoes and dance in the grass.

Thank you Santa.

Sincerely,
Pris Sears

“Pris Sears gave her a boyfriend a Tom Waits haircut but her friends were too polite to say anything.”