inneedofgrace
Platinum Member
I thought this thread was going to be about the Doughtry song. LOL
Good luck Matt!
Good luck Matt!
Well it's official now. My folks showed up in Bucharest yesterday with surprise plane tickets to The States. So in just a few hours I'll be boarding a plane home. I'll be hanging in North Carolina for a little R&R then on to Summer NAMM in Nashville on the evening of the 23rd.
Let it all begin.
Well it's official now. My folks showed up in Bucharest yesterday with surprise plane tickets to The States. So in just a few hours I'll be boarding a plane home. I'll be hanging in North Carolina for a little R&R then on to Summer NAMM in Nashville on the evening of the 23rd.
Let it all begin.
Well...after a stressful adventure I'm back in the US sitting at my grandparents' kitchen table.
Customs officials in Bucharest stupidly confiscated my cymbals when I tried to bring them on a plane in the normal regulation cymbal bag. They claimed they were lethal weapons then after a half hour fight allowed me to put them under the plane (only 20 minutes before takeoff) for an additional 50 Euro ...followed by a handshake I witnessed by the same customs official and the extra baggage coupon distributor. I assumed he pulled the whole stunt for half the money ...a common gimmick here. While in the back taking care of this, the same customs official removed my best crash and positioned it like a discus thrower pretending to throw it...laughing like a fool. I'm not even going to get into the hassles about the extra baggage weight and the greasy palm negotiations related to that.
But all that's behind me. I'm back. Now to relax for a couple of days ...then get it together.
Thanks Gary and I very much appreciated your helpful pms when I was still in Europe. I was honored to officiate the championship round of WFD's big comeback. It was a pleasure to give back to Boo after he had been so nice to me in earlier times. Besides it was a lot of fun. I only wished we had seen an appearence from Tom. His absence was noticed by all. I jokingly made my first speed run in over 3 years and was kind of surprised that I performed as well as I did.Awesome Matt! Glad to hear you made it back and jumped right back in the saddle, even if it was only to officiate and MC.
Yeah I probably could go your way. But I better try this first. I need a base I can afford until I start hooking up. I might start up a separate Nashville inquiry thread to hear from some of our members who live out there.Good to hear your "adjusting" well to life back in the States. If things don't work in Nashville you can always head South!
I went to middle school in Romania when the family moved there via my dad's acceptance of a two year Senior Fulbright Professorship at the National Conservatory of Music in Bucharest. At that time I studied twice a week with Romania's greatest drummer Vlad Popescu and he became the mentor who seriously got me going. So I already knew my way around Bucharest, had been going back every couple of years when Dad would have his summer music camp, and knew that for Europe things were pretty cheap. Yeah, it's easier to get gigs out that way because so many of the artists have taken off to the west to stake their claim after being stuck for so many years. When Romania joined the EU 4 years ago the place kind of emptied out. So perfect for me. There were probably a dozen full time drummers there and Vlad remained the best one, but was always tied up in somebody's house gig. So that opened things up for me. But the money was never good so you always knew things were temporary.Hey Matt! How did your travel to Eastern Europe come in the first place? Is it kind
of "easier to get gigs" in countries like Romania and Montenegro, or wasn't that your
main concern? I suppose you weren't the only good drummer there, were you?
Did you meet any Americans living there?