A couple of days ago, I celebrated my 27th birthday on the road. A couple months ago, I was in a routing meeting with Zach Deputy Management and thought I would be in Mississippi for my birthday. I thought, 'sure, I’ve never been to Mississippi, it should be fun,' but I knew I wanted more. As the weeks passed and the tour developed, we got a contract for February 11th, 2011 at Skipper’s Smokehouse in Tampa, FL. Fuck yeah! Skipper’s is one of my favorite venues in the entire country. When I was younger I used to go on Dave Matthews Band tours, seeing them play in large sheds and higher capacity venues. When you get to that size, things become much more sterile and the venues lose their “flavor.” There are many venues out there that are absolute gems that I have had the privilege seeing, but the scale rooms we play on Zach Deputy tour are so unique. So believe me when I say I was stoked as shit for this Tampa play on my birthday.
I’m not much of one to tell people when my birthday is. I’m not sure why, I just never have been. If you ask, I’ll tell you. If you don’t, it’ll just pass on by. We played a show at Common Grounds in Gainesville, FL at the end of February and I got to see my good buddy Jarrod, his niece and many other friends. He lives in the Tampa area, so we got to talking about the Skipper’s show and I guess I mentioned it was my birthday. He got all amped up for the show and told me he’d see me on the 11th. Fast forward a couple weeks and I’m at Musica in Akron, OH with our good friend Michelle. Michelle travels a lot in her work and has been able to see us in five states so far. I told her our upcoming tour schedule and started raving about how amazing Skipper’s was in Tampa. She found out it was my birthday and then became really excited about the possibility of a Florida Zach Deputy show.
Next thing you know, it’s February 11th and we’re pulling up to Skipper’s for our 5:30p load in. The purple façade greats us as we back in to the load-in door with large towering trees covered in Spanish moss hanging overhead. We get the stage and merchandise set up quickly so we can all relax before the show. Skipper’s Smokehouse is a 700 person capacity outdoor music venue that boasts some amazing features. The wooden planked floor connects the venue to the restaurant. The restaurant and other building facades are so natural looking, with rustic tin roofs offering quite the complimentary aesthetic value. The restaurant and adjoining buildings is a maze for the first time visitor, but for those returning can quickly manage the venue quite easily. Either way, it’s a treat being about to cut and dodge through all these rooms and nodes to get through a show at Skipper’s.
Off to the corner of the venue are benches with their foundations rooted in the sand. The upper deck porch and bar overlook the venue as it slopes down to the stage, all encompassed be large multi leader trees strangled with Spanish moss. This venue is heaven for me…the perfect blend of music and landscape architecture. Landform, plants, water and structure make up the floors, walls and ceilings of the venue, all rotating around and feeding off the good energy of Zach Deputy, his music and the kind-hearted, fun loving fans he brings out.
Very early in the night, I walk out from the backstage area into an empty venue, as doors have just opened. Sure as shit, there’s Jarrod and four of his friends. He gives me one of the biggest, most genuine hugs as do my new found friends. All so kind and entertaining in their own right, these four new friends are joking with me and enjoying some good laughs. That’s music family for ya! I have a tough time expressing how amazing music family is sometimes. To put it in simple terms, music family brings accelerated friendship. If you’re friends with my friend, you’re a friend of mine. You have this trust and confidence that you’re friend only keeps the best of company, and 98% of the time, that’s true. You don’t need to do introductions and background checks…you skip straight to hugs, badass conversation and great times!
After I open my singing birthday card from Jarrod, I walk back to merch, only to bump into my friend Ashley. Ashley and I met in Asheville, NC a year or so ago and we have crossed paths again many times since then…including shows in Boston, California and now here in Tampa. It’s fun to be hanging with a dear friend half way across the US in some instances and not even think twice about it. It’s not weird, it’s not a coincidence…it just is. Then I see Michelle and her son Patrick. They hoped a flight from Philadelphia and came to take me up on my recommendation of Skipper’s Smokehouse. We all enjoyed one hell of night that consisted of lots of laughs, dancing and good company.
It just absolutely blows my mind that all of this that lays at our fingertips on my birthday is a byproduct of liking music. I’m a rat. I’ll see any music and I love the majority of it. I don’t do drugs, I don’t drink; I just fucking looooooooove music, traveling and friends. How is that fair though? I feel music at this unbelievable level and absolutely drool over the business side of it. I close my eyes and dance by myself, I run around and see all my friends, I get to see the United State and beyond, and I get to celebrate my birthday at one of the premier music rooms in the Southeast with some of the best people I know. And because of what…music? I still have a tough time wrapping my head around how lucky we all are to share these times together just because we have the same common interest in one of life’s most common things.
And to top it off, I got to pick up a package at Skipper’s the next day that consisted of some of my favorite goodies from Atkins Farm in Amherst, MA as well as birthday cards, winter gear and notes from home (thanks Zeena)! What an absolutely beautiful day. I never draw attention to my birthday, so for all these things to fall into place as they did really was touching and repeatedly blew my mind as I quietly stood in the back of the venue with my arms crossed and smiling.
