What’s In a Name . . .

So, tomorrow night, Champagne Sunday will be making our debut performance at The Hard Rock Cafe, in Seattle. This is going to be a wonderful night, filled with great music, great fans, and great times. We have “officially” been WA residents for 4 months and have already been featured in papers, been on internet radio programs, local T.V. news shows, played several wonderful showcases with other great acts and had some incredible success accumulating new fans. This area confirms our difficult choice to leave our beautiful Ojai life and pursue, literally, “greener” pastures in the Pacific Northwest. So, what’s all the fuss about the Hard Rock Cafe?

In the early CS days, we were like giddy schoolgirls when we finally got our big L.A. “break” and were asked to play the world-famous, Whisky-A-Go-Go. I mean, we signed our contract on the very couch where Jim Morrison had passed out and vomited, we walked the very halls where Eddie Van Halen lived because he was so dirt poor, we got to play on the very stage where Janice Joplin belted her lungs out to the drug-induced adoring masses who hardly remember the show now… The Whisky. We were thrilled. We practiced for weeks and planned an unbelievable show. Our parts were solid, our harmonies rivaled Queen, our guitars were crunchy, clothes distressed, make-up heavy, song transitions carefully crafted, our hearts beating together as the 5 of us took the stage to perform, what was sure to be, the show that got us discovered.The Whisky.

We have grown a LOT since that night. As you know, we are no longer a 5 piece, we are nowhere near L.A. and we did NOT play the show that got us discovered that night. We played a dirty club that was a foggy memory at best in the minds of most who lived in the glory days of the beast, and a pipe dream for the starry-eyed bands of today, wanting to believe that it is the “making point” of musicians. We did, however, discover something vital to the huge success and strength that became the very core of the Champagne Sunday you see today, nothing is in a name. The name of a venue, a producer, a festival, T.V. program, newspaper, radio show, musical act, anything… the name means nothing. It is who you choose to be and how you soldier forward and fight, against all odds, for what you want more than anything. Call it the Whisky, The Hard Rock, The Staple Center or White House for all I care, if you don’t believe in what you’re doing and love it with every fiber that is in you (even if that fiber is quickly growing into a baby), then it doesn’t matter where you are!

So, if you want to come see a wonderful show, where Jared and I will be as real and honest as we always are, giving you each a piece of our dream, and maybe something to think about on your drive home, come to the venue that we happen to be playing at this Friday, The Hard Rock Cafe in Seattle, Feb 22nd at 9:00. I promise you will love it- because we love it, and will continue to… or we will quit, no matter where we’re playing.