Book Description

Dead Flowers on Wednesday is the harrowing tale of a band on tour, facing trials and tribulations along the way, drinking too much beer, smoking too much weed, giving in to every temptation, and loving (almost) every minute of it. Travel on a cobbled-together tourbus with a band of marauding musicians as they try to break free from the tethers of society and chase their dreams of freedom, stardom, and unbridled musical expression. Experience the thrill of stage performance, the camaraderie of the band, acid trips, fights, success and failure as you step into the shoes of characters living their dreams and facing their nightmares. The band has everything to gain, and nothing to lose (or so they think) when they embark on a nomadic life in a schoolbus that has been rudely converted into a tourbus. Along the way, they reap the glory of performing to large crowds, the disappointment of dodgy venues, the ecstasy and misery of overindulgence, the loss of friends, and the love or the wrath of bizarre characters they meet along the way, and the consequences of overindulgence. The writing is captivating, surreal, and transcendental. You will feel exactly what it is like to improvise electric guitar leads on stage at a festival. You will roam in the forest after the show while tripping acid. You will skateboard in the dark while drunk. You will fight the jealous boyfriends of groupies. You will get stoned and shoot guns, vandalize, rob, get beat up, and wonder what it all means. "I make eye contact with a girl dancing in the front row. She's dressed in a short black skirt and tall black leather boots. I can see the sides of her breasts and I drink in her beauty and feed off her energy as she feeds off mine. Her movements influence my notes, and my fingers respond to her hips and the swinging of her hair. We merge into one being as her body and my guitar play different parts of the same song.""We drive away from the precipice where our innocence and grace once stood like fallen souls navigating the first plane of the inferno. The hills, once green and vibrant, now loom above us and shade out the sun like dark and cold prison walls.""The grass around our feet, which I couldn't see at all before, grows taller and sprouts flowers of all colors. And then, perhaps the strangest thing of all, it begins to rain, but it is not water that falls from the sky, rather little balls of light descend and feel like joy when they hit me. Each one leaves a little feeling of joy on my skin, joy and happiness concentrated in one little spot on my arm or shoulder or head. And the little bits of light keep falling and the colorful birds fly about soaking up the light and glowing like fireflies, and the joy covers my body and I am overwhelmed with happiness. I smile so big that my face hurts and I fall to my knees and into the tall glowing flowers and the light that envelops me becomes so bright that I lose what consciousness I still have. "some headlines from places we performed: "Music Murder and Mayhem""Music so Good You'll Forget Who You Are""Naked Hippies Scare Locals""Violence Escalates at Speak Easy Venue""Wayward Musicians Wreak Havoc on Tour""Reggae Band Gone Bad""Bullet Ridden Tour Bus found in Appalachia""Domestic Terrorism Blamed on Reggae Band""Festival Goers Describe Hallucinations Brought on by Music"It's a long way to the top, and rock bottom is always close at hand.Dead Flowers on Wednesday is a fictional tale based on the real experiences of the author, who was himself a touring musician. The author gives the reader the unique opportunity to experience the feelings, emotions, sights, and sounds of what it is like to perform in a band on stage and travel from gig to gig on a bus. Some of the events are real as told, some are embellished, and others are completely fictional. However, all are indicative of life on tour and representational of the decisions and challenges we all must face.