On tour now!
In 2011 The Plurals went on our first “long” tour. We had made it a regular thing to do some long weekend to 10 day trips out to the east coast a couple times a year since 2007, largely to keep up with our friends that eventually formed into Honah Lee, but in the summer of 2010 on a whim I hit up a guy named Billy in Tucson, AZ to see if we could play a little festival he was putting together for April 2011 called Way Out West Fest. Billy said what few others before or since have said and said that, yes, he would have The Plurals on his inaugural festival and suddenly we had to book a tour to the southwest. And, well, since we were going that far we might as well book the west coast too. This first west coast tour was a turning point for The Plurals and was definitely many learning experiences crammed into a short period of time but the end result was that we were hungry to play for as many new audiences as we could and we haven’t really let up sense.
Though the intervening years have been a bit rough on us.
We wouldn’t have had such a positive experience if it weren’t for the new friends we made along the way, and one of the first was Logan Greene. When we rolled up to Tucson, AZ for the first time on April 8th, 2011 we were among the first people to show up for the fest. We went to meet up with Billy at a bar called The Hut, a Caribbean-themed college bar on the “main college drag” of Tucson; a bar we would not be frequenting were it not, perhaps bafflingly, hosting this weekend-long DIY punk fest. Sitting outside the bar was a guy with red hair and glasses and he made it a point to introduce himself to us straight away. His name was Logan and he was, as he put it, “one of the only actual local musicians playing the fest.” He didn’t say this vindictively, more just pointing it out matter-of-factly, and I knew I had met a kindred spirit right away. I have often expressed frustration at how bigger music events in the Lansing area don’t often include the musicians that make cool and interesting things happen on the day-to-day ground level and also how it’s a rare thing for a band that achieves a level of success to actually give back to the local community, so I understood Logan’s point. Logan also had pushed for their to be an all ages venue for the fest and I could see he was gunning for the fest to be as big and great as possible and that he wasn’t interested in just joining the party.
But I might have been wrong.
As the first Way Out West Fest went on we made a lot of friends, saw a lot of tropical mixed drinks consumed after the bar had failed to order an adequate amount of cheap beer, saw a lot of great bands, and also witnessed the phenomenon of people being unable to bounce back from partying too hard and missing large portions of the fest. Our set came in the middle of day two and we were in a little bit of a blackout area (maybe in more ways than one…) after everyone had crashed for the afternoon but before they had left the hotel to check out the evening performances (which included Tiltwheel, Toys That Kill, and Lenguas Largas… yeah, this was a good lineup!). So, we didn’t have a huge audience for our set but one of the people that made it a point to show up and bring as many people along as he could was Logan. Later on he played with his band The Bricks, and the next day he did an acoustic set with his band Doctor Dinosaur. I’ll just put it this way: the guy knows his way around a tune, and his friendly demeanor doesn’t hurt anything. A few days later when we got to San Pedro for the fist time and met our future band brothers Black Sparrow Press we noticed that there was a painting on their wall that someone had done of Logan playing an acoustic set at one of their house shows. Things like this let you immediately know that you’re among friends.
I wasn’t able to find the portrait in question online anywhere, but this one may say more than I ever could.
Over the years we crossed paths many more times, for Way Out West Fest 2012 and then just for Plurals tour dates in Tucson. I learned that Logan spent time as a music teacher, knew a lot of other musicians that I had respect for, and he eventually started a label called Diet Pop Records with his girlfriend Lucille Petty. In 2013 I did the “excuse to travel to California in the winter for as little money as possible” solo acoustic tour and Logan and I met up for a batch of dates in Arizona and California and sharing the stage with him for a few nights I learned a lot about how to present music in an acoustic format and I left the experience with some new songs written. In 2014 Diet Pop Records starting a cool video series called Trundle Sessions and were kind enough to invite The Plurals along to film a performance. Finally, as The Plurals imminent third album An Onion Tied To My Belt was nearing completion Diet Pop agreed to be one of the labels to help put it out. We really are family now!
So, the latest Logan Greene incarnation is a musical duo with Lucille called, get this, Logan & Lucille. They’re in the middle of a long international tour and GTG House is hosting them on FRIDAY JUNE 26TH, just a couple days after their return from the European leg. I’m really looking forward to showing my friends what we have here in Lansing and I hope everyone else can join me!
– Tommy Plural
Better? Days
GTG RECORDS 