Burn the Page: A True Story of Torching Doubts, Blazing Trails, and Igniting Change by Danica Roem

Author:Danica Roem [Roem, Danica]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction, Memoir, Politics, LGBTQIA+, Trans
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2022-04-26T00:00:00+00:00

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Keep in mind: At age twenty-seven, I had no work-life balance. I was writing for The Hotline in the morning and afternoon and writing for the Gainesville Times/Prince William Times during the evening, at night, and on the weekend, still holding band practice and playing shows and spending every other waking hour setting up this tour. That meant not only dealing with the logistics, but locking down venues that would actually book two unsigned American bands without a preexisting footprint on the promise that we had friends in each town and we drank enough for the bar to at least turn a profit by night’s end.

Landing our first venue confirmation of the tour in Edinburgh at Bannerman’s Bar from a man named Chris made the entire rest of the tour possible, as other venues wanted to know that we had a tour route but didn’t want to be the first to say yes. With the help of Mike and Aisha, who were able to put in a good word, as locals well known in their metal scene along with their crews and friends’ bands, Bannerman’s came through for us. I remember getting the confirmation email while at work in D.C., complete with a letterhead that we could use for immigration, and I just pumped my fists with absolute joy under the fluorescent lightbulbs of the fourth floor of the Watergate’s office suites.

Next came the (coolest-looking) letter from the Moorings Bar in Aberdeen, complete with pirate-skull-insignia letterhead to prove the gig was official. That came about because of a promoter named Brian and my friend Richard, who had introduced me to Brian in the first place. Our friend Hannah, an expat from Maryland, came in clutch in Belfast, helping us book a since-defunct venue called Auntie Annie’s with a couple of local bands for the first show of the tour. In Glasgow, Mike and some of my other Wacken friends managed to help me out with a vegan restaurant that had a stageless venue in the basement (and the sweetest Marshall JCM 900 electric guitar amplifier you’ve ever heard in your life . . . *drools in Scottish Gaelic*) and two super-aggressive local bands willing to serve as the main draw—Citizen Death and Circle of Tyrants—on July 4, our American Independence Day.

We had no such luck with any venue anywhere at all located in England. Whereas Scotland welcomed my bandmates and me with open arms behind the keg of our choosing, England welcomed us with a middle finger and a kick me sign stapled to our—and I do believe this is the proper English term—arses. A dear, dear friend of mine, Dan, who I had known for eleven years at that point and who happened to live in northeastern England and played bass in the grindcore band Dawn of Chaos, put in a good word for us at his hometown venue, to no avail. Neither did we gain traction in any city from Reading to Newcastle to Hartlepool to .

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