Author: Chuck Ragan
Contributors: Frank Turner, Greg Attonito, Jon Snodgrass, Jim Ward, Brian Fallon, Al Burr, Joe Gittleman, Franz Nicolay, Rev. Payton, William Elliott Whitmore, Mike Park
Publisher: Milner Crest Publishing LLC
Genre: Music
Pages: 146
Buy on Amazon.com

Hot Water Music’s Chuck Ragan & many other contributors have compiled a bunch of tour advice, tips, suggestions, and tour stories for bands & musicians looking to hit the road. It’s got some great advice and any band looking to tour for the first time should check this out!

Chuck Ragan opens up the book with a foreward, but then everybody else takes over and offers up their own, unique spin on life on the road. Each person has about 2 pages to say what they want to say, so this is a quick book to get through. Besides all the contributors I listed above, there’s also a lot of record label employees, journalists, photographers, promoters, and other people that offer up stories and advice. I found myself enjoying the parts with musicians I know like Frank Turner, William Elliott Whitmore, Al Burr, Greg Attonito, Mike Park, and others. Jake Desrochers of the Lonely Kings actually had the best chapter.

At times, I felt the book got repetitive with what people were saying. Basically everyone says be nice to everyone, try not to stress, sleeping next to your band members sucks, the road sucks, you will be sleeping all over the place, you will get robbed, etc. and so on. Only a handful of people actually give first-hand stories on what happened to them on the road. I was actually looking forward to reading more tour stories than just advice for the touring musician.

There’s only so much advice I can read until it starts getting boring to me. Besides, I’m not a touring musician so some things I just can’t relate to. That actually might be the book’s main problem, is that it’s only really geared for the musicians & bands out there looking for some advice. Don’t get me wrong, this book has some funny, weird, and good stories & advice in there; I was just hoping for a book strictly about life on the road & stories from that instead of an advice column.

Bottom Line: For bands & musicians hoping to tour one day
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