Pack the Converse, Wear the Jordans: A Helpful Guide to Packing for Rap Tour

Paul has been on tour for the past three and a half weeks doing shows all over the middle of the country. Apparently the crowds are great for indie hip hop in places like Montana and North Dakota because no one ever makes it out to see them.

When it comes to packing for tour though, I generally lend a helping hand. Paul has questionable packing skills. One time we went to a wedding and he forgot to bring his suit pants. Packed the jacket. Left the pants. Being a former Girl Scout, I consider myself an expert packer. Two weeks at summer camp with just one trunk means I can certainly pack for three weeks of tour with one bag and a road case. I got this.

In his effort to pack light, Paul decided that he was only going to pack one pair of shoes. One pair! I mean these are shoes. You gotta have ‘em. What happens if something happens to his only pair of shoes on the road. He’s going to have to find a Foot Locker in the vast emptiness that is Wyoming? I set him straight. Pack the Converse, wear the Jordans.

In addition to clothes and gear, he also had to pack merch. Paul decided to get custom wood USB drives containing six of his albums. He also brought some leftover CD’s from past collaborations, but realistically, CD’s are already outdated. A friend of mine bought two PremRock CD’s at one of his shows and then realized she had no way to listen to them. Her computer doesn't have a CD drive to add them to her iTunes, and no one has CD players or discmans anymore. So Paul decided on some cool USB drives. They take up less space and can be reused after the music is uploaded.

I also convinced Paul to pack a tote bag. This was a HUGE triumph for me. Paul does not carry totes. I always ask him to bring one when he goes to the grocery store so we don’t end up using a million plastic bags (why do they double bag paper towels?), and he usually sighs and grabs his backpack instead. Since he had to pack other things in his backpack, he was going to use plastic bags to carry his merch into the clubs each night. First, plastic bags look bootleg. Second, they tear and fall apart. Paul was eventually persuaded that a tote bag was the most efficient and logical way to carry his merch.

Paul sent me amazing pics from the road

Paul also has some of his own great tips for touring. After doing this a couple of times, he figured out a few tricks. Laminate your merch sign. You need to have a price list printed for when someone else is manning the merch table. And considering it’s going to be on the road, you can’t print a new one every time someone spills a beer on it or when it inevitably tears. Go to Kinkos and laminate.

He also got a Square reader. We live in a time where literally anyone can accept credit cards. Which is why it annoys me so much when restaurants in NYC are cash only. It is easy, efficient and only takes a small percentage of your profits. It seems worth it.

Although touring on the indie level is never easy, it seems that if you pack efficiently, it can improve the experience. Especially when you have three guys driving twelve hour stretches through the middle of nowhere with all of their stuff in a sedan.

Tour Life - A Perspective From The One Left Behind

Touring isn’t easy. It’s hard to be on the road with seven other dudes in a van eating gas station food and sleeping on strangers couches or in cheap motels. It's not easy to be left behind either though. Paul's back in Brooklyn for his show on Thursday, and I am thrilled to have him home. Well, he’s here until Friday at least, and then he continues on to Canada. It’s always a slight adjustment when he comes home, and it makes me realize how much I have to adapt to new routines when he’s away.

I pretty much eat only frozen meals, pasta, and soup when he’s gone. I’m really bad about cooking on my own. Before I met him, I ate hummus and pita for dinner most nights. I’ve gotten a bit better and have mastered the vegetarian stir fry. But he’s not really joking when he tells me I have to learn to feed myself when he’s away.

My other big problem is sleeping while he’s gone. I hate sleeping when no one is around- I grew up with siblings and I always had roommates before we lived together. I become an insomniac while he’s on tour. This has led to lots of slumber parties!! Some of my grad school friends threw an amazing slumber party a few months ago actually. They pulled all of their mattresses into the living room, served baked goodies, and we did karaoke to our favorite 90’s songs. It was perfection. Slumber parties are definitely a big part of my survival when Paul leaves for a month.

I actually just got called out for another thing I got used to while he was away. I took over his closet. Oops. He just had so much empty space in there, and my closet is at the point where it’s hard to get things in and out. So I slowly started moving over some shirts. I figured he might not notice the shirts. He noticed. And I’m being booted from the closet. (They are totally going back in there when he leaves on Friday...)

A month on the road is long for both of us, but I know he loves when he gets a great response at a show. And I do enjoy having some space to do my own thing. Hey, it’s the reason I took the time to start this blog!