Living by a string

As Colorado-based jam band String Cheese Incident played to a sold-out crowd at the IU Auditorium last week, some of its real fans lurked in the dark, damp garage located on Jordan Avenue.\nClouded by smoke from grills and cigarettes, 23-year-old "Cheese-head" Liz Wrege adds cilantro to her sizzling fajita. She chugs the rest of her bottle of Corona Light and tosses it over her shoulder right into a garbage bag tucked to the tailgate of her car. She stirs the rice, tomatoes, cheese and peppers as she continues to tell her story.\n"It was honestly the greatest experience of my life," she said with the utmost seriousness on her face. \n"I mean, Bill Nershi himself came up to me and signed my sign," she said, pointing to a piece of paper with the words "I love you," scrawled on with colored markers.\n"Who is Bill Nershi anyways?" asks one fajita consumer as he wipes his mouth.\n"What?" Wrege asks incredulously. "Only the lead singer of the band you're following."\nWrege said she guesses some people are in the garage not for the music but for the scene -- a scene that has been built into its own subculture, with etiquette, merchandising and its own economic system.\nMuch like fans of the Grateful Dead (now The Dead) and Phish, people quit their jobs, move out of their homes and just follow String Cheese Incident to all of their shows. With The Dead not touring and Phish broken up, these nomads have flocked to set up camp everyplace the String Cheese goes, whether it's outside the concert hall or in A-pass parking spots here in Bloomington.\n"On this tour, we had a guy call the cops on us," said Sarah Ferguson, a 25-year-old fajita cook and Cheese follower. "He was screaming to them, 'You need to get out there quick; a bunch of gypsies have taken over the town.' I thought that was funny, but I suppose we are like a band of gypsies."\nThere are plenty of stereotypes about these followers, but it's hard to group them all into one category since there is so much diversity in the crowd. Some people were engaged in serious political discussions, going on 10-minute rants without taking a breath. Some claimed to be strung out on mescaline, forming a mosh pit without any music. Some fed their hoard of leashed dogs pieces of blackened Cajun chicken, all the while playing hackey sack.\nThe culture of these followers is just any part of society. There are the different cliques for different bands. Ferguson said there are "moochers" and "druggies" who start trouble and give followers a bad name. There's the veterans, people born into this lifestyle who just don't know anything else and there are merchants, such as Ferguson and Wrege, who make a tidy profit while paying their way across the country.\nThe business model of their plan is based sound few economic principles. Almost anything is sold at these shows, but the main items are food, shirts, pipes, crystals/trinkets and other merchandise. \nOverhead is low and includes gas for travel and ingredients for food. Food can be traded for other items, and the other items such as T-shirts and merchandising don't depreciate in their value, so losses almost never occur. The only question is how much they can make off of each show.\nOne merchant who calls herself Amethyst said she spends less than $50 a show in production costs, but can profit about $400 to $600 a night, depending on the turnout. She attends a minimum of four shows a week, which adds up to one pretty penny.\n"Is this profitable? It certainly is in many cases," said IU economic professor James Walker. "In the case of the followers of this band -- one would have to know the details -- demand for these 'goods' and the cost of these groups supplying their 'goods.' It may very well be profitable now, but not sustainable. But this is the essence of many markets."\nAnother aspect that adds to their economic success is a loyal base of customers. Everybody huddled together in the garage described the scene as a "family." Amethyst said giving out free food when people are broke makes them more likely to spend $3 or $4 for a sandwich next time.\nBut all of this economic theory exists solely to sustain a culture -- a culture for which people quit their high paying jobs just to be a part of.\nDavid Moreno, a resident of Sonoma, Calif., worked in a fancy restaurant, stomping grapes and serving wine. A typical night could earn him more than $150 just in tips, but he gave it all up just to go on tour with String Cheese Incident to sell pipes and listen to the jams.\n"These are honestly the coolest people I've ever met, and you can't put a price on that," he said.