Tour Blog

DC, DC, DC, and DC

Mon, 13 Dec 2010 11:32:11 GMT

Two miles from the on-ramp to Washington DC’s infamous Capital Beltway, Katie and I hit heavy traffic that slowed us to a crawl. The engine then abruptly shut off, which slowed us to a stop. A profound, head throbbing stop. We were in one of the interior of four lanes of traffic, and prolonged cranking of the engine produced no results, just a funny smell I later learned was our starter burning up.

When I finally realized I wasn’t going to get the engine to turn over I tried dialing AAA, but it was 5:15pm and DC’s notoriously congested cell service wouldn’t let me through to an operator. I tried five or six times, then finally ran to a nearby Shell station and borrowed their phone. AAA had me on hold for over ten minutes (all the while Katie sat in the truck, in traffic, valiantly pretending nothing was the matter as car after car of pissed off people honked and sped around her), and I was told a tow truck was in route.

The wrecker showed quickly for once and pulled in front of the stalled rig to hook us up. Now remember, we’re in a 6,000 lb. truck carrying a 1,500 lb. camper and pulling an 8’ trailer full of musical equipment -- I believe we’re in the neighborhood of 10,000 lb. altogether. The tow truck was of the flatbed variety, with some manner of bar in the back allowing the driver to lift a vehicle’s front wheels and tow like a traditional wrecker if desired. Realizing our rig to be too long to fit on the flatbed, I asked the driver if he could simply pull us off the main street so I could detach our trailer, but he said he would just tow us the entire 5 miles to the mechanic, trailer included. A little side note -- when I spoke to the AAA rep, I specifically told him we were driving a diesel truck and needed to go to a diesel shop. I reiterated this to the tow driver.

All went well for the first few miles of the drive, but we heard a loud bang while heading up a hill and turned to see our truck, camper, and trailer drifting away from us back down the hill. The truck’s towing apparatus had apparently broken under the weight. The driver let out an “Oh Shit!” and bolted out the door to try and catch it, while I tried in vain to extricate myself from the backseat and crawl over Katie and out her door to help. By the time I made it outside the truck was stopped, not because of our driver, but by the front bumper of an extremely friendly and understanding Brazilian woman’s minivan. She and her two children were thankfully unhurt, but police were called and our driver hurriedly made to get our truck and camper onto the flatbed and off to their final destination as quickly as possible. That left our trailer sitting in the middle of the road while the police tried to figure out what the hell was going on, and eventually the flatbed returned for the trailer and us. Our Portuguese emergency brake Katia kindly offered us to stay with her and her children, but we gratefully declined. Seriously -- how nice must a person be to get hit by your runaway car and then offer to feed and shelter the owners? That woman must be a saint.

Finally at the garage we settled in for the night, but not before Katie made one last inquiry to the cashiers on duty (the place was one of those garage/gas station combos) making sure that this was in fact a diesel shop, which they again, for the third time, offered confirmation of.

I spoke to the shop owner Rick at 8 the next morning and we waited to be seen. Rick, a super nice guy no matter the tone that I may unconsciously give here, finally moseyed over to take a look after lunch, and promptly declared that his shop does not in fact work on diesels in any way, and that he’d replace my starter and check to make sure there was nothing obvious wrong with the truck, but that’s it. So replace the starter he did (and charged us $453 for the privilege) before declaring he couldn’t fix it and it’d have to be towed somewhere else.

I made call No. 2 to AAA at 4pm and waited until 6:00 for the truck to appear. The driver connected a winch to the truck and camper (Rick kindly offered to house the trailer until our return), and pulled the beast a few feet up the truck’s ramp before the winch gave out, necessitating the summoning of another, beefier truck, the closest of which was roughly an hour away. One hour turned into two, and the medium duty truck arrived around 9:00 only to tell us he didn’t have the right equipment to tow us, at least without ripping off our front bumper, so a third truck was called. No. 3 showed a little after 10pm and refused to transport the camper, so I exasperatedly offered to remove it from the truck, which the driver accepted. Driver No. 3 took the truck to a nearby-ish Ford dealership, and Katie and I (and Chloe too) settled in for a second night of inner city camping.

I haven’t mentioned our “campsite” yet. We were at an Express gas station in Takoma Park, Maryland, exactly one block northeast of the DC border. All of Katie’s family we spoke to seemed very unnerved by our proximity to DC, but our original tow driver assured us we’d be safe there. He said this was his ‘area’. The gas station is on a major road, and though not open 24 hours remained very well-lit throughout the night. A walking path through the empty lot next door (and right next to where we were parked) led to a not so great-looking neighborhood featuring at least one public housing development and steady foot traffic. While obviously a lower income area, we nevertheless didn’t feel in danger or that our safety was in question. I did however suspect we might discover a homeless person sleeping in our camper were we to leave for the night and accept one of our friends and family’s many offers to take us in, so we opted to stay.

Day 3 started with a call from Ford acknowledging the truck they found waiting in their lot that morning, along with the caveat that they might not even look at it for a couple of days thanks to backlog in the shop. I explained our situation though, and they promised to make every effort to speed the process and get us on the road ASAP.

Meanwhile, I had noticed during the night that our propane (and only heat source) seemed to be getting low, a definite concern in the sub-freezing temperatures, so Katie and I set out to fill one of our tanks and make a grocery run with the time off. I found a U-Haul about a mile away and carried the 30-ish lb. tank to be filled, dropping Katie off at a local grocery store along the way. After filling the tank (about 7 gallons), I barely made it the single block back to Katie’s grocery store to meet her for the walk back. We’d jokingly said we would steal a shopping cart to get back to the camper if we needed, but faced with the prospect of lugging an unwieldy, 70-pound, highly explosive canister a mile through hilly and densely-trafficked roads, we grabbed the first cart we could find. Unfortunately the store had one of those theft-deterrent systems in place where one of the cart’s wheels locks up when you reach a certain border, but after testing the system’s limits we realized we could just lift a cart over our heads while crossing the line and we wouldn’t set it off. Ironically, none of the local residents bat an eye when they saw us leaving the grounds with the stolen cart, but the looks of incredulity we got when bringing the cart back a half hour later were priceless.

Night 3 was uneventful, aided by a bottle of cheap champagne procured from a nearby liquor store, and the following day mercifully didn’t offer any surprises either. That is until nightfall, when Ford gave us a surprise call to tell us the truck was fixed and we had two hours to get there if we wanted it that night. Hell yes we wanted it that night! Taking rush hour into account, we figured the fastest way there might be the Metro, so we speed walked a mile to the station, took a 15-minute ride, walked another half-mile, and were there. The entire trip took close to 45 minutes, as least as quick as a cab in rush hour and probably $40 less.

The rest was easy. We drove back, packed up the camper, ate some Popeye’s Chicken (it was f*@#&$% awesome!) and hit the road. Got to St. Augustine Saturday and continued the gastronomical fun (Guinness pie from Prince of Wales one night, Five Guys the next), and tomorrow, Monday, we’ll drive the last 4 hours home, effectively ending our first tour.

Though we were only on the road for not quite two months, the knowledge I gained about music, performing, marriage, and life in general is prodigious and invaluable. I can’t wait for the next stage of the journey, regardless of the expression it ends up taking. For now though, just sleep. Sleepy sleep sleep.

Cape Cod, Salem, Stockbridge, Schenectady & PA

Mon, 13 Dec 2010 05:35:00 GMT

We decided to to see Salem on our way out of the area, but not before setting out on a drive down the length of Cape Cod.

The Cape was a less built-up, less ritzy version of Long Island’s Hamptons. The drive to the point lasted a couple hours and took us through quaint historical towns like Sandwich (I honestly expected to find at least one Sandwich Sandwich SOMEwhere in town) and a couple more developed areas as well. Our favorite was the last town before the point, Provincetown, which also carries a wild reputation -- sort of a New England Key West, in the summer at least. Provincetown was also surround by towering sand dunes and showed us probably the most beautiful sunset we’d ever seen. We made a pact to go back someday at a warmer time to picnic on a dune and relive that amazing light show.

Salem was....interesting. The witch trials almost seem to have left some indellible mark on the city and its people. Despite the obvious tourist draw the city feels economically repressed, as though it’s perpetually mired in a shadow of its own casting. The people seemed dark and sullen, there was a large homeless population relative to the size of the town, and many of the large, beautiful and historic homes lining the streets had been converted into low-rent tenements. Or maybe it was just the cold and overcast, who knows. We saw a cool monument though, honoring 20 or so ‘witches’ put to death in 1620.

We hit the road for a show scheduled at the renowned Moon and River Cafe in Schenectady, New York, but took a quick detour after seeing a sign for Norman Rockwell’s hometown of Stockbridge, Mass, in the Berkshires. We strolled through the picturesque downtown area and poked our heads into the 1700s-era Red Lion Inn. A meandering through the grounds of Rockwell’s museum capped the diversion and we made it to Schenectady by nightfall.

Schenectady was not at all what I imagined. Driving into the city it was apparent it had experienced at some point in its history a prolonged boom period, most likely thanks to the GE plant we saw that I’m guessing drove the town in its heyday. Giant, semi-opulent Victorian homes and mansions were commonplace in every neighborhood we saw, and were in fact so omnipresent many of them were host to obviously lower-quality businesses that simply shoehorned themselves into any available space, architectural compatibility be damned. My mother also grew up in the city, so we promised to try and find her childhood home and take a photo for her. We were only there at night however, but we still tried to find it. Katie ended up taking pictures of three houses in the spot where her house had to be (but we couldn’t find any house numbers), so we’ll see if we lucked out and got an image that triggers some memories.

The show was a low-key event. We managed to snag some press in the Albany Times-Union the day of the performance, but that didn’t translate into much extra attendance. The venue owner Richard was sweet enough to invite Chloe inside for the night and that afforded her the opportunity to watch her first concert, which she seemed to enjoy. She also liked weaving through my legs while I was performing, which I didn’t mind a bit. Chloe-people make the best stress relievers.

We drove south after the show through mountains and snow flurries, eventually staying the night in Scranton, Pennsylvania, which of course prompted me to download an episode of The Office, which is set there. In the morning we continued on to Katie’s cousin Kerry’s in York, where we spent an enjoyable weekend exploring Amish country (and its delicious bakeries). We attempted to set out on Sunday for Ohio and the trip’s final two shows, but couldn’t get the truck started. I worked on it the next morning and finally got it going, but we’d already missed our window to reach Columbus on time and had to scratch the performance. Eager to get out of the cold, we made the decision to go ahead and make our way home. There was much rejoicing, at least until the truck stalled in DC and refused to restart. For four days.

Yale, Somerville, Plymouth, Providence & Cambridge

Mon, 13 Dec 2010 03:10:00 GMT

Leaving New York, everyone we talked to had the same advice: “Take the ferry from Long Island to Connecticut -- traffic in Connecticut is horrible and it’ll take you five hours just to get through the state.” Me being the cheap-ass that I am, took one look at the ferry's $80 price tag and told myself, “Nah, the traffic won’t be THAT bad.” Well, it wasn’t. It was worse.

Once again, a three-hour trip turned into seven, and we arrived at our campground in Middleboro, Massachusetts after a short stop, a brisk walk around the Yale campus, to set up camp in the dusk. The area was beautiful -- lush and green even in the 30-degree temperatures. The KOA was set to close for the season in six days and was nearly empty save for the three or four other cold-weather campers parked nearby. Our immediate neighbors were a man and his wife (and two enormous collie-newfoundland mixes) on their way home from Maine where they own their own campground. They lived in Nantucket (which inspired a couple of extraordinarily dirty limericks that even made Katie blush), and relayed that winter was the prettiest time to go. We said we’d try to make it out, but unfortunately never did.

The next night we played a show in Somerville, a suburb of Boston, at the Bloc 11 Cafe. The venue was really nice and had excellent food, but the building it inhabited, an old bank replete with a pair of working vaults and repurposed safety deposit boxes moonlighting as countertops, put it over the top. Played a short set to a smallish but receptive audience (most of whom where waiting for the last performer, a local favorite), and booked it back to the campground. Katie’s cousin Joe and his super sweet fiance made a 45-minute trip into the area to see the performance.

The following day was Thanksgiving, and what better way to celebrate on the road than hoof it to Plymouth for the day? Turns out luck was on our side and we were only 20 minutes away. We parked and walked around the town, saw Plymouth Rock (which is now about the size of an oven thanks to a few hundred years of chisel-happy tourists), listened to an impassioned speech from a speaker at the annual Native American protest, then walked through the old town burial hill. The Indians (I'm told most Native Americans actually prefer this term) then launched some sort of march around the city, and after watching a few laps we succumbed to the cold and retreated back to the car. Somewhere along the way Chloe ended up in a Pilgrim’s bonnet, which she wore happily because of the attention it brought her, but I ultimately removed because it looked a little too much like a Klan hat. For dinner we considered eating at the local (East) Indian buffet (oh, the irony!), which boasted of having some sort of turkey curry dish, but ended up at a more traditional place on the bay. Katie also wants me to mention that we saw a seal in the bay, and that it was very cute.

Providence was up next. We did the show at the intimate and cool West Side Arts Gallery, an independent place run by the husband and wife team of Travis and Jyll. Travis warned me early in the night to not expect a big turnout; the combo of Thanksgiving weekend paired with the cold and my lack of name recognition would probably keep people away. To smooth things over he offered to open a bottle of wine if 10 people showed up. I ended up playing to an audience of six, including Katie, and Travis broke out the chardonnay anyway. Travis and two of his friends invited us out afterward to a local microbrewery and we had a great time pretending to be locals for a couple hours. And I got to try the place’s dunkelweiss, a dark wheat beer (I’ve never heard of such a thing!), and it was delicious.

To compliment our earlier bypass through Yale, we planned a walkabout through Cambridge to see Harvard and its surrounding accoutrement. Toured through both the Peabody Museum of Ethnology and Archaeology and the Harvard Museum of Natural History, then walked a few miles around Harvard Square and the various other Squares in the area. We finished up the night with shawarmas and spinach pie at a Middle Eastern restaurant.

You’d think there’s nothing else we could possibly do in the area, but that would be an unfortunate, heinous accusation, and one that you’d regret for the next few hundred years. Or something.

How’s that for a segue?

Long Island & NYC

Sat, 27 Nov 2010 02:40:00 GMT

Driving to Long Island in a 13' tall camper means traversing the BQE, which has to be -- I swear to god -- the bumpiest patch of road outside Mongolia. Throw in the height restriction-necessitated detour through Brooklyn and Queens, and Google Maps' stated 2 hours and 24 minutes of driving time (including traffic!) became almost 5 1/2 hours. Not that I'm complaining though, because I actually enjoyed taking the scenic trip through a pair of outer boroughs, neither of which we would have time to see again for the rest of our stay.

We parked the camper at Katie's aunt Gail's house in gorgeous Bayport, and for a good hour or two I gave it serious consideration as a place I might want to live someday. But then Gail told us about its rampant youth drug problem and the recent spate of racially motivated stabbings (in the Mayberry-ish town of Patchogue, no less), and I reconsidered. Gail was a fantastic tour guide, taking us through the Hamptons and on to Montauk, the farthest point on Long Island, where I tried to get a job playing piano at the Shagwong (sounds like the sort of thing a Brit does to their Asian roommate, no?) to no avail -- it seems knowledge of shucking clams was a prerequisite.

A few days hanging around Bayport catching up on work, then we planned a trip into Manhattan on Friday. Katie's childhood friend Karen was around and offered to give us a tour of the city, and we saw a good chunk: hiked through Central Park (for coffee), Chinatown (for lunch), Little Italy (for pastry), and Gramercy (for envy).

I was scheduled to play the next day at a newish art bar in the LES (that's Lower East Side -- I'm so cool now that I've played there I can call everything by its acronym), and I was pretty nervous. The thought of driving into the country's least drivable city at night and playing a show in the country's (admittedly self-professed) cultural nucleus had me quite intimidated. Add the email I received a few hours before the show saying the New York Times was going to be there, and, well, I was ever so slightly overwrought. It turned out to be a fairly relaxed gig though, with a good turnout and chill vibe. The Times photographer stayed for my entire set and photographed me throughout, but I ultimately didn't make it into the article (which came out on Black Friday) and that's okay -- I'm still good enough, smart enough, and doggone it, people like me.

Monday we were back in the city for a pair of photo shoots -- the first for a baptism at St. Patrick's Cathedral, followed by one for amazing NYC artist Michael Marsicano (I neglected to mention a third shoot Katie did in Astoria before the show on Saturday. She shot local musician Linda Laporte, who booked us the gig and is an all-around awesome person and musician). We headed to Katie's friend Denise's (one half of the baptismal parents) posh suite afterward for a stroll and dinner at a hidden burger joint (literally called Burger Joint and stashed sans sign behind the lobby of the Le Parker Meridien hotel), then took a quick hop through FAO Schwartz and the 5th Avenue Apple Store before catching the train back to Long Island.

Great few days, and I actually liked New York City a lot. I think I could live there -- at least when it's 60 degrees and beautiful outside. It also helps that I had the best cup of coffee in my life from a street vendor in Times Square. For $1. That pretty much sums the city up right there: nauseating $14 bacon-infused cocktails from a hidden speakeasy in the East Village, craveworthy $1 cups of coffee from a friendly North African in Times Square, and everything in between.

I <3 NY!

York & Philadelphia, PA

Sat, 27 Nov 2010 02:15:00 GMT

Hmmmmm....where to begin? It turns out we're pretty horrible at keeping up with the blog, but I've got a few minutes so I'll try and catch up a little. Just a reminder though, we seem to be better at microblogging, so feel free to check out twitter.com/ryanpowersboyle for more timely updates.

Katie's cousin Kerry (along with husband Brad and son Colin) was kind enough to have us to her house in York, Pennsylvania for a few days. York is on the fringes of Amish country, and we actually saw such a person driving the craziest looking contraption down the road on our way out of town. It was horse drawn and had several of what looked like giant buzzsaws in the back. I'm assuming it was some sort of harvesting contrivance, or maybe it just makes farm-sized portions of scrapple. Katie snapped a pic however, so it should eventually make it's way up here.

Philadelphia was up next. I'm sure it was the neighborhood we were in, but Philly just felt dirty. Every patch of grass you could see was covered in trash as was most of everything else. The people at Cedar Street Studios were super sweet though, and they more than made up for the less than glowing ambiance. The venue inhabited the third floor of a 100+ year old coffin factory (replete with original manual freight elevator and three-story conveyor belt, now used primarily for riding up and down after a requisite number of Yuenglings) and had no sign to speak of when we got to the place. All we had to go on was an address and directions to go to the green garage, which magically opened upon arrival and produced three slightly surly guys with shopping carts offering to take our gear. We parked two blocks away at K Mart, directly under a "No Truck or Trailer Parking" sign (for good rock and roll measure), and headed back to set up.

We played with two other bands, The Colorfield Theory and Stonethrown, and had an overall good night. Everybody at the place was amazing, including our incorrectly prejudged trio of instrument schleppers, and meeting them was the real highlight of our time in the city. We were even invited to stay the night by owner Ted and his lovely wife Jessica -- even offering to make us chocolate chip pancakes! -- but we were feeling the need to move on to the next stop and regretfully declined. That night was spent in New Jersey, which was cleaner than I'd expected but had laws against both left-hand turns and pumping your own gas (and is therefore dangerously unpredictable), followed the next day by our introduction to that singularly unique traffic hell that is the New York highway system.

Asheville, Crozet, Irvington & DC

Sat, 13 Nov 2010 01:15:00 GMT

After our show in Raleigh we headed to Asheville for a long Halloween weekend with my Mom & Dan.
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We then drove through the Tennessee mountains to get to Crozet, Virgina where I played a show at The Mudhouse.

After Crozet we stayed with relatives in Irvington, it's in the Chesapeake Bay area of Virginia. We were there almost a week to work on repairs for the camper's roof. It was a great time staying with family in a quaint town on the bay.

We then stayed the night with family in DC on our way to Pennsylvania and went into DC with Katie's cousin Conor on our way out of town. We went to The Natural History Museum and checked out Julia Child's kitchen per Kevin's suggestion at The American History Museum.

Still Chugging

Fri, 29 Oct 2010 03:15:00 GMT

Man, I so suck at this blog thing, ha. Lots has happened since the last update, so much that I need to sneak back and read where I left off so I know where to start...

After Macon we took a quick trip to the world-famous Georgia Aquarium to see some whale sharks before heading back to St. Pete to pick up our truck and camper. Apologies that we didn't call anyone to hang out, but time was limited and we had a LOT to do. We left Friday morning and set to s-l-o-w-l-y plod our way up I-75 at 55 miles per hour, trying in vain to give ourselves some semblance of a respectable gas mileage. We were told by my dad (the owner and gracious lender of our truck and camper) that 55 was the magic number in our diesel truck/drop-in camper combo to put us in the neighborhood of 15 (15?!) mpg, but after seemingly driving for an eternity and only reaching Ocala, I ratcheted up the speed to 70 until we stopped for the night in Macon.

We left bright and early but still managed to only reach Greenville, the site of our next show and where our good friends Suzanne and Jason (and now Jonas!) live, by too-late in the afternoon. Some iced tea and a quick walk around the neighborhood, and we had to book it to The Artistry Gallery to set up.

We'd been hoping to do an outside show, so we set up in front of the building and tried to pretend it wasn't getting cold very quickly. By South Carolina standards, the 50 degrees it sank to by the show's start probably wasn't such a hardship, but that's basically the dead of winter for Floridians. My fingers stopped working with about two songs left in the set, but I think I did a decent job faking it and no one called me out on it. We talked to some great folks after the show, including a group that drove 45 minutes from neighboring Pickens to see the show, a pair of whom turned out to be comic book artists and wanted to make me into a character in one of their strips! I'll pass it along if I ever see it.

After a day of needed downtime walking around downtown Greenville with the Bodson Family, we left Greenville for Columbia, our great friend Brian's old stomping grounds. Columbia turned out to be a very cool city -- a good size without being intimidating, and urban without sacrificing any character. It also had some of the friendliest people we've met so far, one of which was Ned Durrett, who was on the bill with me at the White Mule downtown. A 20-year old USC student, Ned is the product of two preachers (I did mention we're in South Carolina, right?), and is super tall with red hair. We had a BLAST talking with him before and after the show, and really enjoyed his music. The crowd wasn't large by any means -- a Monday night coupled with a steady rain for most of the day, plus an exorbitant ticket price ($8-$10? Seriously, I'm not there yet.), kept the place mostly empty.

We booked it out of Columbia early the next morning to try to stay ahead of the rain. We'd noticed a few leaks over the bed in the camper during the previous day's downpour and wanted to find a spot of sunshine to make repairs. The extraordinary city of Charleston was our destination, and we pulled into a cool little campground a few hours later (with lots of geese and ducks for Chloe to watch) and spent the night walking around the city with Chloe.

Charleston is interesting. It's a ridiculously fit city -- the opposite of what you expect in the south -- with tons of people running and biking everywhere you look. The homes in the old part of the city are devastatingly huge and beautiful, so much so that it's almost hard to breathe through the old-money fumes. It's beautiful to look at, but like the last time we were there, one day was enough. The following day on the way to Wilmington we stopped at Boone Hall Plantation in Mt. Pleasant. The majestic oak canopy drive makes you think it's right out of Forrest Gump but that was filmed on a plantation in Savannah. Walking through the slave homes brought sadness so it was nice to then hit the road and drive by empty cotton fields and Gullah basket makers stalls on the side of the road.y

Wilmington, North Carolina was up next, and the Bottega Art Bar and Gallery was the destination. First impressions of the city were very positive -- a cool, unpretentious downtown right on the river -- quickly gave way to the hell we found ourselves in trying to find a place to unload our equipment, then find parking. To complicate things, the band playing before us set up and began playing almost two hours early, making it impossible to set up ourselves, and we were then told they'd be playing late as well. This place was actually asking us to park 3-4 blocks away, park illegally at that ("really guys, it's okay....it'll most likely be fine"), then drag over 1,000 lbs. of gear through a rough area filled with homeless people packed into bus stops, and then spend an hour setting up to play 2 hours later than we'd been told -- well, we really did want to do it. Fully intended to do it, but after getting a slice of pizza and sitting down to try and figure out the logistics of just making it to show time, we decided it might not be worth it. Driving by the bar in a last-ditch effort to convince ourselves to do it, we saw three people sitting in an otherwise empty bar. That was the kicker -- we just kept driving. I feel guilty as hell (assuaged none by my unanswered apologetic email to the owner explaining ourselves), but really, what did she expect? We shouldn't have to work that hard just to get to the starting line, especially to a race that doesn't pay anything regardless of how you finish. Alas, we began the journey to where I write this now -- Raleigh.

I'm playing tonight at a lively downtown college bar with two other bands starting at 10:30. I know I'll be half asleep by then, so I bought a 6-pack of 5 Hour Energy at Walmart earlier today. I hope it holds, haha. Honestly, I feel like tonight will be a fun little show -- I don't need to set up my PA (one of the other bands is supplying one), and I don't even need to use my projection equipment thanks to the bar's twin 55" plasma TVs. And it's only a 45-minute set, which ought to be quick and fun -- it's a bar after all, so I'm only doing the more upbeat songs.

Playing at The Shakedown Street across the street from the college campus was great. It was a game night and they won so the strip in front of the venue was all cheering and honking in all red. Inside Shakedown Street, owner Uncle John, was the perfect host. He was a production and tour manager for The Rolling Stones in the early 80's. His place had a great chill vibe. He fed the three bands dinner and we all talked before and after the gig. It's been nice being on the bill with other bands from the area. You really start to feel a part of the musician community.

Tomorrow we'll stop at the free Natural History Museum to see the famous dinosaur with a fossilized heart and then it's off to Asheville to see Mom and Dan, who are vacationing there. A day or two to catch up on work, and then it'll be off to Charlottesville, Virginia. Talk soon!

Savannah's CO-LAB Show with Sincerely Iris & The Sad Bastards

Wed, 20 Oct 2010 04:20:00 GMT

I'm sitting in a Macon hotel room at 1:40 in the morning. I'm exhausted, but this might be my only chance to write for a couple of days.

Made it to Savannah last night and played at the Co Lab, a super cool venue owned and operated by SCAD alums and students. The crowd was great, and the Co Lab peeps were so sweet...I feel like I made a bunch of new friends. They also painted a super cool mural on the wall behind the stage with the names of the three bands playing that night, which was a first for us. We played with the Sad Bastards and Sincerely, Iris, both of whom were really talented and a lot of fun.

We also go to meet Yilu Zhang, one of the filmmakers who contributed to the It's All So Beautiful, It's All So Strange project. Yilu is from China and has been in the country for only about six months. The Co Lab crowd went crazy watching her film, deservedly so, and Yilu was kind enough to invite us back to her apartment after the show where she showed us some more of her art, then whipped up a quick and AMAZING traditional Chinese meal for the three of us. Sooo good!

I was scheduled to play at The Rookery in downtown Macon tonight, but after setting up we weren't able to get sound through their PA system. Too bad, but at least we got to spend some time downtown, and now we have a new favorite place to hang out when we're in town. We also got to walk around some Indian mounds outside of town at Ocmulgee National Monument.

Time for bed; Atlanta's tomorrow to play a house show at the Cabin in the Wilderness of East Atlanta -- aka AMAZING musician Tyler Lyle's house -- then a quick trip home to pick up the truck and camper before hauling ass up to South Carolina for show at The Artistry in Greenville. Sounds like a full week...

'Night.
: )

p.s. The gold tipped boot shot is for Demi!

It's All So Beautiful, It's All So Strange Premiered

Mon, 18 Oct 2010 10:15:00 GMT

Had the premiere on Thursday in St. Petersburg at The Queens Head. Lots of familiar faces were there, all of whom propped me up when some technical problems showed their faces. I was able to get through them for the most part though, and all turned out pretty well. It was a crazy experience getting back on stage for the first time in years. The performance aspect felt surprisingly natural even after so much time away, though I have to say it's a helluva different animal holding the stage all by yourself instead of blending into a band. I'm happy to have the film diverting some of that attention until I figure out the best way channel it by myself. Also got to meet two of the filmmakers, Wes Pratt and Chris Giuffré, who created the film for the title track of It's All So Beautiful, It's All So Strange.

Played Austin's Coffee and Film on Friday -- cool place, basically an Orlando version of The Globe with a more dedicated crowd. A few AMAZING friends and family made the trip from scattered places to see the low-key show...very cool. Arrived a little late and was told I could start whenever I wanted and, since Austin's is open 24-hours, stop whenever I want. I could literally play all night long if I desired. A few more of their signature blended Pumpkin ale and coffee creations (did we end up calling it a Boffee?) and I might have -- or gotten uncomfortably personal with their clean-for-a-coffee-dive toilets.

Falling asleep now...must rest... Driving to Savannah in the morning for a show at The Co Lab, which is run by SCAD alumni. No pressure playing for a room full of art students...haha.

Talk soon. :)

*Photos by katietakespictures.com