we are back from our west coast tour and trying to settle back into life at home... it is not easy, when you have met such lovely people and had so many magical experiences a-travelling in your blue deluxe volvo.

i find myself missing many new friends... we started in raymond, washington with the Probascos (awesome! many thanks for the hand decorated recording of the live show)   and headed south, meeting up with Mark in Freshwater, playing again for Mike at KMUD in Eureka... for those of you who do not know, this was the debut tour of COME GATHER ROUND US and we were fortunate enough to have Mike Danner, songwriter and accordian-player extrordinaire, along for the first weeks of the adventure. Fie, but I almost forgot the bike house in Ashland,OR -- we arrived somewhat unexpectedly at your front door, and were welcomed with fruit cobbler and listening ears. Thanks also to Jerit at kskq who had us in the studio in Ashland to play.

mike's friend artemis set us up in san francisco at Venusian Gardens west, where we played to warm group under neon jellyfish created by Eric Ehlenberger (http://www.ehlenberger.com/). thanks, artemis, for making monday night a pleasure : ) 

re-visited kelly and her grandmother in los altos, and kelly, i think i accidentally picked up your lipstick, which was exactly like mine, it's called black honey or something like that? sorry! i can send it back, hardly used.

thanks to our friend soda, we made new friends with willy tea  and bethany and the gang in knights ferry (and surrounding areas) -- willy has made his barn into an awesome, intimate venue, and rarely have i met a community more in love with music. check out willy tea's music, he is a helluva songwriter.

oh wait, he doesn't have his solo stuff up, so write him an message and ask him why not. or, check out his band the good luck thrift store outfit.

we visited alex and the gang at cal poly tech in san luis obispo, and though they dropped the ball a little bit planning the show, they promised it would be different next time : ) i hope so. at least they fed us vegetables. 

let's see, from there we went to los angeles... where jeff put on a KILLER show for us. thank you! living room shows big cities can be tough, but jeff, being the nice and down to earth person that he is, made sure there were plenty of folks like him to listen to our music. that's where we met missy, who set up this amazing fan page for CGRU:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2416703432&ref=ts

then we went did a 22 hour drive to austin for sxsw. and then we drove 22 hours back. there was stuff in between the two drives but that is for another, possibly less genial, blog : ) 

ok now i am getting super hungry, so i have to quite writing this blog and go eat. but i still have to tell you about san diego, phoenix, albuquerque, colorado springs, denver, mountain home and boise idaho, and la grande oregon... will be back asap

xx

c