Got in from tour last night. The whole affair was awesome.
6/23,24
Started with leaving to meet up with the gang in Cincinnati, OH. The bus i was taking was 45 mins late and broke down for two hours in Pennsylvania, so i ended up missing my connecting bus to Columbus. A short while later, after resigning myself to smoking cigarettes, reading comics, and getting to Cinci during the sound check, I was put on a bus that would get me where i was going.
I ended up getting into town about 3 hours later than scheduled, the band was still unloading. Pascal, Michael, and Bernie came and met me, drove me over the the club (Northside Tavern). Had a jerk tofu sandwich and some beer, caught the last Dawn Landes show of the tour. They sounded great.
Ended up sitting out on Mr Jenkins and Bride of Frankenstein, handn't done my homework and didn't know the horn part. Awesome show. Listened to Patton Oswald and got a turkey, bacon, lettuce, onion sandwich on the way back to Jason's parents' house in Louisville. Josh told the girl at the counter, who was sweet and a little... awed they should charge more for the sandwiches ("you could do so much better!" "what do you mean?" "i mean, you get so much for so little money.." "i don't make the prices.....")
6/25
Slept in the basement. Super cold down there. Beautiful house, plenty of modern conveniences. Had some coffee and used the household exercise bike. Also figured out the horn parts for those two songs, wrote em up. Took a little doze later, and Andrew Vladeck showed up, which was fun. At at Lynn's Paradise Cafe, where the rest of the band had been eating all week (they stayed in that house 6 nights...) AMAZING food, awesome environment. Pascal and Josh and Annie had all gone back to Lexington to get a forgotten cord for the Wurlitzer.
Played the Rudyard Kipling that night. Met some of Jason's old friends, very sweet (one of them offered to knit Bernie and I cardigans, i'm totally taking her up on that). An older fella behind the bar, Ken, called out to me when we were done and i was getting a drink, "Hey saxman! How's about something on me?" They like sax down there, for sure (I'd been accosted the night before by someone in Cinci about wanting to play sax..) Awesome.
Had a nice conversation with Michael in the driveway of the house that night, while Lauren looked for (and found) her phone, which she thought she'd lost when she and Annie were doing cartwheels in the lawn.
6/26
woke up and began the trek to Memphis, 6 hrs or so. The club was awesome, Ernetine and Hazel's, home of the Soul Burger (yeah, I had one. It was exactly what i was hoping it would be.... someone else had one later and I heard him say, "Soul Burger's good tonight!!"). The bartender told us all the history (the upstairs was a brothel, Ray Charles used to shoot heroin in this room, etc) I was totally overwhelmed, I'd wanted to go to Memphis for so long. While looking for food, we saw the Mississippi River and the motel where MLK was assassinated.
The show was awesome. Andrew Vladeck is amazing, as a person and as a musician. The man only stops moving when he's sleeping.
Stayed at a posh Hilton that night that our travel booker got for us for cheap (thanks Julie!)
6/27
Woke up and went swimming with Pascal and Jason, while Annie read poolside (Gunther Grass, I think... yeah, she's as cool as you all think she is.) Departed for Birmingham, AL. Met up with Peter and Paul Wilm, both amazing people and artists, old old friends with Pascal and Lauren, and half of our opening act Every Alice on Earth. So good to see them again. We ate at the Bottle Tree Cafe, and went through our ususal routine of looking through the local papers for write ups. the last couple I'd seen, in Louisville and Memphis, were awesome and flattering. This one though, the guy who wrote it (who evidently is a douche nozzle about everything he reviews) just didn't get it. We were yankees with a disdain for the southern experience, which is hilarious because about 30% of us were from the south, and dug it. Pascal thought it was especially funny.
Played the Upside Down Plaza. Smelly, divey. Spiders, cheap beer. Some people weren't into it. You can guess how I felt.
Andrew went on first. I can't remember, but I think it was after this show that I started waking up with his songs in my head EVERY DAY.) During his set this awful, awful puke smell filled the whole club. Andrew was starting a slow song, made a face, and erupted into a bluegrass tune, Aint Gonna Drink No More, and said something like, "woo! I was drowsy before, now I'm not" and went back into the slow tune).
EAOE was INCREDIBLE. Worked a crowd like nobody's business. Hard to follow, but we did, and we wailed. We were amazingly loud for some reason, like bad loud. I walked around the club while I played during Song for a Little Girl I saw on the Beach. Stayed that night in the Sheraton.