Joyeux Samhain, filthy American pigs! It’s Halloween in Belgium. Halloween is just not the same here. The Belgians have only been celebrating this holiest of holies for the past 5 years and everyone here seems genuinely confused about the whole mess. I’ve tried to explain it, but it’s but it‘s untranslatable. The sad part is that they’ve been celebrating All Souls’ Day instead of Halloween here. Belgium has been getting screwed out of the best holiday of them all. I weep for Belgium.
I am in a much better mood with a bit of sleep and the hotel debacle behind me. My father kindly deposited some money in my bank account, so I’m in the black again. Yeah, I know, I’m now in debt to both Steve and my father…but who cares? I’m in Europe for a month, Goddammit! Fuck all y’all!
I’m in Ghent in the aforementioned Northern section of Belgium where they speak Flemish, a dialect of Dutch, which, from what I understand bears some similarities to German. I haven’t the slightest handle on any of these languages, but it doesn’t matter because most of the people I met seem to be better English speakers than most of the Americans I deal with on a daily basis. Micah rolled into LaCurie/RTT in the late afternoon while I was playing bucket brigade trying to deal with an errant toilet. I greeted him, but told him that it was probably better if he didn’t shake my hand. Once that fire was out, we caught up over homemade quiche which one of the promoters mother had prepared. England had gone well for him. He had opened for Simon Finn the previous night in London and it had been a killer show.
We played on an old bus which had been transformed into a quiet music venue, complete with a hardwood floors, a small heater, and stage lights. I played first. I played quite badly. I rushed the tempos on everything, played clumsily, sang out of tune and without confidence and had a few complete train wrecks. The audience was hard to read, but they did call me back for an encore. I played a slow version of Roky Erickson’s “I Have Always Been Here Before” using my famous shaky-knee technique throughout. It actually went fairly well because I kept it simple. Micah’s set was quite good, though he seemed a bit more reserved than usual. He ended with a cover of Jimmy “The Singing Brakeman” Rodgers’ “Away Out on the Mountain”…a truly psychedelic masterpiece from the depression era with complex yodeling patterns and descriptions of grizzly bear coats and beavers paddling on walking canes. I was thrilled. I love this tune. Jimmy Rodgers recorded a good deal of his music while suffering from tuberculosis, which eventually killed him. It didn’t seem to effect his voice, though. He could yodel like a motherfucker and all the while he was drowning in mucous and coughing up gobs of blood. That’s a tough bastard. And here I am whining about a smoker’s cough and a minor sinus infection. Always the pussy.
After the gig, I smoked some hashish and spoke with an attractive young sculptress from France named Tatiana. I found myself defending Mathew Barney again. I feel like I‘m constantly defending Matthew Barney. He should put me on the payroll.
Later, we were driven to the band quarters in an old beat up BMW limousine. Micah had to share the front seat with a unicycle, which I was trying to convince him to work into his act. Micah was unconvinced. After tearing through a strange network of alleys while being followed by a friend of the driver’s on bicycle, we arrived at the apartment.
It took us about half an hour to get the keys to work, which we realized was because we were at the wrong apartment. After righting this issue, we ascended the four flights of stairs with all of our bags. It was Hell. I had to lighten my load or I would never survive this tour. I left the huge duffle bag and most of it’s contents with the promoter (don’t worry Annapurna, I’m picking it up on the way back) and I crammed a bare requisite amount of clothing and personal effects into my pedal and accordion cases. In the morning there was coffee, but no coffee maker. Micah tried to make cowboy coffee in a saucepan on the stove, but it tasted like boiled shoes. We decided to wait until we got to the train station for the morning fix. We ate some eggs and descended the endless stairs.
We got to the station, drank copious amounts of coffee while fending off a drunken ex-hippy beggar, got the train and arrived in Ghent forty-five minutes later. We quickly found a small park to collect ourselves. We sat on a rock. I chain-smoked, Micah paced and we both sat in awe of the seemingly endless parade of unbelievably hot European women, none of whom we would ever have the opportunity to touch or even talk to. It’s probably better that way. Later, while walking along the river by giant weeping willows I pointed to a window where a woman was creating a comically profuse amount of steam while cooking dinner. It looked like she was cooking in the shower. We glanced upwards and saw a tall woman in a turtleneck sweater in the apartment above the steam-bath staring back at us. We waved and she waved back. “We’ll call her the one who got away” Micah said and went on to call it the perfect interaction. On the walk back we noted that her blinds were drawn. I guess it was unrequited.
We played at a small pub for a drunk, and very noisy, audience. There was no PA or amplification of any kind and I almost lost my voice trying to be audible above the obnoxious din. I played far better than I did last night, but I don’t think anyone heard me. I had great time playing, regardless. “Elzabet” was particularly vengeful. Micah’s set was fantastic, though he cut it short due to a jackhammer headache which he later had to drown in whiskey. He played a killer version of Springsteen’s “I’m on Fire”. The Boss generally leaves me cold, but I have soft spot for this one.
Outside the bar, we met a grizzled and surly American ex-patriate street performer who told us ludicrous horror stories about the former Yugoslavian border patrols. It got me genuinely worried, but Micah reassured me that it was bullshit. He described these gentlemen as being corrupt, but in a very endearing way. Apparently, they tend to want a little bribe money to get drunk with. It seems like a fairly innocuous abuse of power. I can get behind it. I can't imagine that I would act any differently given their circumstance. We decided to start a bribe fund.
Now we’re back at Phillip and Benedicte’s house. It’s a beautiful place and I have my own bed. My luck is on the rise, but the tour is only beginning.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
FRIGHTENED
Well, the first major catastrophe of the tour has happened and I haven’t even played a note yet.
I returned to the hotel yesterday after getting a sandwich and a pouch of tobacco and was settling in for a night of bad Belgian TV and softcore porn when I decided to assess my financial situation. I was going to need to find an ATM and take more money out if I had any plans to eat dinner. So I found an open wi-fi connection and checked my account balance. I nearly shit my pants when I read “Available funds: THIRTEEN DOLLARS.” I figured that the hotel must have run my card and put a hold on the money for the room, so I called the front desk. They informed me that this was not the case. They were going to charge my card when I checked out. I was sitting in a very expensive hotel room with all my clothes and equipment scattered all over the place. I had no way to pay for the room. I had no money to eat. Checkout was in 16 hours. My bank was only open for another 2 hours. I was doomed.
I decided to find a call center so I could call my bank on the cheap and straighten this mess out. There had to be a mistake. When I had checked my account at the airport to determine whether or not I could afford a hotel, my available balance was several hundred dollars. I knew the hotel would be a financial strain, but I figured I had money coming in and I would make it back. Now I was fucked. It also occurred to me that I wouldn’t even be able to go to a call center because I had spent my last few euro on a cup of coffee at the clip joint bar in the lobby. I began chain-smoking and pacing furiously. I had to think. Instinctively, I open the window. As I suspected, it was too high to climb out and make a break for it, and too low to throw myself out of. I was doubly screwed. I also couldn’t discreetly make it past the hotel clerk in the lobby with the amount of shit I had to carry. Escape was not an option. It was raining so I couldn’t play on the street. I wouldn’t have made shit doing that anyhow- I had sworn off busking years ago. I thought of crime, but I’m no good at crime. I wouldn’t rob anyone or suck anyone off when I was a drug addict and I wasn’t about to start now.
I had to think fast. My only salvation was the phone in the room with me. I was sure that the rates for overseas phone calls would be seriously unreasonable, like everything else in the hotel, but it was my only hope. I called the bank first. They informed me that I had pending charges coming in and that once the charges were authorized, there was nothing they could do. If I could get a few hundred dollars into my checking account, the problem would be solved, but the bank was closing in an hour and a half so I would have to work fast..
I called my father hoping he would have mercy on me and get me out of this. He doesn’t usually loan me money because I bled him dry during my junkie years, but this was extenuating circumstances. He wasn’t home. I tried his cell. No dice. He never even turns it on. I called everyone I could think of, but everyone I know is as fucked as I am: living paycheck to paycheck and in debt up to their assholes. Anyone who could have helped me was not picking up their phones. Everyone else was broke. I called work and asked for a salary advance. It was not possible with two hours notice. I was beyond fucked and now I had a 90 euro phone bill on top of the already astronomical price of the room. Now it was starting to get funny. I began to laugh and roll around on the floor.
I finished my last hand rolled cigarette and ripped open the fresh pouch of Drum that I had bought earlier. This is when I learned that the rolling papers are sold separately in Europe. I laughed even harder. I searched the room for sharp objects. Nothing. I remember that I had a few American Spirits left in a pack in my bag and I ripped off the filter and lit one. I wondered what Belgian prison would like. I always wanted to improve my French skills, With my luck they’d send me up north and I would have to learn to speak Flemish.
I reached my friend Steve, who had some money, but not enough. Besides, the bank was a 45 minute drive for him and it closed in half an hour. My last resort was to call Cuneiform, the Eyesores’ record label. I got Steve Feigenbaum on the line who was more than willing to help, but our only hope was a wire transfer and the bank’s business office was closing in an hour. I got all the wire info from the bank and called and gave it to Steve and told him to call back when he found out if it was possible. Then I fell into a deep jet-lag sleep while attempting to drown my sorrows in a torrent of internet pornography. I dreamed that I got into a fist fight with my ex-girlfriend.
An hour later I awoke in a panic. It was 11:30 in Belgium and 6:30 in the US. I hadn’t heard back from Steve Feigenbaum. I figured he would have left the office by now, but I tried anyhow. He answered. He hadn’t had any luck, but he had an idea. He would pay the hotel bill with his credit card. We tried it. It worked. I was in the clear. Steve had bailed me out. He had already been indoctrinated in to my personal canon of saints, but he has now been promoted to archangel. I had no money for food, coffee, cigarettes or the train, but at least I would not be screaming in Flemish while my cellmate violated me with a broom handle. I fell back to sleep.
In the morning I found one euro in change in my pocket and wandered back to the tabac to buy rolling papers. They cost exactly one euro. My luck was turning around. I found the number of the people promoting the show ( it should have occurred to me to call them in the first place, but jet-lag makes me stupid). The clerk who was beginning to get really irritated with me let me call from the hotel desk. I was picked up in an hour and loaned 20 euro. I ate chicken and drank multiple cups of coffee. It was glorious. I hadn’t been deprived of my morning coffee in years. I can’t be deprived of my morning coffee. Call me a bourgeois pig, but I need my creature comforts or I become apoplectic with rage. Ask anyone who’s ever toured with me.
Now I am at the venue. It’s a squat-like network of buildings called LeCurie/RTT It‘s cold and I‘m being dive-bombed by a deluge of mosquitoes. I thought the cold was supposed to kill the mosquitoes, but apparently, these are mutants. I have been trying to keep them at bay with cigarette smoke, but they seem to be in love with my face. I put a hat on so they would stop buzzing around my ears. It’s been raining for two days. Micah will be here soon. We are playing in an old bus on the grounds of the squat. It’s a interesting place. There is a circus tent in the back and lots of people tearing around in the dirt on mopeds. Dogs with cones around their heads are running all over the place. I have been given an amazing sounding kick drum for this show. It’s got a heavy low end and it sounds like war. I will be rusty and will not play very well but I have plenty of to exorcise, so I‘m sure it will be good.
The lesson for the day is to always have a backup plan. One day I will be an adult and this won’t be an issue. Today I need to thank Dagon, Odin and Satan for providing me with such reliable friends. For I will always be a fuckup and I will always need to be bailed out. Remind me to marry into money. It’s my only hope.
I returned to the hotel yesterday after getting a sandwich and a pouch of tobacco and was settling in for a night of bad Belgian TV and softcore porn when I decided to assess my financial situation. I was going to need to find an ATM and take more money out if I had any plans to eat dinner. So I found an open wi-fi connection and checked my account balance. I nearly shit my pants when I read “Available funds: THIRTEEN DOLLARS.” I figured that the hotel must have run my card and put a hold on the money for the room, so I called the front desk. They informed me that this was not the case. They were going to charge my card when I checked out. I was sitting in a very expensive hotel room with all my clothes and equipment scattered all over the place. I had no way to pay for the room. I had no money to eat. Checkout was in 16 hours. My bank was only open for another 2 hours. I was doomed.
I decided to find a call center so I could call my bank on the cheap and straighten this mess out. There had to be a mistake. When I had checked my account at the airport to determine whether or not I could afford a hotel, my available balance was several hundred dollars. I knew the hotel would be a financial strain, but I figured I had money coming in and I would make it back. Now I was fucked. It also occurred to me that I wouldn’t even be able to go to a call center because I had spent my last few euro on a cup of coffee at the clip joint bar in the lobby. I began chain-smoking and pacing furiously. I had to think. Instinctively, I open the window. As I suspected, it was too high to climb out and make a break for it, and too low to throw myself out of. I was doubly screwed. I also couldn’t discreetly make it past the hotel clerk in the lobby with the amount of shit I had to carry. Escape was not an option. It was raining so I couldn’t play on the street. I wouldn’t have made shit doing that anyhow- I had sworn off busking years ago. I thought of crime, but I’m no good at crime. I wouldn’t rob anyone or suck anyone off when I was a drug addict and I wasn’t about to start now.
I had to think fast. My only salvation was the phone in the room with me. I was sure that the rates for overseas phone calls would be seriously unreasonable, like everything else in the hotel, but it was my only hope. I called the bank first. They informed me that I had pending charges coming in and that once the charges were authorized, there was nothing they could do. If I could get a few hundred dollars into my checking account, the problem would be solved, but the bank was closing in an hour and a half so I would have to work fast..
I called my father hoping he would have mercy on me and get me out of this. He doesn’t usually loan me money because I bled him dry during my junkie years, but this was extenuating circumstances. He wasn’t home. I tried his cell. No dice. He never even turns it on. I called everyone I could think of, but everyone I know is as fucked as I am: living paycheck to paycheck and in debt up to their assholes. Anyone who could have helped me was not picking up their phones. Everyone else was broke. I called work and asked for a salary advance. It was not possible with two hours notice. I was beyond fucked and now I had a 90 euro phone bill on top of the already astronomical price of the room. Now it was starting to get funny. I began to laugh and roll around on the floor.
I finished my last hand rolled cigarette and ripped open the fresh pouch of Drum that I had bought earlier. This is when I learned that the rolling papers are sold separately in Europe. I laughed even harder. I searched the room for sharp objects. Nothing. I remember that I had a few American Spirits left in a pack in my bag and I ripped off the filter and lit one. I wondered what Belgian prison would like. I always wanted to improve my French skills, With my luck they’d send me up north and I would have to learn to speak Flemish.
I reached my friend Steve, who had some money, but not enough. Besides, the bank was a 45 minute drive for him and it closed in half an hour. My last resort was to call Cuneiform, the Eyesores’ record label. I got Steve Feigenbaum on the line who was more than willing to help, but our only hope was a wire transfer and the bank’s business office was closing in an hour. I got all the wire info from the bank and called and gave it to Steve and told him to call back when he found out if it was possible. Then I fell into a deep jet-lag sleep while attempting to drown my sorrows in a torrent of internet pornography. I dreamed that I got into a fist fight with my ex-girlfriend.
An hour later I awoke in a panic. It was 11:30 in Belgium and 6:30 in the US. I hadn’t heard back from Steve Feigenbaum. I figured he would have left the office by now, but I tried anyhow. He answered. He hadn’t had any luck, but he had an idea. He would pay the hotel bill with his credit card. We tried it. It worked. I was in the clear. Steve had bailed me out. He had already been indoctrinated in to my personal canon of saints, but he has now been promoted to archangel. I had no money for food, coffee, cigarettes or the train, but at least I would not be screaming in Flemish while my cellmate violated me with a broom handle. I fell back to sleep.
In the morning I found one euro in change in my pocket and wandered back to the tabac to buy rolling papers. They cost exactly one euro. My luck was turning around. I found the number of the people promoting the show ( it should have occurred to me to call them in the first place, but jet-lag makes me stupid). The clerk who was beginning to get really irritated with me let me call from the hotel desk. I was picked up in an hour and loaned 20 euro. I ate chicken and drank multiple cups of coffee. It was glorious. I hadn’t been deprived of my morning coffee in years. I can’t be deprived of my morning coffee. Call me a bourgeois pig, but I need my creature comforts or I become apoplectic with rage. Ask anyone who’s ever toured with me.
Now I am at the venue. It’s a squat-like network of buildings called LeCurie/RTT It‘s cold and I‘m being dive-bombed by a deluge of mosquitoes. I thought the cold was supposed to kill the mosquitoes, but apparently, these are mutants. I have been trying to keep them at bay with cigarette smoke, but they seem to be in love with my face. I put a hat on so they would stop buzzing around my ears. It’s been raining for two days. Micah will be here soon. We are playing in an old bus on the grounds of the squat. It’s a interesting place. There is a circus tent in the back and lots of people tearing around in the dirt on mopeds. Dogs with cones around their heads are running all over the place. I have been given an amazing sounding kick drum for this show. It’s got a heavy low end and it sounds like war. I will be rusty and will not play very well but I have plenty of to exorcise, so I‘m sure it will be good.
The lesson for the day is to always have a backup plan. One day I will be an adult and this won’t be an issue. Today I need to thank Dagon, Odin and Satan for providing me with such reliable friends. For I will always be a fuckup and I will always need to be bailed out. Remind me to marry into money. It’s my only hope.
Monday, October 29, 2007
I AM THE UGLY AMERICAN
Jet lag is not conducive to thriftiness.
I'm sitting in a Mercure hotel room in Brussels. I have overpacked. The flimsy baggage cart that I purchased at Target is buckling under the weight of my bags. I need to begin jettisoning immediately. The first thing that will have to go is the accordion and all of my pedals and cables. This will be followed immediately by the jawharps. As a result, I will need to change mediums for this tour. I'm going to choreograph a solo dance piece to commemorate the victims of Hurricane Katrina. I will be accompanied solely by hand-held tape recorder. Although I have never danced before, I imagine that it will come fairly naturally and I think I should have a solid act by the time I get to Ghent. The press will herald me as a genius and women will throw themselves at my lithe and graceful dancer's body which should well developed within a few days due to the rigorous training that I will begin after I finish smoking the rest of this pack of cigarettes. Due to the violent, emotional nature of the choreography, the hotel room will most likely reduced to rubble before the 17 euro continental breakfast is served, but I'm certain that I will not be held financially responsible for the damages because I believe the owners of the Mercure hotel chain to be great supporters of the artistic process. They will waive the bill for the damages and send a string of expensive escort girls up to my room who will demand to be showered in my urine. Everything will be paid for and I will never have to work again.
I had a 6 hour layover in Philly last night, so I left the airport and had dinner with Gillian and David Chadwick of Ex Reverie/Golden Ball fame. I love these people. We had a lot of laughs and they didn't seem to mind my disjointed, sleep deprived rants, despite the fact that I rarely allowed them to get a word in edgewise.
Afterwards I went back to being treated like a criminal and being moved around like cattle. I did everything that I possibly could have done wrong at the passport control desk. I was nervous, I stuttered, I had no information about the people we were staying with and I kept changing my answers. Miraculously, they allowed me to enter the EU sans cavity search, but they needed to see a credit card to prove that I had a job and a place to live.
Tomorrow I'll have to find Micah and the club and deal with my packing troubles, but tonight is all about overpriced food, porn and hopefully sleep. I really need to sleep.
I'm sitting in a Mercure hotel room in Brussels. I have overpacked. The flimsy baggage cart that I purchased at Target is buckling under the weight of my bags. I need to begin jettisoning immediately. The first thing that will have to go is the accordion and all of my pedals and cables. This will be followed immediately by the jawharps. As a result, I will need to change mediums for this tour. I'm going to choreograph a solo dance piece to commemorate the victims of Hurricane Katrina. I will be accompanied solely by hand-held tape recorder. Although I have never danced before, I imagine that it will come fairly naturally and I think I should have a solid act by the time I get to Ghent. The press will herald me as a genius and women will throw themselves at my lithe and graceful dancer's body which should well developed within a few days due to the rigorous training that I will begin after I finish smoking the rest of this pack of cigarettes. Due to the violent, emotional nature of the choreography, the hotel room will most likely reduced to rubble before the 17 euro continental breakfast is served, but I'm certain that I will not be held financially responsible for the damages because I believe the owners of the Mercure hotel chain to be great supporters of the artistic process. They will waive the bill for the damages and send a string of expensive escort girls up to my room who will demand to be showered in my urine. Everything will be paid for and I will never have to work again.
I had a 6 hour layover in Philly last night, so I left the airport and had dinner with Gillian and David Chadwick of Ex Reverie/Golden Ball fame. I love these people. We had a lot of laughs and they didn't seem to mind my disjointed, sleep deprived rants, despite the fact that I rarely allowed them to get a word in edgewise.
Afterwards I went back to being treated like a criminal and being moved around like cattle. I did everything that I possibly could have done wrong at the passport control desk. I was nervous, I stuttered, I had no information about the people we were staying with and I kept changing my answers. Miraculously, they allowed me to enter the EU sans cavity search, but they needed to see a credit card to prove that I had a job and a place to live.
Tomorrow I'll have to find Micah and the club and deal with my packing troubles, but tonight is all about overpriced food, porn and hopefully sleep. I really need to sleep.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
I AM DAMO SUZUKI
Today I embark on a month-long tour of Europe with one of my favorite musicians, Micah Blue Smaldone of Portland Maine.
We start in Brussels and end in Athens. I plan on surviving this one. My personal assistant, Annapurna, worked some protective magic prior to my departure so I feel fairly confident that I will not only survive, but I will be incredibly wealthy and even more handsome by the end of this tour.
After a 6 hour layover in Philly, I will fly to Brussels at 9pm and will arrive jet-lagged and half insane at 10am. I'm still not sure where I'm staying tonight. The first gig isn't until tuesday. I'm back to teenage-runaway mode. I will probably sleep in an a pigeon shit-drenched gutter where I will be abducted and have my organs harvested and sold to feed someone's opium habit... That's what they do to yank vagrants, right?I suppose I'll figure it out.
For the time being, I'm crammed in a little metal coffin that serves as phone booth in the airport in Manchester, New Hampshire. New Hampshire is the Florida of New England. I don't see much of it, though. All I see is airport.
My week-long anxiety attack has ended. The chips have fallen and I'm no longer concerned. I haven't slept. I had set aside all of yesterday to pack, rehearse and generally get my shit together and instead spent the entire day fucking around. I ended up having to stay up all night attempting to pack after doing about 50 bong hits in the basement of AS220 after the Made in Mexico set (which fucking killed). It didn't go very well at first, but I took some sudafed and drank 5 cups of coffee and it all came together. My apartment looked like a hyena cage, but I managed to get it spruced up enough that I won't want to put a bullet in my head when I come home.
But first I have to backtrack:
I played in the Providence version of The Damo Suzuki Network (from Can) on Friday. I've been a huge Can fan for about 20 years, so it was a pretty big thrill. Damo travels from city to city picking up a different band of improvising musicians in each town. In Providence, he had half of the Eyesores and half of Xerxes: Josh Kretzman and Matt McLaren on drum kits , Dave 'Manbeard' Lifrieri on guitar and bass, Frank Difficult on electronics, Jason McGill on saxophone and brake drums and yours truly on accordion and bass. We had spent some time preparing and we ended up sounding pretty damn good, if I don't say so myself.
I half expected Damo to have some instructions for us, so when I got a phone call from Frank Difficult telling me that we were meeting with Mr. Suzuki in the basement of AS220 (I've been spending altogether too much time in the AS220 basement) I went in ready to be given the holy orders. When I reached the top of the stairs I was hit by a wall of weed. I wasn't surprised. I found my fellow "sound carriers" sitting in a circle with Damo looking nervous. I was late for the meeting so I immediately sat next to Damo and asked him what the game plan was. He blew out a plume of smoke, paused thoughtfully, and said "No concept." The man is not terribly precious about what he does. That was fine with me. Concept is constipation. Intuition is where it's at. Just fucking play.
And we did.
When he started singing, I realized why he didn't need to give us any direction. The man drives the bus like a hell-bound drum corps using his voice alone and we did our best to keep up. He followed every twist and turn in the music effortlessly growling and intoning, changing the character of his voice for each little mood we set up and leading on a few of his own strange ecstatic tangents. The audience slowly went into a Shaker-like trance state and began to vibrate in a vaguely autistic fashion. I played accordion for half of the show and switched to electric bass for the second half. We had the bass running through 2 amps so it was thunderous. I felt powerful and very manly (I really need to start a metal band when I get home and really get this midlife crisis underway). The set ended after an intense 45 minutes with Damo finally breaking his trance, drenched in sweat. He wandered through the audience shaking everyone's hand, while we tried to recover from what just happened. It was one of the most terrifying experience I've ever had on stage and one of the best. I'm still processing it.
I'm severely under-rehearsed for this tour. I'm not sure how I'm going to do this. I'm trying to coordinate accordion, jawharps, a loop pedal a kick drum and my miserable failing voice. I'm just not sure if it's gonna go. My stupid scattered brain has been running tight little rat circles around itself for weeks and I just simply didn't get it together. I started smoking again. I'm already up to a pack a day and my voice sounds like a slightly huskier Katherine Hepburn. I'm going to have to slow down a bit or I'll be sick and useless before I even make France. Micah's going to back me on 12 string for a few numbers, so at least those will be good. I'll figure it out. Something will happen. It always does.
I'm just waiting now. Feeling exhausted, but fairly calm for the first time in weeks. I'm leaving my jobs, my parking tickets, my vast and many girl problems and all the other day to day bullshit behind. Things are simple on tour. There is a mission and very little time for rumination. But, that's still 48 hours away. Now I'm being treated like a criminal and being moved like cattle through a string of airports. Just another asshole on the bus.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
