fallover
where to start? well it is thanky time and while yes it is important to at least attempt to be in a constant state of gratitude for things around you, i actually think the theme of this holiday is the best, and like to honor it in my mind. and then of couse they just HAD to go and give even IT commercial ends and they came up with this 'best-early-bird-shopping-day-be-at-the-mall-at-5AM' crapola. can't there just be one holiday where simple things are remembered, shared and thought of between us and those we love without being bombarded with comercially viable banners from every angle? i guess there's always mardi gras and st. patrick's day.. for the most part.
my car has yet again built up a layer au resistance to order, which means two things for sure. the first is that i have been very much a nomad sans real residence of late and the second is that it already has become waay too damn cold to stay outside for the amount of time neccesary to really make it tidy. one of which i could sit back and feel pleasure about. (is it characteristically cajun that i have about as much desire to take a brisk jog out in the almost freezing world as eating a gunneysack full of mutton?) the upside is that the other night we witnessed the very first bits of snow of the season-- tiny little hints at it, but flakes of snow nonetheless. and for some reason for me, the simple white apparitions make every bit of cold-discomfort all of a sudden just disappear. maybe it's cause i spent a score of my life never really witnessing real snow..
well a bunch has transpired since i last posted, and i guess some of it just needs to go down on these music pages. i played in west virginia with the amazing devon sproule, and she sang every bit as hypnotically powerful as i've heard she does. i also played pretty secularly at both a synagogue and a church (auditorium rock-band style) and was extremely well-received at both. this means that either a)coffee and donuts will make anyone seem a spiritual experience or b)those king's x tapes i had growing up actually did rawk like they alleged. i soonafter went on down for a brief and filled-to-the-brim pass south, and got to have a bit of reminiscence about the feverish atlantascape, which is forever changing, but always producing the same good feelings in my gut. i hit the old faithful good places like ed's and the Limerick, and there were people out that sought me for both, which makes me feel warm. i also got a few brief catchups with some folks i haven't seen in too long over coffee and also sushi, both of which atlanta is richly soaked in, and remembered there are other folks i didn't get the chance to catch up with. every time i go there my time runs out before i can really feel i've given it enough time. it's ok because i think i had the opposite feeling when i was actually living there. c'est vie.
i also shot a video for 'sitting on sides' with liz who did a couple of the y-o-u videos and who has an awesome vision. we did all this video feedback with like multiple cams and screens and there is a buncha fottage of me with like trails and such coming off of me, and i can't wait to see what comes of it.
after atlanta i ventured up to charlotte where the first night i saw the wonderfilled aforementioned y-o-u, who just keep getting better and good graciously better. always nothing short of inspiring no matter what, and with their now lineup including the local hero clay cook on keys and guitar they are just magic. just magic. the next night i found myself in the midst of conversation with a group of writers at a cafe across from the muse, and we all tossed around writing banter and amusements before eating fake new orleans food at a place called boudreaux's before my show. they had to head off to the perplexingly monumental harry potter, and i crossed the street to play my gig with an old friend from lansing i hadn't seen since the ice ages, brian westrin. he sounded beautiful and glistening, and set the mood perfect in the room, and i get to step up and glide on a beautiful night. if you talk to any travelling musician, i promise that place will be on their list of fave places to play.
i headed on back up here in time for my second SAW awards gala which for me is a perfectly magical monument of remembrances of why i am even here at all (:
in the more recent realm i opened for jack's house band's cd release party at the old town theatre. the place was packed out with trendy awkward and exhuberant masses of teens and early collegiates, and i played my thing. i don't know that it landed quite right, but i got very favorable reviews from the ones who really heard. i did a lot of thinking that night about the jigsaw like quality of performance and audience. usual stuff. there was a really young but soaring dave matthews cover band called carbon copy that followed whom i quite enjoyed, and then jhb came out and did their business like i didn't even know they could. it was sweaty. it was homecoming. i am so grateful for all my relationships with the bands who fancy me.
i have spent some time reviewing the archives we have of my shows, and have decided after 4 studio albums that it is time to begin compiling moments for a live cd. i really want to do this right. it is just an incineration of an idea at this point, but i have heard what i need to be the starting point for it. so i am gonna be taping key shows to start heading for this end.
i am hungry and crazy. it is time for leftovers. it is time for convos.
american beauty footage...
the windy, spiraling leaves have been changing more than we know. and i can only feel invigorated by my notion that every year's latter two months have always bided me well in the changes department. adam and i went on our last sail of the year, and i sat there in turbulent contemplation of the tides of my existance and who i have been. part of that was who i will never be again.
the big hoopla i'd been looking to huge in my horizon was that i was to play the kennedy center. this show was entirely different than the ones i have been playing because it was essentially straight-up rock n'f'n roll, and there was bernie on bass and dave on drums kicking out the jamz. the whole engagement was pretty surreal to me, and looking back i more remember the night as an illumination than the concert i sang. i remember standing positioned in front of hundreds of people, and realizing that i had to remember to open my eyes to even experience that they were there. it's uncanny. from what i hear the whole shpeal is archived on the net at the kennedy center site. i called my brother at home like 15 minutes before it and he watched the whole thing, pulsing from little 1 &1/2 inch speakers in the comforts of his home in baton rouge.
but it felt so good to play with the drum n bass after not doing it for so long, that i am dying to gravitate back to that. the other two gentlemen craved the same, so we'll hafta book some more shows us 3.
after that has come the good times of having a little period to myself to bid on charlie parker cd's on ebay and plan for what's ahead exactly, and catching up on all the films i've been wanting to see, and feeling the fall winds in my hair as i glide thru the neighborhoods with my thicker trousers filled with the regimen of candy that i procured this hallow's eve. ZZ and i scoured the rich northern VA houses and got bags of loot- not one of them questioned my age because i was dressed as an alien commander, my face covered with the rubbery scowl of extraterrestrial comprehension.
and i tend to like the flicks that the sanctimonius prick reviewers feel that they have to put their stamp of disapproval on because they have some false illusion that to be doing their jobs right they have to cry wolf and turn their noses up like they smell rotton cheese. i happen to like that cameron crowe overuses music in every last scene as a cheap directorial go-to, and i happen to like flawed characters who don't get the answers they want and even get lost in the most contrived situations that could ever be. that's what i paid my 6 bux matinee ticket for 2 movies in a row for.
but mostly i have been doing a buncha planning and contacting people and arranging details because in a couple days time i will again be gigging every day, some days two shows. i'm goin down south just a teeninsy bit for the teaser to my long voyage South and home for christmas. evidently i will be filming a video for sitting on sides in the atl, and i really do want to catch up with as many folks as i can. hopefully this will be read and maybe even give some heads an up.
i really like chuck klosterman. well i like his writing. if you need a good read, killing yourself to live is hella rad. and like the aforementioned films nothing more or less than it pretends to be.
i'm playing a festival in west virginia and then a cool benefit show up in MD, and then i'll be playing prolly the last big D.C. show of this season, opening for ZOX at jammin j. on sunday nite. from what i hear, zox kicks some hiney.
the garbage engineers just came to my street, hinting at the fact that i might should go to bed soon. i guess some of these kind folks already think it's tomorrow. i will catch up more on here on a later, but sooner time. be well till then.