treemusic

(click here for tour photos)

I think that I am finding a good pace with a tour schedule. I used to avoid touring because I’d often see friends return from the road weathered and burned out. And no wonder, when you look at their tour itinerary, playing somewhere every single night without a night off and driving sometimes 10 hours in a day to get to their next show. That is not appealing to me.

For me the lure of the road is to not only plant musical seeds in new places, but also to be able to experience those places. That is not possible when you have

to leave exhausted after a show to get to the next venue in a far off location.  It seems that all one would see are different venue and audience variations, but nothing else. The advice I’ve often received from other troubadours are to make the tour as dense as possible in order to maximize while on the road and then get back home quickly so as to accrue as little cost as possible . I have come to disagree with that approach.

Rather than perform every night, I decided to book 4 shows a week for this tour and route them as close together as possible in order to give myself time to explore and experience the locations I go to as I plan to return to them in future tours as I tweak my route.

The biggest expense, by far, is transportation. I find that once I am already in a place, I get more of my money’s worth if I get to hang out there. I found a few paying passengers by placing rideshare ads in the town I passed through and all in all made and extra $140 to supplement my auto costs on this tour.

I keep a cooler full of food to minimize eating out and I mostly camp in national forests, state parks, or car camp if I have to. I did stay in a few hotels and hostels after some good paying shows. it was nice to have that kind of space at times.

During this tour, I used couchsurfing.org a few times. It is basically a couch exchange program, where one can list if they have a couch or bed available and it is searchable by city/town. There is a vouching system and detailed profile of all couchsurfers and hosts so that each can get a sense of who this stranger is. I used it on 3 separate occasions during this tour and met some great folks and saved lots of money.

I’m looking forward to my next paid vacation.

I met Jonathan Byrd a few years ago at the Kerrville Folk Festival. He truly is one of my all time favorite songwriters and performers and have mostly admired him from a distance, not just for his music, but for his humble approach to the music business. Not only has he independently released a half dozen albums that each could rival any time tested major label studio classic, but he has also managed to create a loyal independent following outside of the smoky and loud bars, by making the house concert his default format. He almost exclusively performs at house concerts and says that it provides a much better concert experience for his fans, and it also makes him more money.

He took me up on my offer recently to do a series of shows with me in Far West Texas. All of the shows were in bars/restaurants and he mentioned that it is not his ideal situation, especially since smoking is still allowed here in the bars and restaurants here. Nonetheless, the guarantees and accommodations offset the fact that his wife and 9 week old baby Rowan, mostly had to stay outside or in the hotel room during the performances. I felt relieved that for all of the shows, we faired very well with the turnout and pay.

We played 4 shows together, all in the rounds, trading off songs. By the end, we morphed into a duo, with Jonathan adding perfectly subtle guitar accompaniment to my songs, and I harmonizing on his tunes when it felt natural to do so. I prefer this format, since it gives me a break from myself, something inspiring to listen to, and also gives me a whole song to think up some stage banter. I think it is great for the audience to hear variety rather than one person’s voice for 3 hours.

I have begun to measure success partially by musical associations. I must be doing something right if I am playing on stage with and gaining the respect of some of my favorite musicians of all time. Jonathan Byrd threw out the idea of doing a tour together through the SW states.These short stints with other artists are good tests for road compatibility and I seem to travel well with and enjoy the company of not only with Mr Byrd, but also his wife and baby.

Tour summary:

• Miles driven: 5321
• Driving Time: 95 hours and 56 minutes
• Days on the road: 19
• Performances: 16
• Cost of Gas: $537.38

Some Tour Highlights

• Breaking in my new Bayard
• Big Bend National Park
• Joshua Tree National Park
• The other-worldly drive from Sedona to Flagstaff
• Exploring the off-grid community, White Hawk, in Denton, TX
• Meeting and playing music with Victoria Williams in Joshua Tree
• Leaving Los Angeles
• Playing “Doomsday Sunday Sermon” in a church
• Playing for 5 great people in Las Cruces
• House Concerts
• Driving Ruby, the reliable red road-dog.
• Listening to many podcasts of This American Life, Talk of the Nation, and others during the long drives
• Listening to friends’ albums
• Selling lots of records
• Hummus and carrots
• Sunsets and sunrises
• Jude’s bagels
• Reuniting with friends from elementary school via facebook
• Putting Johann to work on my adobe floor
• Wearing Israeli sandals in 20 degrees
• Audiences who listen
• Tehachapi

Read further for pictures and stories…

Continue reading SW Desert Tour 2009 Summary

Continue reading ישראל

This is about my 5th time volunteering at the Kerrville Folk Festival in the Texas Hill Country. My job is to shuttle main stage artists from the San Antonio airport to Quiet Valley Ranch and back. I get a unique perspective through the conversations with the mostly full time musicians, some who have had mixed success on major labels. The trip to the airport and back gives us a little over an hour to chat. I find most of the artists very talkative and willing to share perspective. The challenges of the music industry don’t seem to ease up on a higher tier of success. In some ways, the challenges are amplified, as more money is invested in projects, more debt is accrued, and more energy and time is needed to make records and plan tours when compared to the pursuits of some of the independent DIY troubadours that I know. 

Continue reading Kerrville Folk Festival

It was a pleasure to reunite with one of my favorite songwriters, Laura Gibson, from Portland, Oregon. We organized a last minute show during the Marfa Film Festival at the Marfa Book Company. Thanks to Tim Johnson (Marfa Book Company), Marfa Public Radio,  and the extremely long distance between Austin and Tucson. 

Continue reading Marfa Book Co with Laura Gibson

I had a very lucid and bizarre dream that about 25 extraordinary beings , mostly musicians, from far away places such as Austin, New York, and even as far as Denmark, showed up here in Far West Texas and enlisted me in their adventure. 

We all played music for two solid days, starting in Marfa at a converted funeral home to a fantastic audience, some who invented their own new form of dancing.

When driving from Marfa to Terlingua after the show, the dream went into sticky slow motion as the entire convoy of 8 cars and vans got pulled over. I was in front and supposedly was going 5 miles over the speed limit. I knew for certain at this point that is was a dream, because in real life, people don’t get pulled over for going just 5 miles over the speed limit on the highway. The driver in the very back also defied waking life reality by driving  faster than the cars in front of him, according to the police. After a very long investigation, the police were baffled that out of the entire suspicious convoy, nobody had any warrants or drugs, or was driving drunk. They seemed oddly disappointed, but dreams are strange like that.

After issuing warnings to all of us, we continued through the desert, finally arriving at my land, where a city of tents was quickly erected and a mayor and other officers were chosen.

We continued to play music through the night with the moonlight casting shadows through the broken clouds.

and continued the next day…..

After virtually no sleep, we started the next morning with a king’s feast, consisting of french toast and breakfast tacos, served buffet style in a shipping container. The French toast chef was out of milk, so he used whiskey instead. We miraculously made enough coffee for all those addicted with one little french press and a tiny remainder of coffee grounds.

The convoy then traversed down a winding trail to visit the window into the mouth of God, who 

happened to be exhaling at that moment, while I walked in a daze through a festival of natural builders and off gridders.  I was fortunate  to see two magicians turn ordinary mud and straw into a sitting bench. I then fell into a deep sleep on a fainting couch at a friend’s house up the hill and accidentally missed most of the day’s events. I was lucky to re-awaken into the same stange dream as before. 

After eating a dinner at an old converted theater while small children performed an improvised play on a giant stage, we then ventured up the hill to an abandoned adobe church in a ghost town and lit candles.

People from the mostly ruined town, started to fill up the place and right after midnight, A paradoxical gospel band exploded on the stage, waking up and energizing everyone in the room who was exhausted from the day. The harmonica player on the left started to tell us about how Easter worked, but he kept getting the details wrong. We started to suspect that he was Jewish.

Then, two women, one on a banjo, and one pulling various instruments out of a magic bag, sang epic fables in tight angelic harmony. They were joined by a young prodigy mandolin player, and another woman who was playing a very large violin. They all had wolf heads.

Another performer sang a song about the universe crying while a few people in the audience wept. The music continued through the wee morning hours, echoing sounds of dobros and voices in choir through the old ghost town streets of dirt and stone. When it was my turn, I sang a song about Sunday sermons, while the woman with the large violin kept me awake by playing along.

We then returned to tent city only to find that most of it was destroyed in a giant wind storm. The mayor declared it a disaster area and everyone quickly got to work to rebuild the city.

In the morning, the music continued, as the rest of the town arose and hurried to the ghost town for a gospel brunch with many of the same characters, including the wolf heads. Some of the morning audience were there the night before. Some had heard the rumors of the extraordinary event from the previous night and didn’t want to miss this last chance.

Then, suddenly, all of the traveling musicians waved goodbye and disappeared.

I know it was a dream, because as I now look out on my land, there is no evidence that a tent city ever existed, just empty desert and a beautiful sunset. It is very quiet, and there is a slight breeze.