(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.

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.

• 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…

Ruby (my trusty Volvo) carted Johann and I around the SW Desert communities for almost 3 solid weeks of traveling and music performance. Other than having to replace a tire, some belts, oil, and a fuse, the ride was trouble free.

Ruby the Red Roadster

We were the anti-rock stars, drinking coffee instead of beer, waking up early each morning (7 am on average) to start our next drive, doing a bit of hiking and camping (but not enough), eating lots of apples and carrots, keeping receipts and doing paperwork. Our tour would have been a rather lame rockumentary. Nonetheless, it was a great success and lots of fun. By merging two individual tours and being frugal on the road, were able to do the near impossible… make a profit. That was very satisfying, being that we don’t have managers, booking agents, bus drivers, sound engineers, or merch people.

another town...another coffee shop

We also got to see stunning parts of the country.

view from our room at the chisos lodge

Routing:

We only performed in one large city (Los Angeles) and that was the lowlight of the tour. Other than that, with the exception of Albuquerque, we stuck to small to medium size towns and that had a lot to do with the success of the tour. We purposefully avoided the musically saturated and overhyped music scenes. Some of the wonderful towns we performed in were Terlingua, Marfa, Joshua Tree, Sedona, Tehachapi, Prescott, Socorro, Taos, and Denton.

Paid Vacation

After each gig, we paid ourselves and then put the rest into a temporary “band account” in a microphone bag. We withdrew from that account for shared expenses such as gasoline and groceries.  We somehow managed to get through the entire tour without having to pay for a hotel. A handful of the venues compensated us with a hotel room or apartment of some sort. For the others, we stayed with friends, pitched a tent in a national park, or slept in a small shed. In Prescott, we used couchsurfing.org and had three hosts show up at our gig and fight over us. We only had to sleep in one rest stop.

We weren’t starving artists.

We had many of our meals compensated at the venues where we played. We splurged on a few satisfying sit down meals and a few risky greasy ones, but we also had a communal ‘pantry’ in the vehicle with us, which saved us from convenience store temptations.  But I must say that the best meal on the tour was Food not Bombs in Prescott Arizona.

J Wagner

It was a pleasure touring with Johann Wagner. His songs are some of my favorite of all time, even after hearing them night after night. By the end of the tour, we fooled some people into thinking we were a duo, as we started to come up with complimentary guitar parts and harmonies on each other’s songs. J Wagner is one of those artists who is on the fringes of recognition, but plays it down.  It takes many hours of conversation to find out about his brushes with fame. For example, he once collaborated with Norah Jones, not musically, but for a prank when they put a friend of theirs in their dorm’s clothes dryer in Denton TX and turned it on. Johann also used to be in a band with “Elliott” from E.T. Johann’s songs have been covered by Victoria Williams, Calexico, Gregory Isakov, and others.  I hope that this is not our last adventure together.

Johann playing a great new song for his friend Victoria Williams in the Joshua Tree Health Food Store

Can’t wait to do this again!

Here are some pictures (more coming):

Dueling Bayards and Coffee Mugs

our hotel in big bend

Johann helping prep the dome for an adobe floor

Sedona

folding lessons at the joshua tree laundromat

off-grid ferrocement house in white hawk outside of denton

white hawk off gridders

I just returned from an epic trip to Israel. The trip was a gift from my mom who wanted to introduce me to family that we had in Israel on her side of the family. She had not seen them in 40 years and I had never met them. I had been fascinated with Israel for many years and considered it a priority travel location. But it is expensive to get there and back and that has been the main deterrent. We walked down the old cobblestone streets of Jerusalem, visited ancient ruins around the country, floated in the Dead Sea, and got to spend time with relatives. I also did some traveling on my own as well, including a short stay at Kibbutz Lotan, and a snorkeling trip in the Red Sea.

I decided to book a small Israeli tour to coincide with my travels in Israel. I didn’t know exactly where to start with booking shows in Israel. The Israeli music scene is very unfamiliar. I started with the word folk. I found a contact name in a travel guide. “If you are looking for folk music in Israel, contact Carol Fuchs”. And so I did. She sent out a request to her email list and soon, I had some gig offers from a few folk clubs who meet once or twice a month. The first was in Tel Aviv. It was a non-paying gig, something I don’t agree to much anymore, other than in unfamiliar territories where anything is better than nothing. It was in a community center in a flourescently lit basement room with low ceilings and tile floors, which also meant bad acoustics. It was also to a much older demographic than I am used to, but it was a true listening crowd. Not a word spoken during the performance, other than voices humming along here and there. I sold a bunch of CDs, which made up for the non-payment. The older demographic still buys CDs and they are also attuned to lyric based music from the 50s, 60s, and 70s, which my music is more assimilated to. So it got me thinking that I should play more of these types of shows. And I did.

The next night, I performed at the Karmiel Folk Klub in Karmiel, Israel. A slightly younger crowd, but still an older demographic than I am used to. The setting was more conducive for a music performance. There was an upbeat female Irish duo who performed after me. It was nice and I told them so. The one lady replied politely, “Good luck with your music”. I felt like Marty Mcfly from Back to the Future when she said that. The themes in my music can be trying for someone looking for very upbeat ditties or love songs. When playing to a diverse audience who is unfamiliar with your music, it is important to concentrate on  those who connect with what you are doing rather than trying to please everyone. Those are the people who come back next time and bring others with similar taste. 

The other two shows, I set up through couchsurfing.org. I did a search for musicians on that site in the cities I was traveling though. I find that music opportunities sometimes pan out better through non-music sites than the the music based ones. The music based sites, such as myspace are oversaturated with other musicians looking for gigs. 

All in all, the shows went well. I was worried about a language barrier, but the audience was very receptive and responsive to the lyrics especially. English is required in school in Israel, so almost everyone speaks English. Leonard Cohen is the big thing in Israel at the moment, and that is a promising sign.

I would like to return to Israel soon with more of a focus on playing music around the country.

I was not planning to stay for all 18 days of the festival, but I did. I ended up getting voted into the annual staff concert along with two other Trevors. Together, we were The 3 Trevors! Novelty and corny-ness aside, it ended up being a very nice blend, with Trevor Mills on Bass, Trevor Smith (Green Mountain Grass) on Banjo, and myself on guitar. Mills and Smith are masters of their instruments, and are in high demand on and off the festival grounds. One of the reasons is because they are very tasteful, lending support and adding texture to the song rather than showcasing their super powers.

    After running though a handful of songs, we decided to perform a couple of my tunes. I found out later that there was a 4th Trevor at the festival who is a drummer! Maybe next year we can regroup as a full band.  I have given a lot of performances before, but was extra nervous for this one. It is not often that I get to play for a thousand people in an amphitheater with an audience listening intensely to every word and note played. I was a bit worried that our hushed style of music wouldn’t fit the usually highly energized staff concert, but the audience responded very kindly. The staff concert has always been one of my favorite events at the folk festival. It was an honor and a surprise to be voted to play. 

One of the perks of volunteering is that we get free admission to all of the shows ($30 each otherwise), though I find that I often nap through the mainstage performances so that I can stay awake for the after hours campfire circles and street performances, which all Kerrville veterans know is where the heart and soul of the festival lies. After the mainstage closes at midnight, music in the campgrounds and at the infamous “crossroads” continues until sunrise.

Volunteers also get breakfast and dinner daily (with good veggie options), free acupuncture and massage, drinks, backstage access,and  a unique experience and perspective only available to volunteers. 

But perhaps the biggest highlight of all is reconnecting with good friends and some of my favorite musicians of all time, some of who I only get to see once a year at the Kerrville Folk Festival. 

More Pictures here.

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. 

Laura is currently on tour with her bandmates, Sean and Micah of Musee Mecanique , opening for Damien Jurado. She happened to have a hole in her tour schedule, I happened to notice, and she happened to say yes when I asked her to stop in Marfa to play with her bandmates. It was great to share a bill with Laura as the last show we did together was a few years ago. Her performance was incredible and brought the audience to their feet. It was as if she was singing words from the pages of the perfect collection of  books behind her. She finished with one last song, called “Small Town Parade” which I hijacked with drums and harmony vocals. It was a fitting song to end on during this small town festival. 

After the show, we went to find the Marfa Lights. We didn’t find any Marfa Lights, but we did get to meet “Shorty”.

NPR says about her most recent album, ““One of the year’s most breathtaking albums. Beasts of Seasons is nothing short of a masterpiece, both for its flawless and often haunting execution and for its inspired statements on the human experience.” – NPR ”

It was an honor to share a show with her and we all hope that Laura and Company come back to Far West Texas for a longer stay. 

Thanks to David (former Marfa Mayor) and Karen Lanman for hosting us in their unique and inspiring home. 

And thanks to the crowd of Marfa Film Fest participants who filled up the Marfa Book Company to listen to us.

I am sitting in The Marfa Book Company now, listening to Laura’s new record, which has been on repeat in the store all day.

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.