4/21/2011 Long Strange Trip, Day 2

Well my dear loyal fans, it seems that I have forsaken you for a long stint. As the band began to tour more and more, I found the job of documentation to become tedious and well, I think I just got lazy about having to use my brain on the bus. Tour brain sets in and all of a sudden joking about balls and coming up with dirty lyrics for Manhandel songs become top priority. Well I am here to tell you that I am back and ready to disclose all, the good, the bad, the epic. We are currently barreling down the highway at an alarming speed, trajectory: San Francisco! We set off on our noble steed at 0h ten hundred, waving good bye to the egg, a tear in our eye as we would not be returning for almost a double fortnight. We have Solovox on board, he is playing with us for Ashland, San Francisco, and San Diego, and then he takes off for some of his own gigs in LA. Solovox on the bus is a horsicorn of a different color, I tell ya.

We got to Ashland and it was raining. I know Southern Oregon is in a rain shadow so they generally have much nicer weather than up north in Portlandia. I was super excited to hop off the bus and frolic in the warm spring weather, sniffing the flowers and being showered with petals from the blooming pink trees. Sun! Warm breeze! Fresh squeezed carrot beet ginger jui-.... wah wah… It was icy cold and totally wet. Sounds check was late and we had many hours to spare before the gig. I was so unmotivated to do anything outside, so I just went to the Ashland co-op where (of course) I ran into people I know, and laid around on the bus. Lots of spare time on tour, that's for sure.
Our venue for the evening was Culture Works, a nice little place with a small stage, a vegetarian wheat free gluten free sugar free food free etc.. menu, and fantastic wood floors. By the time Carl warmed them up, the crowd was definitely energized and we had a great first show to kick off our tour. Only 16 more to go! Overall the band sounded great and the crowd definitely appreciated our new material. All of that back breaking work over the winter has really paid off! If I had to pick the best moment on stage, I would say that it was definitely during Fuzzy Lentil, when our snare drummer Mr. Moore was doing his head banging devil tongue freaky thing, and he bashed himself in the face with a drumstick and gave himself a bloody fat lip. ROCK!!

We had a few friends from Portland in the crowd, Melissa Orion graced us with her streetcar, Inspire, and parked it in front of the venue. The streetcar named Inspire used to be a little raw food cafe parked on Alberta St, but now she has relocated it to Ashland and will sell handcrafted locally made whatnots. Our friend Kevin had helped her tow it down, and he is just an all around awesome and helpful guy! It's always great to have him around. Tucker and Jess have recently moved to their farm in Ashland so we had the pleasure of spending Tucker's birthday with him. Yea! I also got to see my sweet friends from Ashland, Chad Dalish, Solus, Jasmine, Serena, and Peter. Fun times!

After the show we had the great fortune to stay at Asha's house. Asha is this amazing woman who lives above Lithia Park in downtown Ashland. She has a lot of kids and an amazingly beautiful huge purple house. She has a plethora of luxurious bedrooms and a big geodesic dome in the back yard. She is notorious for hosting bands as they pass through town, I have stayed there several times with Vagabond Opera, and she has hosted March Fourth a few times in the past. Thank you Asha!! It makes such a big difference to be able to have a good night's sleep. And on the first night! What a luxury. Did I mention she has king sized beds and high thread count sheets? And a decadent carpeted bathroom with a victorian style bath? And CATS? Aahhhhhh. When we are used to sleeping like sardines, a king sized bed can feel like the great plains.

As we pulled away from Asha's this morning, unbeknownst to us, we were missing a very important member of our band. It was only when we got into downtown Ashland that we stopped and realized we had left behind our trusty bandleader, John. oops! Sorry! It seems to happen to everyone at one point or another. I'm still waiting for my turn..

We are now headed South, about to stop at one of my favorite places on the planet, the Shasta headwaters. This amazing gushing spring of life feeds the entire Sacramento River. Indeed a true majestic wonder and spiritual center if nature's your thing. And if it's not, what the hell is wrong with you?

All in all I am completely excited to be embarking on this journey. Yesterday I was feeling a bit apprehensive, feeling the anxiety and a touch of sadness about leaving my yummy Portandia life behind me, in particular I'm going to ferociously miss my kitty, my roomies, my friends, and a certain special guy. Plus the weather has just started getting good and being a fair weather rider, I've just started riding my bike to work downtown. As I cross over the Broadway bridge, wind in my hair, blue skies above and the city skyline ahead, I can't help but marvel at the utopian awesomeness that is our city and the Northwest in general. It's funny how I can be out having the most epic time of my life, but I long for the simple things like laying in the grass on a quiet sunny day, the distant sound of a lawnmower lulling me into a sweet daydream. But hopefully all of that will be available to me upon my return :)

More juiciness to come as we hit up
San Fransisco
San Diego
Los Angeles
Hermosa Beach
Austin
Houston
New Orleans
Lafayette, LA
St. Louis
Iowa City
Bloomington, IL
Indianapolis
Chicago
Minneapolis
Bozeman
and
Sandpoint, ID


And now, for the quote of the morning: "Someone who lives here is sleeping in that room with the harp. So don't go in there and play the harp and talk in a Monty Python voice, like I just did." - John Averill





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