Kerrville, TX–Sept 5

Spent the night in super smelly smoking rooms at an unexpectedly badly maintained hotel in Austin which will remain nameless but which rhymes with Restwood Suites but has a C in front of it. Booked through priceline and beware you priceline users out there—evidently priceline does not guarantee non-smoking rooms.

But our outlooks changed after a wonderful breakfast at an Austin institution called Kirbey Lane. Organic and vegetarian choices and serious pancakage. Right up there with the place in Athens ohio, casa nueva. Then we drive to Kerrville, which took a little longer than anticipated—going through some surprisingly cool towns like Fredericksburg and LBJ’s hometown of Johnson city, TX, which was actually named after a great great great uncle or something like that. Anyway, we pulled into Kerrville a little late but the very pro and yet surprisingly mellow staff and crew were cool with it and we got our soundcheck in just before it started pouring, which it continued to do all afternoon, getting heavier and heavier all day. It was just torrential by the time the music started up at 7. We were last up at 10:30 and by then it had mostly stopped, but the crowd was not the usual several thousand. But for those that were there, it was a fun show and Kerrville is a great vibe, starting from the sign at the entry that greats you with “welcome home” to all the folks involved. It starts from the top down, because it’s run by a very wonderful lady named Dalis Allen.

It was a late night, leaving about 4 hours for sleep before hitting the road at 7 to drive down to san Antonio to return the car and fly home.

Austin, TX–Sept 4

Friday morning, the flight to Austin is delayed by 2 hours, but we still have time to get to the hotel and then to the gig. I sit down on the plane and a few minutes later a woman with a 1 year old boy sits next to me. He’s a charming little fellow but he doesn’t stop moving from the moment he arrives. And about 30 minutes into a 2 hour flight, it becomes clear to all of us in the surrounding rows that junior’s digestive system is fully functioning and that the result is collected in his sponge bob shorts. Mom has either no sense of smell or no sense of civility or no diapers in her bag, so after 45 minutes I take refuge in the airplane lavatory for fresh air.

We land, all the luggage arrives and we get the rental car. Massive traffic outside Austin on this Friday afternoon of memorial day weekend. No time to go to the hotel so we go straight to the club. Set up, soundcheck, hang out, get a smoothie for dinner. Fun show, stretching out and getting into all kinds of crazy musical things. Super nice staff at the cactus café and then to our hotel, which has only smoking rooms for us. Nothing against smokers, but how can anyone sleep with a smell like that. Gives me a headache just walking into the room…it’s the bad smell tour…

Philadelphia, PA–July 22, 23

Last show of the tour. I’m fighting off a cold but we drive up to philly for our last stop at world café live. We manage through traffic and get there, unload, soundcheck and don’t dare trying to make it to the hotel, which isn’t real close, even though we have 3 hours til we start. So there’s a lot of just hanging out in the dressing room. Great last show, and then off to the hotel.

Up kind of early and wend our way through philly to Milkboy Studio just outside of town to shoot an episode of a great TV show called Studio Jams. I’ve played several shows before and so has Futch, so we know the drill. The idea of the show is that you get a few musicians together and film them recording some music. That entails figuring out what to play, rehearsing a bit and then doing a couple of takes. It’s kind of a reality TV show. Generally none of the musicians know each other, but sometimes they’ll work with a group or part of a group and add other musicians to that. In this case we were joined by a great guitar player from philly named Jef Lee Johnson. Jef is a legendary player who’s worked with George Duke, Erykah Badu, D’Angelo, played on records for Billy Joel, Robertya Flack and on and on. He’s a real quiet guy who unleashes crazy out jazzy lines and listens to every note everybody’s playing and finds a way to do something cool with it. It was a huge pleasure to be recording with him and we all left talking about doing something together again. We did a funky version of Ellington’s “In a Sentimental Mood”, a jam on our own “Sister Swag”, a Miles tune and a few other things. Studio Jams used to be aired on BET and is looking for a new home, so when I know where and when it’s being aired, I’ll post it on the site. A beautiful wrap up to the tour. After the session we piled back into the van and off to the airport to drop Futch and Steve off. Michael and I met my parents for dinner, (they live in Philly) and early the next morning set out on the 14 hour drive to Nashville…

Washington DC–July 21

Drive down to DC. Getting into DC is always a bit of work and even with GPS we went back and forth til we found the hotel. I am pretty exhausted but we check in, lay down and shut my eyes for about 30 min and then it’s off to the club, a place called Madam’s Organ in a part of town called Adam’s Morgan. Very busy part of town with a lot of nightlife going on. Parking is a hassle. We set up, eat some very nice soul food that they specialize in and have a really fun 3 set show that started around 9:30. At one point, shortly after midnight, just after we launched into the groove for hendrix’s “1983”, which is a pretty cool slow vibey thing, a couple of local rappers hop up on stage and grab our mics and start hitting one of their tunes. Turns out they work there and occasionally play there, so the crowd was into it. We eventually regained control of the ship and steered it home about 1:30 am. A slice of all night pizza, which was actually really good NY style (and I’m from NY so I’m real picky about my pizza) and then back to the hotel, with a stop on the way for more bottled water at a 24 hour duane reade. Get to the hotel sometime after 3…

State College, PA–July 19-20

Long drive to state college, PA so we hit it pretty early. Check in to the hotel. Turns out I was at this exact hotel a couple of years ago but I can’t figure out what gig it was or where I was playing…head over to the theater and soundcheck. State college is a cool little town. It’s all penn state so there are lots of places to eat cheap. We find a place called the green bowl which is like a salad bar but for stir fry. You pile whatever you want in a bowl and then they stir fry it for you. We ate a ton, and then back to the theater to play…maybe still digesting a bit, it was a more relaxed show than usual.

We have Monday off, so we’re staying in state college. I spent pretty much the entire day at the computer tweaking this website with the designer and taking care of various other travel and business issues. I thought everything was about buttoned up when I changed one little thing on the site and ti created some kind of coding havoc. Dasha, the site designer, had a near heart attack when she saw what happened and the next several hours were spent dealing with the damage. Got to bed around 3…