1700 Miles By Land...

I’m somewhere over Indiana or Ohio, I think. Between flights and driving, it’s been a dedicated task just to keep track of where I am and what time or day it is. My great friend and artist, Kevin Masch, and I hit the road this week on a Midwest leg of “The Commuter Tour”. Wednesday, I flew from Philly to St. Louis while Kevin was getting off of work and driving up to St. Louis. I got a day pass with the St. Louis Metrolink and reminisced as I visited Union Station, The Gateway Arch and a few other local stops along the way. After a couple hours, my college buddy and St. Louis native, Ryan Love, finished work and met me on the Metrolink. We went to his home and caught up on everything. A few hours later, Kevin met up with us to get Steak n’ Shake and rest to prepare for the string of promotional appearances. Early Thursday morning Kevin and I hit the road to Greenville, IL to make a radio appearance on WGRN. We talked a bit about “The Commuter Tour” in general as well as specifically our leg of the tour. We ended up doing a couple of live on-air performances when the playback of our songs malfunctioned.

After that, we hit the road to Ft. Wayne, IN to meet artists and friends Joel and Beth Gragg. It was a 5.5 hour drive and we had 6 hours to get there. We beat the GPS estimate by 30 minutes and were able to take a tour of the Sweetwater music facility. From there, we loaded up at Mad Anthony to perform with Joel and Beth. It was a good night a great warm up for the gigs to come.

After spending sometime exchanging songs with Joel and Beth at their home, we hit the road for another 2 hours to Greentown, IN to rest a few hours at my parent’s home before performing at brunch for my hometown high school. It was only supposed to be for faculty and staff, but we arrived and were asked to play for the students. We went along and performed for anyone in the space and had a great reception. Kevin gave a crash course guitar lesson after that show to an aspiring musician at the high school.
We left there to Indianapolis, IN to perform at “The Abbey Coffee House”, a hip vegan café downtown. We had a great group of friends and family there. That gig started 30 minutes late due to a speaker malfunction, but the audio company took care of it as much as they could and it gave us time to hang out with friends. Kevin played an absolutely stunning show and I closed the night with some songs ranging from “Live From LaDue Auditorium” to “A Fortunate Consequence”.

From there we hit Steak n’ Shake with some friends and had a great night trading stories and laughing. We crashed in Indy with good friends, Jeb and Dawn, and headed out in the morning to Greenville for a show at our Alma Mater. We performed a show at the campus coffee shop with special guest Ryan Love (aka Nightmute). The show went great and we were able to hang out afterward with friends Ian (the drummer for my album), Rebecca (radio director) and Sarah Jahn (friend and incredible musician). Later that evening, we did another radio show where we phoned in interviews from the others on the tour and listened to tracks from each artist.

We spent that night with Dan and Christy and their MASSIVE dogs. In the morning we headed to the St. Louis airport where I found out my flight was oversold. It was a welcomed change of plans as it was an excuse to ride down to Nashville with Kevin and see his part of the neighbor. Kevin and I continued our road trip south to his home in Nashville. I had forgotten how beautiful that place was. I wish I could have stayed longer, but it was good to be back regardless of how long it was.

Kevin and I caught up on the new season of The Office thanks to DVR technology while we waited for his wife, Brooke, to fly in from visiting her family in Florida.
The next day Brooke dropped me off at the airport where I took a flight back to St. Louis and then to Philly.

It was a great tour and I missed it the minute I was back home, but it really lit a fire under me to find a way to perform full time. There was just something perfect about being on the road doing the music I love with a trusted and talented friend.

In the end, Kevin and I accumulated 1700 miles by land, I traveled 1600 miles by air and we completed 6 scheduled engagements and numerous impromptu ones. Thanks to everyone who came out to see us, hopefully we’ll be hitting the road again soon and we’ll see you all again.

-Rod

Landed in St. Louis.

Radio Promo in the morning.

And Now...26...Good Grief...

I say it every year, and every year it's harder to believe: Another year? Really? Have I really tipped over the mid-20 mark? 26? Good grief! At what point does my voice sound like the adults on Charlie Brown?

25 was a good year. I could recap here, or I could be lazy and just reference the last year's worth of posts.

The kickoff to 26 promises another year of adventures. Saturday, the gang (Chris, Julie, Christina, Nick and myself) headed out to Philly for a day of adventures and a lot of eating. Christy and Julie planned a great day and then today after work the gang treated us to dinner at Ironhill. It's been an awesome birthday bash.

So now, I'm really tired...and it's time for a good rest before the last string of rock shows...g'night friends, and thanks for all your kind wishes.

I Need A Roadtrip…

I know, those of you who have kept up with me the last few months are saying, "He's been all over the road." It's been primarily for work and there have been moments of leisure, but I need something bit different. I need to be in my little Yaris with some granola bars, pretzels and a cooler full of diet sodas and Vitamin Water. I need to stop at an all night diner I might get food poisoning from. I need to talk to some local gas station attendants about their kids even though it doesn't impact me at all. I need a stack of albums I love and another stack I have yet to decide to listen to along the way. I need to see those friends I miss so much along the way.

What I have now is great, I'm just ready for a temporary sidestep. What I have now is traveling for work on a somewhat regimented schedule between rock shows and corporate conferences. I meet stuffy CEO's, prima donna has-been rock stars, legendary rock stars that are truly great and young talent that have greatness in them. It's been a great adventure with lots of stories to tell.

I guess I'm just wired differently, I just come alive in the night air and good music.

I guess I just miss the hills and castles of Scotland and the 13 hours finding myself from Delaware to Indy and back.

Maybe when I get back from this leg of shows, I'll take a day and just drive. Who knows where to…

It’s All In The Smoke And Mirrors…

So over the summer, I've been sent by my work to do audio for a series of rock concerts. It's been great; a nice break from a long string of corporate gigs. Some of the shows have been completely awesome and a small few have been atrocious mostly because you see how stupid and petty people can get when they get a little bit of fame, but what has most intrigued me is this illusion of the rockstar. Not all of the talent I have worked with has been like this, but tonight in particular has been interesting. We take Band X (anonymonty added) whose philosophy on life is equal to their music in contributing to their success. Every bit of food on their hospitality rider is labeled "organic" and the stage looks like a tie-dye activity gone horribly wrong. They preach the message of "going green" and free spiritedness and oppose institutions like fast food and the wealthy (they're on stage barefoot…how hippie!). They all seem like nice folks, don't get me wrong, but if you take a step back and see what is actually happening you see the 45-foot tour bus that has traveled across the US all summer and is now burning fuel idle while powering the plasmas and cool AC inside for nearly 12 hours. You see the band members arrive to sound check with Dairy Queen food. You realize that by the amount of merchandise and crew they employ (and not to mention that tour bus) how much money these guys are raking in. You realize that the stage power they're drawing with the massive monitor console they're hiding in the green room and lighting rig that could light a small city while overloading wall sockets with strings of lights to illuminate the merchandise…again, the merchandise…and you see the litter of cigarette butts they flick on the ground as if it wasn't them.

Then, at 9pm, the stage lights up, and they walk around barefoot and tie-dye wearing speaking of revolution and how we're killing mother earth. I guess the carbon imprint the size of Montana left by this tour doesn't count.

I'm not saying I give every decision I make a "green" solution, or that I'm so self-righteous to be judgmental, I just think it's intriguing…and I'm not prancing around a stage pretending electricity doesn't exist and good karma surrounds me…

It's dawning on me how everything in the world is fake…Morpheus was right…where are those stupid pills when you need them?

Thanks Hallmark...

I know it's a ploy to get consumers like me ready to spend lots of money on cards and tree ornaments, but it works...a few days ago (yup, in mid-July) I passed a Hallmark store in the mall and they had their Christmas displays up previewing the new Christmas Tree Ornaments for 2008. I'm the biggest sucker for Christmas. The entire season just lights up my life, so as soon as I see the first signs Christmas is near, I immediately perk up. So now, I'm plotting how early I can get away with putting up my Christmas tree without getting too ahead of myself. Perhaps I should at least wait until it's not averaging 90 degrees outside.

And now, back to the rockshows!
-Rod

Two Shows And I'm Still Alive...

Tonight was a great show, the second for me with this new material. Before these couple of shows, it'd been about two years since I last played out live. The first show was a few weeks ago and Beans Coffee Shop in NJ, the venue was my home stomping grounds and a good place to kick off playing live. There was a small audience and I stumbled my way through the performance, but still alive in the end. I covered about two hours alone. Tonight was different. I was nervous because I had just returned from a long work trip and was very tired and still not too confident in my performance after the last show. Top that off with this being a longer show and at a bigger venue with more bystanders and audience in general and you'll understand the source of my anxiety. What I did have by my side was Jenny and Tyler. They were great and really helped me through it. They took care of the gear and we tag teamed the show which helped keep the energy fresh. The song I was most concerned with was "Give Me A Fairytale" because of all the parts and the soaring notes that repeat throughout. Somehow, when the time came, I took a deep breath, got lost in the song and before I knew it, the song was finished. I sold a few CDs and got a front row seat for a Jenny and Tyler show...it was a great night.

I'm not sure how many more shows are in store for my future, it's strange, part of me has let go of the emotions and moved on from the place those songs were birthed from but part of me also wants to move enough units of this project to be able to do another project soon more definitive of who I am now. We'll see, that's usually all I can say: "We'll see."

Thanks to all of you that came out to Borders Books in Newark, it was great to see you smiling faces.

Goodnight friends,
-Rod