Tour Diary Archives - Page 18 of 18

Hi Y’all! Yee ha! Today is Tuesday 5/13/08 and I am in sunny Louisville, KY. My apologies for not having written in the last 2 days…

The gig at Patisserie Cafe in Lexington, VA was a joy. Kayla who runs the place is a very special person – and I gotta tell you, being on tour is about “people” not “gigs”. She rounded up a great audience and yep, the music got to ’em. I saw feet tapping and smiles…I’m sure I’ll be back there on the next trip.

Yesterday was a travel day…a LONG one!!! I drove from Lexington VA to Louisville, KY. Unexpectedly I found that Doyle Dykes was in town doing a Taylor guitar clinic, so I made myself go even after some serious driving exhaustion.

Doyle’s youtube videos were an early inspiration to me when I “caught” the fingerpicking bug 2 years ago. It was really cool to meet him, and hear him – and tell him what an inspiration he was and then plop a CD into his hands. He’s really a good ol’ southern player – with deep roots in country and bluegrass, and it’s just so cool to hear anyone play “the real thing” like that!

Here’s the video that knocked me out:

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_pX2iwsYWw&hl=en]

And there I was – in Kentucky seeing Doyle Dykes,and just mesmerized at seeing the “Law of Attraction” manifest people, places and events based around the visions in my mind. Call it what you will, but the outside that was manifesting around me started on the inside…

I heard the Talking Heads lyrics “And now I am asking myself how did I get here?”…it was bizarro for a NY guy to be transported into the middle of this.

In short, it feels good to be out here on the road. At times (got lotsa thinking time behind the wheel) I am asking myself whether or not I’ve lost my mind by giving up aspects of NY to be out here sluggin’ it out.

I am starting to see that you can’t look at any one day and go “Aha!”. It’s kind of like being in school and working towards a degree…one day may not seem like much, but by putting in day after day, over time – you build and accomplish a lot. That’s why I am out here.

Today I’ll take a trip to Berea where I’ll be doing a radio interview with Dave Butler for his show “Innervisions”. Gotta hop off the computer now, the little fingers need to warmup before I play a radio gig…

Onward!!

Greetings! I’m writing from a Days Inn breakfast room in Leesburg,VA and knocked out gig #1 last night of what I call my “Kentucky Fried” tour. I did a warmup gig at a small coffee house called Market Street Coffee.

Well the gig was ok, but I feel my playing was not at it’s peak. Gotta practice after finishing this post! 🙂

Before we get to Leesburg though, let’s go back to NYC in our minds – I’d like to thank Holly from Rudy’s music stop in NYC. I went there the day before the tour with a Taylor guitar with an intermittent ES pickup system. Needless to say, having equipment crap out the day before the tour is stressful. I do have a backup guitar, but the idea is to travel with 2 functioning guitars, not just 1.

Holly totally gutted & replaced the ES system. Oh, and just for kicks she filed & re crowned some frets, oiled the fingerboard, and saw that the nut grooves needed a slightly different cut. Yeah!! Thank you Holly for loving what you do and over delivering!

Last night’s gig was also the maiden voyage of my new BOSE L1. That too, was source of stress a day before leaving as it had been behaving weirdly at home. Long story short, the little T1 mixer is more akin to an ipod than a mixer. I had to download the latest firmware, reboot and all that jazz. The little T1 is incredible – 4 channels, digital effects, presets- all connected with just a data cable. Whatever the updates did, the BOSE did great on the gig.

I feel good knowing that I have a killer acoustic rig, and can show up anywhere and have great sound.

=-=-=-

An artist can’t stand still or just do yesterday’s tricks. What was full of life, and in the moment last month is not the same now! When I launched my acoustic direction part of the beauty was the freshness, the aliveness and the newness. I have officially hit the next stage, but an important one that I think many musicians deal with.

It’s time to refresh again. I already feel like I am doing yesterday’s tricks and it’s not even a year that the CD has been out. Yes, part of playing a great solo guitar gig is that you have great music ready to go under your fingers – and maybe it’s a question of being “in the moment” with the known music – just the same way David Copperfield has his tricks that he does night after night. Part of my practice today will be getting “the juice” back into tunes I feel like I have played ENOUGH.

Certain songs have a different meaning after having played them for a year. Some songs feel better and deeper. Some don’t feel right and need tweaking or need to be dropped / replaced. (FYI “I Got Rhythm” is one of my trickiest and I will go practice it in 5min…)

The journey never stops. Looking forward to tonight’s gig at Patisserie Cafe in Lexington,VA…..more to come!

Tour Diary – Greetings from Louisville, KY!

Tour Diary- Greetings from Leesburg VA 5-10-08!