The End. For Now.

Here it is. The final entry of the tour (b)log. We'll keep it short and sweet with pictures and silly comments.

Not the venue we played in Georgia but indeed a Thai food place (which came as a surprise to me... I was just looking for a good sex shop) with a clever name.

JavaMonkey (also not a sex shop). A fine venue in Decatur, GA were family members from out of the blue (China, mostly) will show up. I would suggest it. Very attentive listeners.
This is Brian. We rolled burritos together (not like that, you perv!) in Boston. He lives in Hot-lanta now... it pretty much made the tour for me when I saw him walk into the show... it took all of my will power not to stop playing and jump off stage and hung him. I love this guy.
This is the bed I slept in in Decatur. Yeah, the only bed I slept in the whole tour (even at my house in Maine... futon in the basement! YEAH!). Apparently, the sheets were of the highest thread count you could get... and I was the first one to sleep in them. Thanks Lydia. But I didn't deserve it! I almost slept on the floor next to the bed in my sleeping bag...
We visited my dad and walked around his property in Citronelle, AL. He had a good time talking to Krista about alternative energies and such things as that. I just sat back and watched the show.
and by the watch the show I mean I took pictures of his dogs the whole time... you should see how cluttered my iPhoto is with pictures of all my dad's animals... ridiculous.
The World Famous Celtic... only bar worth wild in Pascagoula, MS.
Also the only place where they don't turn off the football game TV volume for the performers. Unfortunately, I don't know if the Eagles or the Bears won.

We booked it back to Austin to try and get a nap and a bike ride in before the show started... the show was awesome. The Tiny Tin Hearts rocked it and a bunch of people came out. Thanks everyone!

Alright, sorry this blog wasn't very witty but my mom told me that she printed out the rest of it and it came out to 46 pages... so I figured I should cut down my rambling a little bit! Until next time... Loblolly.

Cheers,
Luke

Chapel Hill is for (insert noun here).

What a way to start of the day. Some hipsters made fun of Krista (not to her face though... literally in the seats next to her talking about her like she wasn't within earshot)... I swear, if I were in area I would have thrown down and told them to take their Peter Pan pants and hang themselves but only after they had cut their suicide notes into their arms in the most ironic of tones (I know, I'm mixing two subcultures, BIG DEAL).

After dismissing this episode we had quite a grand day. We went for a walk down Franklin St. out of Carrboro and into Chapel Hill proper where we got ourselves (surprise surprise!) burritos from a place called Carrburrito! I love it! And not a half bad burrito at that. We walked to a hardware store where an old man sold me a power supply (which, by the by, is the shittiest thing I've ever bought, it doesn't even fit into the jacks [which is what she said]!) in the least amount of words I've ever had in a transation (this doesn't beat Krista's oil change experience in New Harbor, ME... check it out at our myspace). Krista picked up a postcard at Chapel Hill Comix while I sat outside and took in the sights of my immediate surroundings and contemplated my choice in career.


The show was a lot of fun. The room was huge and full of reverb so we didn't have to worry about the dry sound of our PA at all. There were some people hanging out and listening very attentively. We had a three hour set so Krista and I got to play a lot of solo tunes, which was pretty awesome. I got to hear a bunch of Krista's tunes that I hadn't heard in a while and play a bunch of my tunes that I had been bored of but kind of got a new energy to play again. I also got to try out some newer tunes too.... recordings coming soon.

After the gig we crashed over at an old friend my sister's named Jason Sewell. He lead us through some back roads into a neighborhood that was pretty much overtaken by trees and crickets (maybe locusts... who knows?). He pretty much lives in a tree fort.
I fell asleep in my clothes and with the light on and woke up at 3 in the morning cursing myself for doing so (don't ask me why, for some reason I felt very angry about the irresponsibility of the thing, huh). I then fell asleep for a couple more hours to wake up to Jason's adorable kitties mewing and rubbing up against me in my L.L. Bean sleeping bag. Cuties.















I guess that's... it. Um... I guess there's only one thing to do. (raises leg and makes a fart noise with mouth [one cheek sneak]).

Cheers,
Luke

Crooklyn, New Dork. Bitchmond, Vagina.

I woke up this morning to Mr. Joshua Russell shaking me to life like a spray-paint bottle but before I could spray out a stream of insults, I noticed something. He had the crazy eye. He had that look on his face like he had a plan… a plan of the most importance.

“I want to record,” he said to me.

“Ok,” I replied, “How the hell are we going to do that? I don’t have any of my gear.”

“Well,” he stumbled, “If I had had some forethought, I would have brought my 4-track and we could have set up here at Dan’s and recorded.”

A fine plan Josh. I broke the crick out of my back from the hardwood floor bed and mulled it over for a moment. Garage Band recording with the internal microphone? No, my computer’s fan spins like a tornado and probably does the same amount of damage to my carefully planted innards of my computer as it would a finely planted crop. Or could it give it a little bit of a new age tape effect? Wurring instead of tape hiss? Then comes the problem of loading in all the gear and tearing it down in time to head down to NYC. What time was it, anyway? Time to go apparently. Typical, Josh, typical. Get me all excited just to leave me hanging at the very end. It was invariably something that she probably would have said if she had been there at that moment.

We loaded up the cars and took off out of the starting gate with every intention of finding the cheap gasoline station that we had seen the night before while circling around Providence. Which, unfortunately put us into the same situation that we were in the night before… circling around Providence having no idea where we were going. I proclaimed that this was going to be the last time I followed Josh around a city.

With our automotive’s tummy sufficiently filled, we hit the long and desolated stretch of I-95 that winds between Providence and New York known as Connecticut: the void that some are ashamed to part of New England. Intricate skylines built to drag you into a city that is more likely filled with factories and crime than your typical tourist attractions. I’ve had my fare share of good times in Connecticut but I rather not spend any time there.

I’m going to be honest with you, the New York City gig was probably the gig I was not looking forward to. Not for the venue but just getting in and out without incident. After living there for a year, I can surely say that my lack of trust for portions of the human race stem from some of the people that I met there but this trip changed me a little bit. The traffic wasn’t nearly as bad as I anticipated it to be and we found a parking spot right next to Matchless.




We were greeted by the very indifferent bar tender who was confused out or friendliness and willingness to give him information about the other bands and their whereabouts. Whatever, I was hungry and had to take a piss.

Look ma, one hand!

We walked across the street where I ate a fried chicken sandwich with a side of homemade mac n cheese for $12 and listened to the sweet sounds of Dinosaur Jr. doing Cure covers over the PA system. Only in Williamsburg.

Krista, putting on her best indifferent face.

We hung out on the corner of Driggs and Manhattan Ave. trying to catch a glimpse of the big city hustle and bustle but failed miserably. The only thing even close to that was two kids riding on their BMX bike, down the wrong way of the street, one of them steering and pedaling while the other one had a big cardboard tube around his arm trying to use it as a jousting stick. Cute but they wouldn’t stop and I was too slow to run after them to try and give them a good talkin’ to.

The show was a special one… not only did I get to do an impromptu solo set at the beginning but we had a couple of special people in the crowd. First and foremost, we had Williamsburg renown electronic duo The Ken Burns Effect hanging out (on member is a friend of mine from way back when from Kindergarden-Highschool Graduation). We also had (sharing the bill) the Vermont band Hungrytown… they’re a lovely couple with great songs with matched personalities/harmonies. It was also the final show with the Loblolly Boys (sad face). Josh had a very touching speak at the beginning of our set which I promptly destroyed with a little “one cheek sneak” into the microphone (Krista beat me with phrases that you’ve never heard with that one).

We rocked some faces off (I tried to keep my onstage banter away from NYC bashing… just a couple of words about their expensive transit system [New York, you’re alright afterall]) until it was time for the Johnson Boys to come up and close out the night with another great set. I really have completely fallen in love with those guys…

We loaded up our shit and had a bit of a melancholy goodbye with Dan and Josh while sitting in the truck bed… and after some attempts in vein to get us to come have a drink with them, we jumped in the loaded car and headed south to my Aunt Hannah’s house place in New Jersey (but not without paying 10 dollars for the toll over the Staten Island bridge) where we settled down for a goodnight’s sleep.

Now I’m in passenger side of the Colbalt, stomach full of an enormous omelet that my Aunt mad this morning, on our way to Richmond (getting mildly car sick from staring at this screen, I might vomit out the window [its raining outside, don’t worry, it’ll wash away]) to play our first duo gig in a week with a band that my uncle found on craigslist. Next blog will be interesting… I promise.

........................... 14 hours later.

Last nights gig in Richmond was surprisingly fun. The drive to Richmond... not so fun. We were stuck in traffic around D.C. for about 2 hours (which I guess is fairly typical) and I was mildly car-sick from writing the New York blog (as you've seen above) in the car. Then, of course, it start to rain... like... tropical storm kind of rain... so the going was slow for a while there. We found some ways to entertain ourselves though. We found a fellow band from Texas who was also on tour... we tried to flag them down but the traffic was a little too heavy (like... heavy, man) and we couldn't get up next to them without givin' them (or someone else) the ol' rear end.

How were they driving? Terribly, I think I saw them almost die 12 times.

We also ran into a pink tractor-trailer truck that had the unfortunate name of "Quiet Storm" but it was still cute.

Its the little things that keep you from puking while your car-sick.

The whole thing was rather last minute. We played with a straight up rock band called the Superglue Ghandis, who are some of the coolest guys you could ever meet. Immediately as we walked into the bar they were so personable and just altogether nice guys. And not to mention great sports... my uncle asked them to play the show the day BEFORE the gig. Amazing. Thanks Tim, James and Gene (especially Gene, he was sick as a dog) for playing last night... we really enjoyed listening and hanging out with you guys. It was good fun!

Left to right: Gene "you might not want to use my mic after me" Roland, James "I have to work at 8am tomorrow morning but I'm still going to stick around because I'm an awesome guy" Applebach and Tim "I'm a badass Irishman" Crews

We had a nice little sing/dance along with the bra-less ladies in the front to their song "Dude, I'm on the Guest-List", an ode to all of those groupy girls with loose vagina's and usually drop things (like names) farely often.

We couldn't find a place to stay that night so we just trucked it overnight to Chapel Hill (which was only three hours away) where we arrived at around four in the morning and nothing was open... except a grocery store where we used the bathroom and probably made the woman working think we were incredibly stoned because of our sleep deprived nature. We then had some speakerphone bonding time with Bearkat (who are also on tour) who were driving from Chicago to St. Louis that night. "Boner" and "Cooter" (which apparently was supposed to be short for "computer") were thrown around quite a bit and a plethora of "that's what she said" jokes. We drove around Chapel Hill (where I have now dubbed myself the U-turn King... since driving in Mass. Krista has counted 15 million times that I've pulled a U-y in the past couple of states) for a bit trying to find all of the old haunts that I used to hang at when I was here for a summer and finally found ourselves parked back in the 24 hour Grocery parking lot... doin' a little car sleeping. Here I am now... at the cafe we are to play tonight... nice space... I haven't had the coffee yet... I'm hungry as shit. I should stop writing before I ramble anymore.

Cheers,
Luke

Squeeze the Lemon. Squeeze it hard.

"Squeezing the Lemon." The Oxford English Dictionary defines this phrase as this:

"The acceleration through a traffic light that has turned yellow (traditionally meaning to slow down) in hopes that one might beat so one may not run a red light (traditionally meaning stop)."

Apparently, I am the only one who uses this old phrase. While driving through Boston I did what all Massholes do... lots of U-turns and running speeding up at yellows and occasionally running a red ("Bleeding the Baby")... but I just confused Krista when I would scream, "I'm going to squeeze the lemon!" The first couple of times she didn't' say anything... but after the third time she spoke up and said that I was crazy and the phrase doesn't exist. My uncle also hadn't hear the phrase before so I'm led to believe that I'm the only one in the country who uses it. Enough of this jibberish.

We spent our morning in JP hanging at a coffee shop blogging about our recent adventure until we got bored and decided to make our way up to the top of the Arboretum (but not without getting lost... "it wouldn't be Boston unless you got lost"- Jeff Tweedy) to do some writing and take in some of the nature.



















But as we were taking in the sweet smells and sounds of nature we came upon a very strange sight. It looked to be the next big thing in recreational sports.



I'm not quite sure what to call it... but I'll say, "Cross Country Pavement Skiiing". The video isn't of the best quality... but you can sort of tell what its like. It seems like rollerblading... but only using polls to push you along... probably to work both upper and low body strengths. Either way, it looks fucking retarded.

We made our way down to Providence very soon afterwards where (without fail) we got off at the wrong exit and drove around some neighborhoods all willy-nilly until we decided to call my good friend Daniel Colins Hanafin for directions to his house. Fortunately, we had gotten ourselves lost in the general vicinity of his house, which, strangely enough, is right next to a big castle (no really).

Confused and hungry we went out to eat at a mexican eatry which I thought was a tattoo parlor at first because the neon "taco" signs really did look like they said "tattoo"... I don't care what anyone says... but this was after we had awkwardly stumbled into another mexican joint across the street from the tattoo parlor/mexican eatry we intended to go to. Supposedly, Dan and his roommate Tony were flagging us down from across the strett but we didn't see them. So, we had a few awkward seconds with the employees of this new taco joint and slowly slipped out (leaving Josh behind for a second... he probably saw someone he knew) and crossed the street to enjoy our cheap-ass burritos, quesillas, tacos, nachos and other delicious treats no-one can seem to pronounce.
The AS220 gig was great. Its such a great space and I'm so happy/thankful that we got to play in it with such great people: a girl named Alex and a guy name Brad (also know as the Deaf Reverand). And yes, I did take a poll of the "Squeeze the Lemon" phase and nobody else knew what I was talking about either. Case and point.

























I think that's about it. Time to head to New York. Here are your random pictures for the day. The Chevy vomiting up our gear into the streets of Providence, RI.















Cheers,
Luke

The Hub. Beantown. Change. Confusion.

First off, this is what we've been living/traveling in the past week and a half... I finally got around to taking some pictures this morning of it.















Here's what we keep in there:
2 boxes of Carolane Acres
1 box of Spoken/Forgotten
1 Yamaha Keyboard
1 Gibson Acoustic Guitar
1 Fender Princeton Amp
2 Fender Telecasters
2 PA Speakers
1 PA Amp
1 PA Mixer
1 Pedal Board
2 LL Bean Sleeping Bags
1 LL Bean Tent
1 Bag of Luke's Clothes
1 Small Rolling Suitcase of Krista's Clothes
Unknown number of CD's
1 Luke Kalloch
1 Krista Vossler

I think that about covers it. This enables us to have just enough leg room and no lean-back capabilities while we sit so both of our postures have been getting better as the days go by. That said, let us continue.

Sunday morning consisted of a radio interview that we did at WMPG in Portland. The interview was conducted by the sweetest mousy man in the world named Isaac (his show is known New England wide as Isaac in the Morning) from 10:30am-12PM. We did a stripped down little set with me on guitar and vocals and Krista just doing a little singing. It didn't occur to me until we started to play that I don't usually play the whole time on Krista's songs so I had to sort of... improv a lot of it... make up some new voicings... some of them worked out... some of them didn't. Either way. We had a lot of fun with our not quite warmed up voices but we took it in stride with the new Tom Waits/Lucinda Williams versions of the songs.



















We met back up with Josh at the Northstar to figure out what we were going to do next. We had no idea what we were in for. We had been waiting for Dan for an hour and a half at the Northstar and hadn't shown up still. Due to some complications they couldn't use Dan's Jeep to go down to NYC so they brought Josh's truck... which, as most of you know, open truck beds in kind cold and unpredictable weather are not good for instruments that are made of wood and equipment that have electronics in them... so Josh was searching craigslist for a truck cap. This is where it starts to get confusing. I won't try to explain to you with words what the plan was supposed to be (because there were too many options) so I've attempted to create a visual representation of the travel plans for Krista and myself and Josh and Dan. I think it will make it easier.
Don't worry if you don't understand it the first time through... I still don't quite understand it and I've looked it over many times. Ponder it. Embrace it. Live on with life.

So with a very vague idea of what was going on Krista and I headed out to Boston to meet up with my friend Shannon Greenwell, a swell little lady originally from Rhode Island. After unloading at her place we took a walk up to Harvard Square and saw my good friend Mr. Tchadd Hanna (a fine cartoonist and illustrator) working his day-job at Uno's Pizzaria.

Tchadd Hanna and Krista in the Colbalt (please take notice of the bottle that Krista his holding... it's the Miracle II, an elixir that my mom gave her saying that it would help her soar throat. She said it was an all organic substance that works for pretty much anything... just take a cap-full and you'll be healed. We soon found out that it was just water. But no just any kind of water... HOLY WATER. After reading the back of the label we pretty much decided that it was water with a little touch of Jesus in it. My mom. She's crazy.)

After our failed attempt to score some free food from Tchadd we went out to burrito and ice cream joints to fill our tummies, when out of nowhere it started to rain! Rain! We don't see much of that in Austin. Krista and I were very excited to tromp around in the rain to get back to Shannon's house (especially Krista, she was jumping puddles the whole time). Upon our arrival back at Shannon's house, one of her roommates informed us that the other two haven't seen the internet phenomena known as "Two Girls. One Cup." Krista also hadn't seen it. I taped the reaction... I'll add it later.

After thoroughly scarring all of the girls, we crashed hard.

Next day we did some sight seeing of Backbay Boston, where Krista was wowed by the Commons and Public Gardens and the hustle and bustle of Newbury St. and I got to revisit the stomping grounds of '03-'05.

This picture was taken moments after a fight broke out when some students on the Berklee Beach almost fell on some other students and scratched their guitars and ukes. Why do you play your instruments out there anyway?! I just have donkey punched them.

We then continued down to the Christian Science Center where they were advertising Sunday School to the new students around the area (my initial reaction: "Is there beer at Sunday School?"... apparently not). We reflected at the Reflecting Pool and strolled on the Strolling Path and fountained at the Fountain Area. Ok, so I fountained at the Fountain Area.

I was scared but moist (which is what she said, consequently).

Despite some confusion about Josh and Dan getting down here (Josh ended up not getting a truck cap at all and not bringing Andrea and Isaac down to Cambridge with him... so pretty much that whole graph I made above was null and void [they are just going to wrap their gear in industrial strength trash bags and duct tape {also, on the drive down they found a tarp in the middle of the highway right before they got into New Hampshire, they just drove out onto the median and picked it up... CLASSIC!}]) the gig went off without a hitch. A bunch of people I hadn't seen in a long time (Lizzie, Coree, Zoe, Ben, Jon, Morgan, Tchadd, Bob, Tiffany, Shannon and Co.) showed up and we had a grand ol' time at the Middle East Corner. We thought that we wouldn't be able to fit all of our gear onstage (at least I wasn't sitting on Dan's cymbals like I did at the Northstar) but we worked it like it was an arena and played the shit out of it. Thanks to the Middle East for letting us play!

Josh, Krista and I left to go to Matt Griffin's (one of Josh's friends) house at the end of the night, while Dan went to a girl named Becca's house (we met her in Damariscotta at Schooner, strangely enough [I would like to point out at this time that Dan is the total rockstar of this band. When Josh called him this morning he didn't pick up his phone and when he called back he said, "Sorry I didn't pick up, I couldn't find my pants." Amazing!) for a good night sleep. But no without some Tom Foolery on the way.

Chad reading a free copy of the May 2004 Fader that he got from a homeless dude on the street.

Thanks Matt and Karen for the place to stay and breakfast! Talk to you all soon at the next blog!

Cheers,
Luke

Its nice to be cold again (4 days in Maine... watch out... its a long one).

Take a good look at these pictures... this is the band that will be playing all of the New England and New York gigs. Ain't we just cute? The most amazing thing is (as my Uncle Josh pointed out) that we all represent different decades in the band. (Picture to the Right [from left to right]): Josh (bass, vocals): 12 years old Krista (keyboard, vocals): 21 years old Dan (drums and solo falsetto vocals for any Smashing Pumpkin's songs): 49 years old and Luke (guitar, vocals, blogging): 36. We almost had to kick Dan out of the band because of his age... he turns 50 the day after they leave us on the tour going down south.

We spent a total of 8 hours practicing in a paint dust filled tent storage area in rural Maine together and pulled off 14 songs altogether as a band. Some new arrangements and all sorts of good shit... which is impressive. I was expecting the worst. Krista and I had made a practice tape for them and had sent it up a month before hand hoping that they might play along with it and figure out the parts. After many sleepless nights and frustrated phone-calls from my uncle (Josh: "I don't understand this chord chart at all... I can't follow it!" Luke: "Well, did you listen to the song?" Josh: "No..." Luke: "Well, you have to use your ears... haha") we put it together and brought it to an open practice rehearsal at the restaurant that my mom works at called "The Samoset" (their slogan is "Southern Fair with a Northern Flare").














It was one of the funnest gigs that I've ever played. It was exciting. It was sloppy. It was full of faces that I knew. And I got to play a new guitar that I traded for my old computer (but I won't get into that because I'll totally geek out over it). It was great throwing Krista into the madness of all the local chatter for both the hilarious and completely overwhelming factor. There is no better way to get to know a bunch of Mainers than to just sit in the middle of them and listen to the completely ridiculous things that they'll talk about and how they talk about each others families ('cause, fuck dude, if you don' undahstand ya family ya just like all them othah flat landah's, Christ almighty). Thanks Chad and Erin letting us play (and desert).
The next day Krista and I headed into town to check out the sights and were greeted by one of the most unfortunate and embarrassing things that will probably happen on this entire tour...

Ugh.

Most sights were steeple-less church, the back parking lot (or BPL [where everyone goes to smoke the pot]), the secret back parking lot (or SBPL [where people go to do coke {and its not much of a secret anymore}]) and the Maine Coast Bookstore and Cafe (where people do their caffeine). Especially me. I had to show off my new latte art skills for them.

After seeing the many sights of my hometown, we went to the first gig of the day, which was the Common Ground Fair. I want to throw this out right now... it was fun as hell. Let alone playing on the "big stage" we were at the biggest organic farmer's get togethers in the New England area. While navigating through the clouds of patuli, dreds, hacky sacking circles, ultimate frisbe games and b.o., you could find some of the finest craft moccasins, belts and other great independent products. And OF COURSE, all organic foods!

We had the greatest opening band, too. King Pirogi. Yes, that's polish. And yes, they were a polka band.

Our set went pretty well. Though, I was distracted the whole time by the kids that were sliding down the hillside on pieces of cardboard. I couldn't help want to jump off the stage and take a run down the slope... but unfortunately, I have too try and maintain a professional demeanor most of the time. On the other side of the metaphorical hill, a little boy named Theo heard that I wanted to slide down the hill (because I HAD to announce it to everyone) and offered to take a slide down the hill with me. Amazing.















In return for Theo's act of kindness, I totally navigated us to the one pot hole-ish thing in the hill and we totally took a digger... as you can clearly see in the picture above and started kind of a pile-up. I don't think the parents of these kids were very happy with my antics but... oh well.

And to really live the country fair experience we loaded in and out of the back of my uncle's pick-up truck (in true hill billy style) and since there wasn't any room in the cab of the truck, Krista and I just tale-gated it for a the entire way (me playing my guitar while we went). We got a lot of smiles, a lot of grimaces and a couple of old people shitting themselves in the fear that we would fall off the back of the truck careening down the dirt roads at 10 miles an hour.
After the show we pretty much went straight to the next one which was later that night at Schooner Landing (or... "Schoon-dog" as the locals call it) where we would be sharing the bill with the Johnson Boys and Mr. Jon Nolan, who dropped out at the last minute for our two gigs together. Here's the note that my uncle left on our car before the show that night:

Incase you can't read this, "Luke 2 piece of news: We need all our PA gear (Dan and I have loaded in) can you go get the PA? Nolan cancelled. Sick. Fuck."

Now, you have to understand that Schooner is a very interesting place. My friend Neila described its physical attributes quite perfectly: "Schooner isn't JUST a bar... it's a bar perched precariously over rushing water." I couldn't have said it better myself. The clientele there is a different matter. Its pretty much a highschool reunion every night for four continuous generations... all the people you want to see and even more that you don't want to see. Its the only place where you can get hit on by your sister's older friends and it will be alright. Its also the only place where you can bring your kids and have your grandfather's friends hit on your kids and it'll be alright. Its a bit of a void... but we all love it and it has a great performance space.
After playing we were all bombarded by the locals (and none locals... two wedding receptions where happening at the same time) and their drunken jibber-jabber. It was good, I got to see people who I never thought I would see again or talk to... I caught up with my friend Sean about his black metal drumming, another dude named Sven who is living in Florida now doing art gallery stuff and my friend Jessie who I went to school with and is now dating my sister's best friend. Weird stuff.

The set went over really well with everyone. We had a Mr. Josh Russell (who as you can tell from the car note above, has an amazing old school way of tracking people down... no matter where you are with or without communication, he will find you) on bass slowly getting more inebriated as the set went on... you could almost trace the alcohol level in his blood between each song... lots of jumping around and being a rockstar (as he surely is). I love that guy. I have a lot of thanks and props to give out to him for booking a lot of the gigs on this tour because of my lack of connections for a lot of poeple in the Northeast anymore... but luckily through him, I'm getting to meet a lot of cool people over again and make some great friends... but anywho... enough of then mushy stuff.

When I went to upload these photos onto the my computer I found that there were over 100 pictures taken! And videos!? I didn't even give my camera to anyone!? Well, the mystery was solved when Krista told me that my friend Christine had ganked my camera and went crazy. There were lots of pictures of people who I didn't know and of people dancing. At least I got it back before anything crazy happened.









Successfully having rocked some faces off, we packed up and went home to have a good night's sleep in our L.L. Bean sleeping bags (on comfy beds) and have a good (but too short) re-uniting cuddle with my cat Murphy (honestly, I was really excited to see her. I was interested to see if she would remember who I was... and fortunately we did and we went back into our old habits... me teasing her with gallons of orange juice, her rubbing her head up against my leg, me lifting her up back the bottom of her tale, her giving me her pissy ass little stare from across the room and me cradling her like a baby when she doesn't want to be cradled).

Me about to give murphy a noogie.

Then next day held some cite seeing with Krista. I had to show her around the hometown of Round Pond: Where the town drunk used to live, where the co-op is, where the bateshacks are, where you can pick up your Mary-Jane and where the pirates come into port.


















We then went off to have a bar-b-que (not really a bar-b-que for all of you people in Texas and the south) down by the shore in South Bristol where my uncle and Clem (of the Johnson Boys... who we played with at Schooner) made a makeshift fire just out of reach from the fingers of the oncoming high tide. Delicious burgers were grilled by the professional hands of Mr. Clem Johnson and boat rides were given by my almost 6 year old cousin Isaac but only after a quick dip in cold ass Atlantic Ocean.


















There's something about a child driving a boat that makes me feel so much at ease. And somehow he fell asleep at the wheel (apparently, the noise puts him right to sleep) and we went barreling toward the rocky shorts of Maine. Luckily, Krista took the outboard motor and turned us right back around to safety while Josh sat at the bow of the boat and quivered in confusion and fear and I haphazardly slipped on a life jacket (backwards, at that) expecting the worst. Thanks Krista.

The gig later that night was a great one. The Johnson Boys totally killed it. At Schooner the night before they had to compete with the rowdy late night drunken crowd but tonight they could use all of their dynamic mastery (though, less their drummer this night) with the advantage of an attentive room full of people. Krista and I totally fell in love with them.
Our set was full of idiotic banter, backfired jokes, improved songs drinking towns sponsored by PBR and me staring a song off with the capo on the wrong fret and then switching to the right one on the middle of the song... yup... sometime I ain't too smaht. But the room was full of great people who were a very attentive crowd. Thanks everyone... it was really great! And thanks to all of the friends who brought us up to the top of the world (top of munjoy hill) to look over the skyline of Portland.
Unfortunately, our sleeping arrangements fell through that night so we were all set to sleep on the streets of Portland but the travel gods have been kind to us and sent us Anna Maria (the owner of the Northstar Cafe) who offered us the office space above her cafe to crash in... WITH a shower and bathroom facilities. Thanks Ana... you're amazing.

Ok. I think that's it. I'll leave you with this photo of me being a Banana Republic model. Catch you later.

How the hell did my legs get so short?!