Dispatch from the 34th Floor
To the many fans who were following along with my most recent tour blog experiment, you might be worried about me right now. I wrote two (2) posts before going dark. For all you people know, I’m somewhere between Atlanta and Birmingham, still trying to make it to a load in that was months ago. Are you worried about me? Don’t be, I’m okay. Since I last wrote, I set up 100 drum kits, drank 100 seltzer/bitters/limes, ate 100 disgusting protein bars, played 100 shows, and broke down 100 drum kits. I went for 100 runs, shared 100 hotel room beds with Jack, watched 100 episodes of the Office while falling asleep. I lost my hat 100 times, I found my hat 99 times. I drank 100 cups of coffee and drank 9000 Coke Zeros. I did not drink enough water. Yes, I bit off more than I could chew with the most recent blog format, I got a little too cute. I thought I’d start rating things, I thought I’d have the time and energy to write oh so cleverly. Did I have the time? Yes, actually. Did I have the energy and the focus and the bandwidth? No. At a certain point, somewhere in Texas, I realized I couldn’t keep up.
But now…I’m back and I’m just going to write a bit for myself, typos, clarity and ratings systems be damned. Right now, I’m sitting on the 34th floor of a luxury condo in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, staring at the city. I’m watching planes take off from the East River, I didn’t realize they did that. Emily and I are here cat sitting for my pal Nicole’s friend. Nicole is heavily involved in cat rescue and fostering in Brooklyn and she can always hook up catsitting gigs for me when I’m in town, for which I’m grateful. This is a particularly unique one:
We’re town to rehearse and play with Bellows, the long running project of Oliver Kalb and co. They’ve got an excellent new double album out now that Emily did a lot of singing on. The band for this run is an all killer no filler legends only six person lineup that I’ve christened “Big Bellows”. We’ve got Oliver on guitar of course, Jack on bass and SP404, Frank on the upright piano patch from his Nord, Ian on drums, Emily on synth/keys, and I am playing the white Telecaster that I bought from Emily as an excuse to hang out with her before we were dating. Emily goes way way back with a lot of this crew while I’ve known them all more peripherally through music over the years. I am extremely excited to get to spend more time with all of them.
As mentioned, I am playing guitar on this tour, which is unusual for me. I’ve always felt like I was a good recording guitarist, able to use my ears, skills, and gear to get what I needed for a song, but of course I haven’t put in the time to really be a true Guitarist in the real world. I’m excited to knock at least a few hours off the 10,000 I need to become an expert while on this run and I’m flattered that Oliver believes in me enough to let me give it a shot. We arrived in NYC five days ago and started rehearsing with the band daily in earnest. I’ve really enjoyed blending my guitar with Oliver’s, searching for voicings that thicken the big band soup. Oliver is an excellent boss too. He’s very good at giving feedback in a constructive format and helping me figure out what the best use of my instrument is on any given song. It’s a really nuanced skill that’s harder than it looks and it’s not shocking to find he’s a music teacher in real life.
We played our first gig of tour last night at Bowery opening for The Hotelier. I somehow wasn’t nervous at all. Perhaps being in the Big Band means that I have plausible deniability if anything goes awry. Luckily, I don’t feel like we needed any of that last night as we played a strong show. The energy and dynamics were there and the Hotelier’s crowd was really receptive. There were lots of Bellows-heads there as well and I assume they’ll be out in force at the release show at Night Club 101 on Tuesday I think that a lot of the ease of last night’s gig comes from this being a crew of musicians who have grown up together and played in various for years and years and years. I’m getting little peeks at decades old in-jokes, disaster tales from tours gone by, little looks and moments of deep and ancient understanding. I’m a new guy and I’m just here to thicken the soup and it’s a plum position to be in. There was one song where I completely botched my tuning between songs and I realized it from the first chord and just turned my volume off and fake played through the entire song and nobodyi noticed. Quiet quitting is NOT just for office jobs anymore. I’ll work out the kinks as we keep going.
I was also so so happy to get to see Emily back on stage doing her thing. I don’t need to go too far into it — she can write her own blog — but Em has faced a lot of challenges health-wise in the post COVID era that have kept her from playing music as much as I think she might have liked. Getting back up and on stage and playing with these close collaborators and friends is the best possible way I can think of to help rehab physically and emotionally. A life in music is not a straight line, that’s for damn sure, but it’s a path worth following. Getting to standing up on stage right next to her while she played to a sold out Bowery crowd was a real honor.
Here’s a video I ripped from instagram, no idea how viewable it is on Substack.
That just about catches us up to the current moment. I’m going to go get a 20 dollar smoothie somewhere in Greenpoint as God intended. Then I’m going to go to Ridgewood to see if master luthier/blogger/bassist Ethan can get my poor Tele in better tour shape…
One last housekeeping thing…on the US Remember Sports tour, I made another set of soundcheck drum breaks to give away and I’ve got them up here:
🎉BIRTHDAY BREAKS VOL 3🎉
Use these in your songs and send me what you make! Make a fun demo! My birthday’s not til January (I released the first two on my actual birthday) but I’m still calling them Birthday breaks. Use them in good health!
Love the whole account. Such a good travel memoirist! The take-away: sorry you lost your hat.