chainstoredevelopmenthell.

where were we?

where are we?

ultimately we arrived in reno, nevada, pretty late, and stayed with joel ackerson (singer/songwriter there) & his housemates julia and mckenzie. passed out pretty quickly, got up for some hardcore basketball in beautiful downtown reno, which really is beautiful, as long as you stay away from virginia st. where the dregs of the universe are trying their luck in the casinos. yikes.
there’s a river going right through downtown, with a city-sponsored kayaking course that seems well-used. beautiful. anyway, as i was saying, played some serious ball, got some serious sunburn, and generally got some good exercise going. back to chez ackerson for r&r, showers, nap.
reno’s basically a desert nestled at the foot of some mountains, on the other side of which sits lake tahoe. apparently paul mccartney’s got a place there where he hangs every once in a while and plays an impromptu show at a local pub. reno show was at a microbrewery, so we had to sample the local stuff, which was fabulous i must say. spurs won by a point to stay alive in the western conference semifinals, which is nice but doesn’t ease any fears about their potential early exit from the nba playoffs. that would be very disappointing... anyway, amber rubarth opened the night, then zack, then me, and i must say, all things considered, a very nice night, lots of good people, much of the reno music scene turned out thanks to amber & joel, lotsa good love in the room, people who care about music enough to not stay at home and watch american idol. i will say that it’s a pleasure, after a many shows of being an unknown entity (which has its own appeal), to have some requests from the audience, people who know my stuff. makes you feel like somewhere somehow somebody cares... awwwwwww.
stayed up late partying at chez ackerson with many of the peeps from the show, got up early and played ball again, now we’re back on the road, but not before a laundry delay, and a near loss of brian’s cell phone. it was in his shoe.
we’re at the top of those mountains now, the ones between reno and tahoe and california, on our way to ukiah this afternoon. show tonight is late, i think i go on at midnight or something. oh, and gas has gone back up in price. just fillederup for $54. oy.

lonesome dove success – stopped outside sacramento and found a target in the middle of a huge chain store development, you know, the kind where they try to make all the stores look different but in so doing they all look the same. anyway, they had lonsesome dove for like $9. SWEET. watched the rest of it over the next couple drives, what a beautiful story, worth checkin’ out if you haven’t seen it.

chain store development - home depot, walmart, petsmart, ross, starbucks, barnes&noble, target, best buy, chilis, linens&things, tgi fridays, sonic, qdoba mexican grill, sleep train, michaels, staples, sprint, chiptole, old navy, hooters. this is one of the amazing things about the united states, and one of the horrible things. homogenization. and yet, look at the bounty you can indulge in within a square mile. this country’s got it all, yet we still complain about our taxes. unbelievable.

the drive to ukiah takes us past clearlake, california, a gorgeous area with houses all along the shore. then up through miles and miles of hills, finally winding into mendocino county (part of the tricounty area with sonoma and napa). ukiah (backwards = haiku) is your basic one horse town, and the ukiah brewing company its main watering hole. met cas lucas there, dealt with lack of p.a. system, ate and got into some good microbrewed beers for the rest of the night, played a few songs here and there, then got to zack’s sister angie’s house to crash for the night. she made us some chicken apple sausage scrambled eggs toast & tea for “breakfast” at about 2p. sweet. love the days with short drives. just have to get to berkeley tonight, about a half hour down the road from fremont.

pomeroy.

pomeroy are not only a supertight band, they’re a bunch of great guys. i sat in with zack on some more tunes to rock it up a bit, then a bunch of pomeronians joined for the last tune for the full rocktential.
hung out for a bit at the granada, a big rock club in the middle of lawrence, kansas, where the university of iowa is. great little town, great club, good people, all in all a great night. drove a few hours (not me – adam, i think, i was in the back crashed out hard) ‘til we arrived somewhere called hays, iowa, where all hotels were full due to graduation from somewhere. continued on another half hour, found a vacant hotel, crashed ‘til 11a this morning, took off.

i felt like driving today, so basically drove from wherever we were in iowa across kansas & through denver, up the hill a little bit towards aspen. unfortunately booking wouldn’t allow a denver show before aspen, so we’re going through denver to aspen (3 hours beyond), then back to denver tomorrow night before shooting across to salt lake city. insanity, but such is tour. the drive was just beautiful, totally serene, adam/zack/brian were reading most of the time, i was kinda in the zone, enjoying the scenery of barns, land, sprinklers, other travelers, and listening to satellite radio. as we approached the outskirts of denver, the rocky mountains began appearing on the horizon.
this made me wonder how it must have felt to be an early settler of this country, heading west across flat flat flat flat flat land for weeks, then slowly beginning to notice the hulking, majestic peaks ahead. oh crap, one might have thought, if one were headed to the west coast or something.

after a short baseball toss at a local gas station (replete with old school spigots with spinning mechanical numbers), we’re back on the road and rising by the minute, passing little ski resorts along the way. so suddently so different, the terrain. there’s still lotsa snow on the ground, but apparently not enough for skiing. pine trees dominate the landscape, with perfect streams/rivers winding along below the roads.

--

the belly up in aspen is a world class venue in one of the most idyllic settings i’ve ever seen. mountains tower over the city of aspen, and we arrived to perfect weather. anyway, the belly up has hosted tons of huge artists.and it was a pleasure to be on such a great stage in such a great place. great dinner, hotel, and plenty of sleep that night before driving to denver.

zack has a friend who works at an incredible restaurant in denver’s lodo (lower downtown), mccormick & schmick’s or something like that. i think it was in like a hundred-something year old hotel, really tall ceilings, seafood shipped in twice daily. incredible. huge meal, totally covered by glauco from m&s. really appreciate it, dude, and thanks for coming to the show, what a great night.

some great old friends came out of the woodwork for the walnut room show in denver, a relatively new venue with great sound, a great soundman, and all in all great vibe. thanks to all of them, and apologies to the rosses, who weren’t allowed entrance with their baby daughter! next time... played with rachel cantu and tyler james, both will be there tonight as well in salt lake city. this was a particularly great show, dunno if i’ve made that clear...
watched an awful movie (or rather, zack and brian did, while adam and i listened from the front seats) on the first leg of our drive this morning, called “kingdom of heaven” with orlando bloom and liam neeson. it’s basically nonstop fight scenes in the crusades. pretty rough, but passed a good couple hours in the car as we went through the wyoming countryside, where it looks like there’s lots of oil drilling going on far off the road. there’re lots of dilapidated trailer parks around, where i’m assuming the employees of these oil companies live.
adam’s trying to keep time between aerosmith’s “walk this way” and the bumps on the road. the scenery is slowly changing as we get into utah, red hills, bigger hills after the rolling short ones in southwest wyoming.
with satellite you hear stuff you don’t hear on normal radio, like billy joel’s “big shot,” which is on now. and lots of phil collins and genesis, which is fascinating. oh, i should mention that one of the trailer parks was called “point of rock,” where i feel like i’ve been headed my whole life, and another “point of entry.” awesome.

lonesome dove.

madison, wisconsin seems to be one of a particular variety of cities in the u.s., like burlington vermont, austin tx, boulder co, eugene or, one of those types of great college towns with liberal thinkers and a generally youthful vibe. had some great indonesian food when we rolled in (with a full 2 hours before load-in – what an extravagance), then spent some time on the internet, a rare occurence on a tour that’s mostly van-centric.
the cardinal bar is slightly over 100 years old, great tiled flooring, wood paneling, and local “capitol” beer, delicious. apparently otis redding’s plane went down in a lake right outside this club, when he was on his way to a gig in madison sometime around 1967 or so. pretty intense. the cardinal has been host to many famous acts in its time. had a great show there, played a nice long set as zh and i were the only people on the bill, so that was some good fun. much love to kimmie and adam for coming out...
put star wars on the dvd player when we left madison later that night to get to chicago so we could sleep in and not have to drive the day of the chicago show, a plan which turned out to be pretty smart. once the movie was on it was about 15 minutes before i passed out, then we all rolled out of the car and crashed hard at zack’s friend dan’s place somewhere near the venue in chicago.
woke up around noonish, dan, our host, brought us to lunch/brunch at “hot spot,” a good diner. corned beef hash, mmmmmmmmm. bowled a couple games with our hours off, loaded into the elbo room, played a couple short early sets in a nice little venue, grabbed a late dinner at the golden somethingorother diner, now we’re back in the car and headed halfway to lawrence, kansas. just put on the 1st dvd of the lonesome dove miniseries that zack stole back from his father back in omaha. sweet.

crashed in a classic college apartment in iowa city, iowa, home of, i think, the university of iowa hawkeyes. the place was relatively trashed, cuz people had just finished up their last finals and were headed outta town. i hope. oh, and let’s not forget espn’s coverage of the u.s. open of martial arts (not to be confused with marital arts). lotsa tough dudes breaking things with their bare hands and feet, laying on beds of nails, flipping around in the air. that’s good clean fun.
back on the road to get to lawrence for another show with pomeroy, pride of the midwest rock scene. our schedule has entered a new phase, get up around noon, drive a few hours to the next city, play a show, eat late, drive halfway to the next place, crash. so our timing is off by about 5 or 6 hours from the rest of the civilized universe.

holy crap.
finished episode 2 (of 4 i think) of lonesome dove, only to find that somehow the 2nd dvd is missing. aaaaagggggggghhhhhGGGGGGGGHGHHHHHHHHAaaaaaaaaaa!!!!! what a drag. oh, and zack’s wallet is missing, too, so if you find it, let us know.

neck status: still not so good, though functional.
listening: the shins.
trip odometer: 4444.4

trucking

bball killed – my neck is all bent outta shape, and sitting in the car for 3 hours to kansas city is NOT the cure. as usual adam was king, hitting from everywhere, and we found a great pairing of adam/me, brian/zack, which we’ll hopefully have an opportunity to utilize as we move along... lotsa green as we leave omaha, sad to go after a great break, kinda wish it’d’ve been a little later in the tour, actually.
looking forward to tonight’s show though, in kansas city, i’ll have some peeps from st. louis in the house i think, so that’ll be nice, seeing some familiar faces out here.
arrived in kc, loaded in, adam and i split a feast from the jerusalem café and headed to the gig. too much to drink as my st. louis posse kept ‘em coming. had a great show last night, fully rockin’, and stayed out late with a few of the guys from pomeroy, found a hotel somewhere and crashed hard.
last night was evidence of myspace at its best, as much of the audience were folks who found both zack and i online, came out to check it out and they turned into real people, people who wouldn’t’ve known about the show without something like myspace. pretty incredible.

oh, here are some trucking stats for you. we stopped at a gas station on the way to kc mo yesterday, and a trucker was paying for gas when i asked him a few questions.

gm: how much gas you getting?
trucker: 99 gallons.
gm: how much’ll that run you?
t: ‘bout 270.
gm: two hundred and seventy.
t: yup.
gm: is that a lot?
t: not really. my tanks hold a lot more.
gm: how much do they hold?
t: each tank holds about 165 gallons.
gm: two tanks?
t: yeah, so if i fill up, you’re talking 330 gallons, $3 a gallon brings it to about $990 to fill up.

wow.

heading north along route 151, the sky’s getting a little bigger, the clouds are looking more like clouds, as opposed to getneral overcast. we’re passing a small airport in the middle of farm country now, a few planes and a short runway. lots of great old farms out here, classic barns painted red, some new and modern, some old and dilapidated. full rivers, thick groves, ranch houses on large pieces of property, and lots of people driving trucks. one begins to see how extensive touring can get old – back and forth across the country, long hours in the minivan become tiresome. i’ve never been out for longer than a month, and when i have the experiences have been a bit more high profile than this tour, so i guess i’ve had it pretty good, relatively speaking. but variety is the spice of life, and i appreciate this opportunity as much as those with the big acts i’ve toured with – we’ve had great shows so far, and it’s good to get back into the swing of playing lots of shows in a row, feeling the push and pull of time within a song between the wurly and the drums and the vocals, getting to a higher plane of live performance. and sharpening my razor wit, of course.
forgot to mention – lots of pro-life propaganda along the highways here. just passed a great old barn, marred only by the “god bless mommy for giving me life” sign handpainted on the side of the barn. yikes.

nebraska.

WHEN WE ARE ONE HAS REACHED NO. 40 on the pop charts at the IDOL UNDERGROUND website - go listen, and rate it high so it goes up on the charts and i win a few bucks! let's hear it for love songs...


guess what? today we drove. a lot.
last night was a classic college bar, but with a little nebraska personality for something special. great local band, the darts, closed the night. cunninghams journal (name of the bar) has massive $2 beers on tuesdays. it wasnt tuesday, but owner mike hooked us up with drinks all night, so we were all good. zack sat in and played sax on over the world, which was a party, and at the end of his set i contributed some wurly over a long sax solo. nice...
then we slept. a nice, real sleep, at a genuine hotel. so sweet.
oh, and the spurs closed out the kings, which was nice, though i didnt get to see it.
got on the road around 1130a this morning, headed to omaha, dropped off zack/brians suv, picked up sandwiches, celery, & fruit from mr. & mrs. hexum, and now were on the road to cedar falls, iowa, another college town. lakers are about to start playing the suns for their last game of the first round of the playoffs. zacks very excited. he loves them lakers.
these drives are just endless, really. flat. corn. empty fields. dirt. mechanized watering machines. cows. silos, barns, warehouses, horses, tractors, manmade lakes, blue gas/food/lodging signs every few miles. its an incredible thing, really, this country is so vast, so plentiful. you can drive and drive and drive and theres just miles and miles of plenty.
the reverb in cedar falls, iowa, is a classic old school rock club, lots of wood, some pool tables, and a full on stage with big sound. pomeroy is a big band around here, kinda reminds me of 311, but a little more jammy. great guys, got to hang with them for a little bit, and well see them again for a couple more shows on the tour.

its now may 9, were on the other side of a day off in omaha, so ive got a little catching up to do on the blog tip. we spent the night in cedar falls at brians cousins house hes a great visual artist, im gonna try to figure out a way to get something of his sent out to l.a.... anyway, he and his wife have a great place in cedar falls that cost just about nothing as far as housing goes, and theyve filled it with tons of really cool shit. and its got a nice little dungeon adjacent to the basement.
made our way over to omaha, just a 4 hour drive or so, dropped off zack & brian and took the van a few miles over to curtis grubbs house, singer/guitar player from omahas grasshopper takeover (gto). they lived in l.a. for a stint about 6 years ago, and i wound up producing their international dance marathon record, which is one of only a handful of production projects that i remain totally proud of. we became good friends during the course of our working together, and when we realized wed be in omaha, got back in touch. curtis lives with marcie in a great place off a golf course in omaha. basically everybody out here lives in houses (which is a veritable impossibility for lots of los angelenos, like me); they dont know how good theyve got it.
grubb treated us to dinner at a great tapas place right down the street from micks, and we headed there after filling up on way too much good stuff. micks is kinda like a hotel cafe type vibe, low key, singer/songwriter place, which was a nice change from the cedar falls rock club thing, enables a few more intimate tunes and chill moments in the set. the room was pretty well filled up, had a great show there and met some great people. wound up heading back to grubbs with a decent sized group, including bob from gto and a buncha others. began writing a new tune with grubb at his downstairs studio from about 1a 3a, with the party raging around us.

slept in til 1p. what a pleasure. no driving today. rolled outta bed and headed to ms restaurant in the old market of omaha with marcie/adam/grubb, had some really interesting duck salad and water, sweet water, after a night of too much other stuff. then...
golf. grubb and bob are golfers, both living so close to a nice course, so we spent the afternoon on 9 holes. id never been golfing before, and had a great time, began connecting the ball with the driver off the tee and felt that feeling that so many others have felt before me, that pull of man to golf course that you basically cant understand til youve been there. grubb/bob are good, nailing that ball right down the fairway, know what clubs to use for everything, and how to use em. i did ok, bob claims im the best first time golfer hes ever seen, which is probably just enough to get me to come back for more. what a great way to spend a day, out in the brisk nebraska weather, hitting balls up in the air... adam went running in the area and caught up with us on the last couple holes after running through some peoples games.
picked up some very large omaha t-bone steaks and veggies for a barbecue later on, dropped em off at bob/carmens place, and headed to mi3, which was a great way to relax our brains and bodies for a couple hours. then back to bobs where a great night of wine & food began.
let me tell you something you havent eaten steak until youve eaten steak raised in nebraska. it doesnt taste anything like any meat ive ever eaten. its perfectly tender and rich and just perfect, pretty much impossible to describe, but amazing. so yeah. go get yourself some steaks shipped in from wolmans in omaha for your birthday or something, you wont regret it.
all in all, a fantastic day off, much love to grubb/marcie/bob/carmen for showing us a great time. apparently the state motto in nebraska is the good life. totally.

up early today after getting a good nights normal sleep, time to blog and email before we get back on the road this afternoon. i think were even gonna get some bball in with brian and zack before we take off to kansas city.

hexumann tour begins

tour opens with 23 hour drive, l.a. to dallas to meet zach and brian for the first show at bend studio. we didnt end up leaving til like 1230p, as i wound up having to work in the morning, writing some songs for a lifetime movie with my arrested development partner in crime, david schwartz.
finally got the van, loaded it with gear, and headed to kindalikes headquarters downtown to pick up the NEW TSHIRTS, which are really beautiful. maybe well have some left at the end of these few weeks for you l.a. types... basically that drive is long, like really long, like so long its hard to imagine.
ultimately wound up at chris parkers awesome place in dallas, crashed for 3 hours, showered, and headed to the gig, which was at a yoga studio which has slowly become a venue for singer/songwriters passing through. gig was great, well attended, met some great texans and had some sweet sangria and texas beer.
then we DROVE SOME MORE! but not before stopping at zacks buddy brandons place to catch the overtime period of the lakers/suns 6th game. suns won. great game, though. not that i care if the lakers lose dont mean to be rude, but being from san antonio, its clear where my nba loyalties lie.
leaving dallas on the way to oklahoma was a beautiful, tired drive, with the big texas sky lit up by spring lightning in clouds covering everything. listening to lots of sirius satellite radio comedy to make it to our crashpad... crashed at about 5a after a 3 hour drive up to oklahoma city, another friend of zachs who lives right by the state capitol.
why do all state capitols look the same? adam says its cuz theyre all modeled after the capitol building in dc. is that true? seems to lack a little creativity. and state individuality for that matter.
rained a little bit on the drive today up to kearney, ne, through kansas. were caravan-ing at this point, til tomorrow when zack/brian (zacks tour mgr/videographer/photographer) drop off their rental and we pack into ours. quarters will get a little tight. well all get to know each other more than we probably care to...
listening to tom freund at the moment zacks been on the road for a while now, toured with tom for a couple weeks. tonights show promises to be fascinating, were playing at the university of nebraska on the night of their graduation. crazy college bar scene, should be a fun one.
gas has gotten cheaper over the course of the trip so far, at least til we got to texas-ish. all the way down to the 2.60s at some point. kinda sad that thats cheap... but gas in americas still way cheaper than everywhere else in the world, so just relax, everybody. its all gonna run out sometime soon (relative to the age of the universe) anyway, so we better figure something else out. like now. something like not driving so much.
i actually heard a fascinating thing about that some expert somewhere was discussing how driving IS america. its freedom. get in your own car, go where you want, when you want. the chinese are figuring this out now, with the relaxing of certain rules has come the increased use of personal autos and that feeling americans have come to know and love, that unbridled feeling of joy at getting out on the open road. so we gotta figure out some alternative fuels now, renewable fuels (i hear that brazils got it figured out so theyll be self-sufficient in two years) that keep us driving free but dont destroy our home planet. mkay? so lets get on it.
in the meantime, were guzzling gas on the road to play music for people. is that selfish?

we are now 6 miles outside funk, nebraska. for reals. i'll post a picture of the water tower with "funk" on it soon.

in kearney
at the hotel
ordering some midwest bbq brisket/chicken for me...