heaven on two legs

we're on our fourth or so day on the tour, admittedly a little tired already, though i would say i am just not yet "tour fit" and with time i will adjust. we spent an emotional (for me anyhow) 36 hours in tucson, after a big drive through the desert from LA. a surprisingly interesting evening in LA, the show was ok, a little strange, but we stayed with a lovely friend we met a couple of years ago in guatemala, her apartment was right in the heart of hollywood, a beautiful palm tree lined street filled with little art deco apartments, green lawns with sprinklers and beautiful people walking around everywhere. People bag LA, but i love it. i think it is one of the most honest cities there is - it doesn't deny what it is, or pretend to be anything else. this is why i respect it. so when people say they don't like it, i stand up for it. i like the sprawling suburbs, i like the trashiness of it, i like hollywood, i don't know why i just do.

tucson is pretty honest too, i have to say. a desert town full of desert dreamers, it is sometimes like a dream just to walk around there. the heat is oppressive, the mood is slow and it is a place where you feel like anything can happen yet probably nothing really does. or maybe it does. still not sure about this. we met a bunch of friendly folk, a lovely girl amy who helped put is up, fed us enchilada on arrival, and entertained us with her pure goodness - an intense energy, all with heart. it was a true pleasure to meet her and be hosted by her kind nature.

yesterday i took a drive around town in the band van, feeling pretty strange i felt an intense need to do an almost stalk like drive by old places of my past - my old house where i lived in tucson, the bars i frequented. i surprised myself by driving past my old love's house while i was out getting a phone card. i just parked the car, took a moment to reflect, shed a small tear, then drove on out of there. it was a strange experience - strangely solidifying, comforting in a sadistic sort of way. i think after all these years, i am only realising now that i got my heart truly broken and i have just covered it up and suppressed the bad feelings. i am only now dealing with it and owning up to myself all about my past. 

right now i am sitting in a chain diner in el paso, texas. we just arrived, and to be honest it feels like a strange city already. there is a sad, homeless man wearing a wig that looks like a dead animal. i feel so sad to look at him yet am finding it hard to look away. i feel guilty to even think of laughing, but admittedly it is a strangely funny sight. i am drinking delicious strawberry lemonade and considering a piece of key lime pie.

we are playing at a show night called "suck and blow" at a club called zeppelins, and right now i feel like hopping in a couch in my tracksuit and watching a will farrell movie..! but oh well, i'm sure, like always, it will end up fine. it's pretty confronting playing in these types of places, you never really know what to expect - whether they'll think we're complete freaks, or that they're complete freaks and they really dig what we do.. either way, you never really know until the minute you start playing, and then you know for sure..

in our LA show a guy came along to see us play from san bernadino, he ended up being a real sweetie - a mexican guy who for some strange reason had found a love for indie music, had started to learn the banjo and owned an autoharp. he has a warm and genuine nature, and an extremely perceptive mind. he loves his mother and refers to her as "heaven on two legs", a phrase i will never forget and i will try to use in the future. leyna calls these guys "superfans" - people who are really into what we do - but i really love them, and i love to meet people who get what we do - call me a narcissist, but it's nice to have people say they like what you do every now and then. i like it also that our "superfans" seem to be an endlessly random collection of strangers - friendly, weird, awkward, kind, interested and interesting. i wouldn't have it any other way. i think i am one of them too - not necessarily carrying all those traits, but definitely the weird and awkward part. last night when we played in tucson a guy came and bought our cd who was in the military and worked at the airforce base there. to me, the most unlikely candidate for a fan. this is what i love.

we are 5 minutes from the mexican border, and to be honest i feel like skipping the show and running for the border, spending a night in a seedy border town, eating street tacos and drinking cheap mexican beer. but that's not going to happen. one can still dream though....

will write more soon. until then.

starting out

i have wanted to write a blog for so long, only i usually bag out people that do this, i wonder why so many people spend countless hours writing down minute details of their uninteresting lives, publish it on the web, and then expect anyone to care. then i realised that i don't really care who or if anyone reads what i write, but just writing might be a nice experience, especially while i'm travelling, trying to make sense of what i'm doing, what has happened in the past and what will go down in the future. but who knows.. i don't really care. 

nevertheless i play in a 2 piece electronic/folk band. you can't really call it a band, it is really just me and my best friend. it feels cheating in some way to call it a band. we are much quieter than bands are meant to be, we are not the greatest musicians, and probably our music is a little weird to some people. so i will call it a group just for now.

we are disorganised, shameful, neurotic, probably we are both running from responsibility despite our love for conventional comforts such as a home, pets, new clothes etc. we have both found ourselves in the unfortunate yet exciting position of being broke and on the road, doing a tour of the US. i don't mean broke, like, oh we are on a budget of $20 a day and we can only eat taco bell. we are flat broke like we have to eat stale bread or food wherever we find it kind of broke. nice eh? well we aren't going to starve, but.....

we spent our last pennies on a midi keyboard and a digital camera, this probably sounds crazy. some artist types would spend their last $20 on some drugs, or a wild night out. but no siree, we are straight down the line, maintaining a responsible attitude towards our musical stage setup and future career.

we're about to jump in a van with a near stranger to drive to LA from san francisco for our first show tonight. we have spent the last week rehearsing, splitting our time between an old steel factory converted into a bike messenger office, which is nearly the best rehearsing experience i have ever had. the other space was a room in a big reherasal warehouse space, where our wussy little folk act was dwarfed by some seriously bad/loud/horrific emo rock bands. our PA was buzzing, our microphones were shit and we were in a room with no windows that stunk of bong juice, stale incense and....staleness. it was probably the worst rehearsal we have ever had.

the rest of my time has been spent setting up the computer and keyboard for our new kind of set.  i can figure things out pretty quickly but my mind really does have a rather limited capacity. i know midi is meant to be simple but believe me when i tell you, i go cross eyed and i feel a little dizzy everytime i think of it... i know it's straight forward and completely logical, but for someone with a very illogical mind this can be very confusing. we are setting up some backing tracks from our album to play during our set, at the same time using the midi keyboard to play the keyboard parts, using sampled farfisa, piano and a various range of vst synths and sounds.. sounds simple but i have nearly had a meltdown over this, and i wasn't even the one setting up. i just had to get it ready by following someone else's detailed instructions. the keyboard is pretty special, it handles splits which means you can play up to 4 different types of keyboard sounds at once using zones on the keyboard. i have finally figured it out and it is more or less working - i have made myself extensive lists, nerdy notes and sticker sheets to put on the keyboard to make it idiot-proof. in my gut i still have a bad feeling that something may go terribly wrong when we play live. i like playing with old instruments, keyboards and drum machines. i know they sometimes go out of tune, usually buzz really badly, but my favourite thing about them is that they don't crash. my computer crashes, midi gets stuck, everything is virtual. this freaks me out. next time round i am going to try and keep it as simple as possible.

last night we both slept terribly. i don't know what kept tammy up, but i was in a half awake/sleep stage most of the night, obsessing over midi channels. i think in this strange state i was mentally going through the process of "transmitting" midi signals to somewhere (?). it was a bad sleep i have to say.

i am not looking forward to going to LA today - a big drive and going straight to the venue for our first show together in nearly 9 months. i feel sick to the stomach and would prefer to go and crawl under a rock, stay there for a few days, then re-surface when i feel more like performing. but this is probably what everyone goes through. the problem with playing in a band is that you book shows for the future, thinking you simply can't wait to play! but then when it gets to the day - well for me anyway - i go through various stages of nerves, anxiety, regret anger and then resignation... usually by the time i get on stage i have nearly had a peak-out, but 2 minutes into the set my calm is restored and i really enjoy myself, wondering why i put myself through all that agony really for nothing. i hope one day i will be an accomplished performer and i don't go through this anymore.

after LA we are driving into arizona. i have reservations about this to say the least, i spent a number of months there a number of years ago and had some pretty intense experiences, probably some of them i have surpressed in a way, and to go there will bring a lot of it back.  without sounding dreamy i had a huge connection with this place - with the landscape, the people, the feel, and the city of tucson in general. i had my heart pretty severely broke there too, very unexpectedly, so i'm sure this too will bring back a few emotions that i have managed to push back for all these years. probably a good time to deal with them, i would say. aside from this i am really excited to get back to this city, but especially to the outskirts and surrounding desert, which i would say is one of the most beautiful and strange places in the world, that i have ever seen anyway.

tammy has bought 4 peaches and some bread for the trip. a nice road trip snack. by the time we leave we'll both have had about 4 cups of coffee so we'll be wired enough for the drive.

anyway this is enough for the first post, actually probably too much, but i can't be bothered editing myself - i have to pack anyway.