New album progress and random thoughts

I’m home.  Again.

This time it’s for a few weeks.  My next shows are in Florida at the beginning of November.  One is the Jensen Beach Pineapple Festival where I will open for .38 Special.  I’m looking forward to that one because it’ll be cold up here in NY and it’s a big street festival that gets about 20,000 people.  Always fun to play to a crowd like that and have the big sound system.  I had the privilege of playing the Troy River Fest two years in a row a couple of years ago.  I got to play one year with They Might Be Giants and the first year with World Party.  That was cool for me as I’ve always been a HUGE fan of their music.  I got to hang out with Karl Wallinger and talk to him for a few minutes before they went on stage.  It’s always a cool thing to meet famous people and especially when you are a big fan of their work.  The street festivals are always fun too because there are so many people milling around and you can really get a sense of drawing them into the show.  Usually when you start they have scattered since the band before you has finished and they leave to walk around to all the booths an exhibits that are set up.  Watching the crowd re-form in front of the stage is exciting.  Plus you get to be louder than you ever are in other settings since the sound needs to cover a much bigger area than a club show.  Makes you feel like a true rock star.

I drove home by a different route and most of my time was spent driving from the far southeast corner of NY to home.  I find it funny to realize when it feels like your’re ‘home’ when driving long distances.  When the road feels familiar enough to your area that you suddenly think ‘yeah I’m home.’.  Coming from the west this happened early for me as I approached Syracuse, which is still 3 hours away.  Since I grew up there and my brother still lives there it felt like I was done.

I stopped by his house on the way home.  One reason was for a break from driving.  One was to try to see his new baby, and one was to go to Doug’s Fish Fry.  If you’ve never been to Syracuse, you may not know what I’m talking about, and if you have, you probably do.  Doug’s Fish Fry is simply the BEST fish sandwich you will have.  Ever.  Anywhere.  It’s worth the extra 35 minutes I had to drive to get there.  Trust me on this.  Just go.  My brother’s wife wasn’t home.  She went to her parents with the baby and was running errands to get ready for my sister to visit them this weekend.  So I missed seeing my new niece.  It was cool to see my brother though.  Especially since he had been at my sister’s house two weeks earlier when I started the tour and stopped off on my way to Asheville.  It was a nice little circle to close off this portion of the tour.  Another weird thing that occurred to me.  At that point I had driven 3600 miles and my brother lives one street over from the house I grew up in.  I had gone all that way to end up 200 yards from my first home.  Small world.  Again.

This all made me think of my Mom.  She died in 2004.  My new album, ‘February Sessions’ has the most straight forward songs I’ve ever written about her death.  Her passing also influenced my music in a huge way.  It gave them all the hope and ‘live your life’ aspect that carry through the last 3 records.  I have a Martin Guitar that I bought with some money I got because she died.  I played it on every show of the tour.  She’s a huge reason I do music and follow it with the passion and drive that I do.  Am I selling out shows?  Am I selling 10,000 albums?  Not yet.  But I’m going to keep on going.  Because she would want me to.  Because I want to.  Because I love this more than anything else in this world.  Now I had travelled around from NY to NC for the last 3 weeks.  I played in places I’d never been.  I played in places I’d never heard of.  I sang songs I’d written about home, loss, hope, my mom, finding your place in the world, getting up and going on.  I played my Martin.  Now after all the days away, after all the miles driven, I was truly ‘home’.  Where it all started.  The house where my Grandfather had given me my first guitar.  The house where I learned to play violin.  The house where my Mom and Dad sang along to the record player for hours on end.  That house was barely a block away. Another circle.

It seemed like a very fitting way to come back home, being here.  Even if only for a couple of hours before I finished the drive to Saratoga.  It felt right.

I left and drove the final 180 miles.  I got into Saratoga around 11pm.  As I turned onto Broadway, only 4 blocks from my apartment, I passed a place that has an open mic night.  I stopped.  I went in and saw some friends.  How cool to finish the tour at an open mic night.  Where I had started performing years ago.  Where I lived.  Where I came back to.  My roots so to speak.  Playing at an open mic after being on the road.  Another circle completed.

The past few weeks were filled with excitement, anticipation, and time that went by too slowly at points but overall was over far too quickly.  It was full of music.  It was full of rain and concrete and road signs.  It was full of new faces.  New places.  New views.  Lots of moments alone on the road seeing views that I’ll remember my whole life.  Finding cool new radio stations.  Finding cool places to camp.  Awesome places to eat.  Learning how to find the best coffee in town.  Full of a boredom that was more anticipation for a show than truly being bored.  Motion.  Energy.  Peace.  Solitude.  Most of all the fulfillment of a dream I’ve had for a long long time:  to be on the road playing my songs and being able to have this conversation over and over again- “What do you do?” “I’m a musician and I’m on tour.”

It’s Sunday evening now.  I’ve been home for 2 full days.  Still not quite settled down and into home mode yet.  It still feels weird to be still.  I know that I’m going to get right back into booking shows.  This has been too much fun.  I don’t want to be done yet.  I want to fill in all the blank space on the calendar in front of me.  I want to play more places.  I want to play for more people.  I want to go to more new cities.  I want to meet more people.  I want to see more great bands and musicians.  I want to be back in the van.  I want to play.  I want to go so I can come back home.  I want to leave so I can be at home:  on stage, on the road, with a song to sing.